Mark Isherwood: The North Wales Economic Ambition Board published at the end of June a growth vision for north Wales draft proposition document, which identified poor transport links and physical infrastructure as hindering journey time, especially to major hubs, and identified five integrated travel zones they wished to focus on, including the A483 and Wrexham town centre as well as Deeside and through to...
Mark Isherwood: What policies does the Welsh Government have in relation to rail connectivity in North Wales?
Mark Isherwood: You refer to assessment and diagnosis: how do you respond to a situation I've encountered—obviously, in my case, in north Wales—where a private diagnoser, a clinical consultant psychologist and a multidisciplinary team, are being commissioned by the health board to assess and diagnose, but their private assessments, where people have been refused assessment and diagnosis, often because...
Mark Isherwood: In your statement, you say that the autism code of practice will set out how local authorities, health boards and partners should have services available. What do you mean by 'should', and what use is 'should', given that 'should' never delivers anything? You refer to a public consultation, but you know that the design of the integrated autism service was supposed to adopt co-productive...
Mark Isherwood: Can I call for, please, two Welsh Government statements? The first is on access to pulmonary rehabilitation for interstitial lung disease—or ILD—patients. Last week was IPF or idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis week, and, according to the British Lung Foundation, pulmonary fibrosis is a type of interstitial lung disease. Pulmonary rehabilitation has often focused on other conditions such as...
Mark Isherwood: How is the Welsh Government encouraging local procurement?
Mark Isherwood: We should not be surprised that the Cabinet Secretary has only accepted in principle our first recommendation, which considered a lack of strategic leadership at both Welsh Government and local authority levels to be responsible for the lack of progress made to date, where leadership from the Welsh Government should be strengthened and its expectation of leadership at local level made...
Mark Isherwood: Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on progress towards establishing specialist interstitial lung disease multi-disciplinary teams in all local health boards?
Mark Isherwood: What policies does the Welsh Government have to reduce diagnosis waiting times for patients with cancer?
Mark Isherwood: As you might be aware, the Department for Work and Pensions has recruited community partner teams from people with lived experience of disability from external bodies, primarily third sector bodies, on a 12-month project to shape the support for disabled people and people with health conditions. Last Friday, at the Assembly cross-party autism group meeting held in Wrexham, there was a...
Mark Isherwood: These and many more matters emphasise the need for an Act. My final point: will you confirm that the initial evaluation, the interim evaluation of the integrated autism service, if nothing else—
Mark Isherwood: Which is a passion, a very, very important issue, but I fully accept—
Mark Isherwood: Okay. The fact that that found weaknesses and inconsistencies in both assessment and diagnostic services of the integrated autism strategy, and a failure to co-produce, and a top-down approach, which has stifled the development of these—if we get that right because of the statutory underpinning, we can finally start delivering services and if the priority is money, as I saw from here, save...
Mark Isherwood: Can I thank Paul for bringing this forward? As chair of the cross-party autism group over many years, I know that this has been a primary call from the autism community at large. With huge numbers of people on the spectrum, their families, their carers and the professionals who work with them on the front line are calling for this in huge numbers. I recognise that autism is neither a learning...
Mark Isherwood: Thank you. This month's 'Don't Hold Back' report by the Children's Commissioner for Wales specifically refers to the Equality Act 2010 and quotes the explanatory memo to the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, stating: 'The Bill will promote equality, improve the quality of services and the provision of information people receive, as well as ensuring the right incentives for...
Mark Isherwood: Thanks. Well, I hope you'll in that recognise that some of the people at the top who represent the barriers to sharing power will be made to recognise that this is about turning the power thing upside down and designing the system backwards, with the people as the starting point and not the afterthought. My final question relates to play and sport. Sense produced a report a couple of years...
Mark Isherwood: Thank you. Well, I hope you'll appreciate the frustration for the constituents who received a copy of your reply and have been waiting since 10 June, and have contacted me regularly asking whether we've had the statement yet. On a separate matter, in May the Wales Council for Voluntary Action produced a report called 'Empowering Communities'—not directly within your brief, but this bit...
Mark Isherwood: Diolch, Llywydd. Only yesterday, I received correspondence from a Flintshire constituent who had received a response from Openreach saying that they would not gain access under the first phase of the Superfast Cymru programme. Another one I also received, on behalf of a constituent, from Openreach, only yesterday, said: 'I'm very sorry that residents of Llangollen have not heard any news...
Mark Isherwood: Clearly, our colleagues in Westminster have voted as they have voted over the last few days. And, ahead of Dominic Raab's meeting with Mr Barnier, I believe tomorrow, with the aim of accelerating negotiations to complete the withdrawal agreement in time for the October deadline, officials of the UK and the EU are understood to have met on Monday to discuss the Irish border, the future...
Mark Isherwood: 4. How does the Welsh Government ensure that it is meeting the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 with regard to learning disabled young people and their families? OAQ52524
