Back in late 2025, when Keir Starmer’s grip on the Labour party was loosening and Reform UK was still in its pomp, the then health secretary, Wes Streeting, commissioned what the government called its “Independent review into prevalence and support for mental health conditions, ADHD and autism”.

Here, it seemed, was not just an inquiry into England’s ever-extending waiting lists for the diagnosis of mental illness and neurodevelopmental conditions, and the dire lack of support for people who experience one or both of them. The review would also dovetail with two other huge issues: mounting claims of “overdiagnosis”, which Streeting had appeared to partly endorse, and the government’s drive for the reform of so-called welfare. An apparently well-briefed piece in the Times seemed to speak volumes: work led by the renowned psychologist Peter Fonagy, it said, was commencing just “as Labour seeks a fresh crackdown on welfare spending” amid diagnoses “which have become the most common reason for a sickness benefit claim”.

Last Friday saw the publication of the 600-page final report Fonagy had co-authored with Gillian Baird – a specialist in paediatric neurodisability – and the psychiatrist Simon Wessely. And, as so often happens with such inquiries, its interpretation suggested the media’s equivalent of a Rorschach blot. One of the Guardian’s headlines was “No ‘snowflakes’: mental health review says today’s youth have it harder and harms are real”. The Mail, by contrast, yelled out a rather different message – “Rush to diagnose ADHD and autism can damage children” – while the Telegraph went for “ADHD surge fuelled by benefits, report warns”.

Such are the perils of producing a very nuanced mixture of analysis and recommendations. When he appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme, Fonagy said that Streeting had been “completely wrong” to agree with suggestions of the common overdiagnosis of mental health disorders. When it comes to autism and ADHD, he and his colleagues’ report says that “if present trends continue we are clearly entering a phase in which the balance of risks is changing, from previous merited concerns with under-recognition and underdiagnosis........

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