Dear politicians, I have an idea …
In the UK there is much talk of increasing our defence spending to enhance support for Ukraine and it seems like an opportune moment to write to our political leaders, pointing out ways in which they can save money and kill many birds with one stone. Our politicians seem to think that we have sufficient young people who are able to fight, even if they were willing, as well as having sufficient funding to send them out to do battle on our behalf.
Both look highly unlikely; many of our young people have chronic ill health and learning difficulties, and the cost of these conditions looks set to dwarf the current defence budget in the very near future. Although it might appear unlikely, focusing on the chronic ill-health and disability suffered by our young people could be critical in meeting national political goals.
I’ve written a short letter and sent it to: the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, Member of Parliament (MP); the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting MP; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves MP; copied to Jayne Kirkham the MP for our constituency, Truro and Falmouth in Cornwall, UK. If you like it, you might want to copy, paste and edit, and send it on too.
I’ll keep you posted if I get a response.
7 March 2025
Dear Sir Keir Starmer, Mr Wes Streeting and Ms Rachel Reeves
I am writing this letter at a time when the UK Government has declared its ambition to increase defence spending and strengthen our armed forces to shore up support for Ukraine. In the year 2023/4, the defence budget was £53.9 billion, comprising 2.3% of GDP, and I know you are planning to increase this amount to 2.5% of GDP over the next couple of years.
You might not know this, but the cost of supporting our children and families with autism has been estimated to be at least £32 billion a year, covering welfare, care and loss of earnings.* This figure, generated by academics at the London School of Economics is based on the official incidence rate of 1%, as endorsed by the National Autistic Society (implying that 700,000 people in the UK have autism). However, the national population and incidence rate have both gone up dramatically in recent times. More robust data generated from school and health records indicates that there are at least twice this rate of people with autism, many of whom have learning difficulties, making lifelong demands on the state.
Research analysing the records of 7 million children (aged 2-21) in state-funded schools in 2017 found a rate of 1 in 57 representing 1.76% of all pupils, with boys being four times more likely to have a diagnosis than girls.** Moreover, given that many of the pupils with the most severe disabilities are educated outside the state-funded sector, this rate significantly under-reports the scale of the problem. Indeed, more than 3% of school aged children in Northern Ireland have been recorded as having autism in 2018/19, a rate of at least 1 in 20 children, with higher rates in boys.***
To date, research into the causes and consequences of autism has been woefully inadequate given the scale and implications of the problem. Exploring the causes of the autism epidemic affecting our young people and halting its expansion would save the government billions of pounds. It would also provide a lifeline to local government that is currently being bankrupted by the costs of special educational needs and additional care. Rather than funding campaigns that suggest this is just a matter of ‘neurodiversity’ which implies it’s benign, government needs a concerted effort to get to the root of the problem.
It is highly significant that President Trump has appointed RF Kennedy Junior to lead America’s Department for Health and Human Services, launching a Make America Healthy Again Commission that will focus on the same set of concerns. They plan to look at childhood ill-health, the current use of medicines and what can be done to turn things around. The Executive Order signed to launch the Commission reported that for 2022:
“[A]n estimated 30 million children (40.7 percent) had at least one health condition, such as allergies, asthma, or an autoimmune disease. Autism spectrum disorder now affects 1 in 36 children in the United States — a staggering increase from rates of 1 to 4 out of 10,000 children identified with the condition during the 1980s. Eighteen percent of late adolescents and young adults have fatty liver disease, close to 30 percent of adolescents are prediabetic, and more than 40 percent of adolescents are overweight or obese… in the case of Attention Deficit Disorder/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, over 3.4 million children are now on medication for the disorder — up from 3.2 million children in 2019-2020 — and the number of children being diagnosed with the condition continues to rise.” ****
We have the same problems amongst our young people in the UK. We urgently need to take note and follow suite, reshaping policy and practice in the UK.
Solving the autism problem would benefit our children, their families and schools, cut our welfare bill and provide the funds and personnel you need to rebuild our national defence. Putting autism at the heart of government priorities would solve many birds with one stone.
As in America, this will mean tackling the vested interests that prop up the status quo. It will require a determined effort to ask why things have got so bad and allow doctors and parents to speak freely about their experiences. The combination of genuine inquiry and free speech will allow us to move on, however hard it might be. Our children, families, communities and the nation depend on it.
I would be very happy to discuss this further.
I look forward to hearing from you.
With very best wishes
Professor Jane Wills
Author of the Autism Tribune, https://open.substack.com/pub/theautismtribune/
Brilliant Substack. I will be sending it to my MP!