Scotland shelves
LDAN bill for
being too slow
to pass, says the
government
that has had it
for five years

What was promised, and what arrived in a letter

The Scottish Government’s Learning Disabilities, Autism and Neurodivergence Bill has been in development for more than five years. In the words of a joint statement published by the National Autistic Society, it represented “an important opportunity to protect rights, strengthen accountability and improve outcomes and experiences across health, education, employment and wider public services for autistic people, neurodivergent people and people with a learning disability.” A public consultation ran from December 2023 to April 2024 and drew 877 responses. And across the whole process, the statement says, “hundreds of people engaged with the development process in good faith,” sharing “experiences, expertise and aspirations for change.”

At the start of September, Maree Todd MSP, the Scottish Government minister responsible, wrote to the convener of the LDAN Committee to say the government will not proceed. Her reasoning, as reported by Learning Disability Today: “a Bill would take several years to pass and implement,” whereas practical changes can be made sooner through policy and investment.

The response was swift and unified. National Autistic Society Scotland warned that “in the absence of the Bill, there is no national plan to remedy the systemic injustices autistic people continue to face.” Scottish Autism said many people “were already sceptical of whether their involvement would deliver real and meaningful change,” and that the government “will now need to work hard to rebuild trust.” On 11 September, the joint statement said its signatories had been left “deeply disheartened.”

Too slow to pass, says the government that has held it for five years

Sit with the official reasoning for a moment, because it does not survive contact with its own timeline.

The bill would take several years to pass and implement. It has already been in development for over five. The several years the legislation would supposedly consume have already been consumed — by the government, holding it. A bill introduced even three years ago and taking “several years” would be law, or close to it, by now. The delay being cited as the reason to abandon the bill is not a property of the bill. It is a property of the abandoner.

This is worth being exact about, because the argument has a shape that recurs whenever a state wants to withdraw from a commitment without saying so. First, do not do the thing. Then, measure how long the thing is taking. Then, cite the delay as evidence the thing was never viable. The reasoning is circular, and the circle only closes if nobody checks the dates. The dates are checkable. Five years of development is not evidence that legislation is too slow. It is five years of government time, hundreds of contributors’ labour, and a community’s patience — spent, and then cited as the cost of continuing.

What replaces a right is a list that cannot be appealed

What is offered instead, per the minister’s letter as reported: improved neurodevelopmental support, expanded Learning Disability Annual Health Checks, delivery of the Coming Home Action Plan, more Changing Places toilets, and ongoing improvement work across health, education and wider public services.

Every item on that list is a real good. Accessible toilets change lives. Annual health checks matter in a population the joint statement says continues to “die prematurely of preventable and avoidable conditions.” None of that is in dispute, and the objection is not to any of it.

The objection, then, is categorical, not itemised. A right and a provision are different kinds of thing, and the difference shows up precisely when it matters. A provision is a line in a budget: it can be trimmed, deferred, de-prioritised or quietly wound down in any spending round, and when it is, there is nothing to appeal to — the provision was a gift, and gifts end. A right survives the budget round. A right has to be repealed, in public, with a vote, by people who can be named. The entire point of putting protection on a statutory footing is to make its removal expensive and visible. The LDAN bill was the mechanism by which Scotland’s promises to this community would have acquired consequences for non-delivery.

That mechanism is what has been declined. The promises remain — as policy, at ministerial discretion, revisable at will. And this is not a Scottish peculiarity. In England, the direction of travel is the same: statutory protections attached to EHCPs are being redesigned away under SEND reform, and the Ombudsman’s audit of ADHD and autism services found a population fighting a system rather than being served by one. Across Britain, in the same season, enforceable entitlement is being exchanged for discretionary provision — softly, administratively, and in each case with the assurance that support will arrive faster without the encumbrance of rights.

Five years of engagement, and a decision made without it

There is a second story inside this one, and for anyone who took part in those five years it may be the one that stings.

The LDAN bill was built through engagement: a public consultation with 877 responses, and — in the joint statement’s words — hundreds of people engaging “in good faith” over five years, sharing “experiences, expertise and aspirations for change.”

The decision to abandon it came as a ministerial letter. The people who had shaped the bill responded to it after the fact. Whatever the engagement was for, it was not the mechanism that decided this — the only decision that determined whether everything else had been worth it.

Scottish Autism’s response names the cost precisely. Many people, it said, “were already sceptical of whether their involvement would deliver real and meaningful change.” That scepticism has now been confirmed, and trust — the organisation’s own word — will have to be rebuilt.

That asymmetry is the structural fact worth keeping. When participation runs for five years and the terminal decision arrives unilaterally, the participation was not the steering mechanism. It was the legitimacy mechanism — the thing that let the process be described, throughout, as listening. The sector has now seen the exchange rate on its participation, stated plainly and by letter. What remains on the community’s side of the ledger is not nothing: organisations that responded with one voice inside a fortnight have their infrastructure intact and their illusions gone. But the lesson taught here will outlast this bill, and governments should reflect on what they teach. A community asked to engage with the next initiative will remember how the last one ended.

Citations

National Autistic Society (2026) — Joint statement on the Learning Disabilities, Autism and Neurodivergence Bill

Learning Disability Today (2026) — Scottish Government abandons Learning Disabilities, Autism and Neurodivergence (LDAN) Bill