UK - Scotland is proposing a Learning Disabilities, Autism and Neurodivergence Bill.

UK - Scotland is proposing a Learning Disabilities, Autism and Neurodivergence Bill. And the part I keep coming back to? Lived experience is written into the legal architecture itself. Not as a footnote. Not as a nice-to-have consultation tick-box. But as a mandatory requirement — for the national strategy, for local delivery plans, for training design, for guidance. The proposal says clearly: people who have navigated these systems must be involved in shaping how those systems change. That's not radical. That's just honest. 🧠 Some things that stand out to me: → The bill would adopt "neurodivergence" as its legal definition — aligned with how people actually identify, not how clinicians diagnose. → Mandatory training in health, social care and justice sectors — co-designed with people with lived experience. → An independent advocacy right — so people can actually use their rights, not just technically have them. → Better data, disaggregated by condition, geography, age — because invisibility in datasets means invisibility in policy. → And a recognition that in Scotland, over 30% of the prison population is estimated to be neurodivergent. A small cultural shift in justice could have enormous impact. We've known for years that systems work better when the people who use them help design them.