The next item on the agenda is the statement by the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care on the Learning Disability: Improving Lives Programme. I call on the Minister to make his statement. Huw Irranca-Davies.

Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, for this opportunity to give an update to Members on the Learning Disability: Improving Lives Programme after the publication of the report last week.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

This cross-government review of learning disability policy, services and funding stems from our commitment to improve the lives of all our citizens and to address inequalities where they exist. This work was commissioned by several of my ministerial colleagues, and we have taken an approach of looking across the whole life course, covering early years, housing, social care, health, education, employment and skills. I am delighted by how many people supported us to develop these recommendations, with the programme team speaking to over 2,000 people from across Wales. We listened to people’s real lived experience, as this offered insights about where we need to focus to have the greatest impact. People told us that whilst there are pockets of good practice and strong services, too many people still have to fight for the support and adjustments to services that they need to allow them to lead an ordinary life.

The Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, our long-term plan for health and social care and 'Prosperity for All' have embedded within them the need to centre our services around the person and to build the capacity of our communities to support better health and well-being. As a Government, we need to do all that we can to support people to be more included in their communities and I believe that the improving lives programme provides us with the route-map to achieve this for people with a learning disability and for their families.

The recommendations are extensive, however, I believe that the three immediate priorities are: the reduction of health inequalities, increasing community integration and improving planning and funding systems.

Evidence from a number of reports shows that the life expectancy of people with a learning disability is considerably lower than others in our population. The improving lives programme aims to reduce this inequality and prevent premature deaths. Reasonable adjustments in all healthcare settings will enable people to access appropriate services in a timely fashion. Annual health checks for people with a learning disability are important and work is currently being undertaken to explore ways in which we can increase the uptake of these. This includes developing a standardised, all-Wales, easy-read invitation letter, promoting joint working between colleagues in primary care and learning disability services to ensure that all those eligible for health checks are known to services.

In our general hospitals, we aim to increase the use of the care bundles, originally launched in 2014, following a coroner's report into the death of Paul Ridd, whose family now run the Paul Ridd Foundation—a key partner in supporting our work on health inequalities. The Paul Ridd Foundation has a full programme of hospital learning disability champions training and has ensured that wards across Wales have a resource folder to support the use of care bundles.

Our second priority is that of increasing community integration. Two weeks ago, I visited a Mencap Cymru friendship project and I was struck by the personal experiences of stigma and isolation that the children and young people told me about. They also told me how they felt that there was a difference in the aspirations society had for them and for young people as a whole. I am sure that all Members would agree that tackling the stigma that people with a learning disability and their families face must be a key priority. We need to push for the same attitudinal change we are beginning to see around mental health, by celebrating the contribution that people with a learning disability make to our communities, and using our funding streams to ensure that people achieve their aspirations.

So, some of the things we will look to do will include: working with the Minister for Housing and Regeneration to increase housing options and ensure people live closer to home, through the targeted 20,000 new homes agenda; using the £105 million, three-year integrated care fund capital programme announced last week by the Minister for Housing and Regeneration to support people with a learning disability to lead independent and successful lives—I look forward to working with the regional partnership boards to achieve the best results for people with a learning disability from this boost in investment; and supporting projects for people with a learning disability through the revenue arm of the integrated care fund, to which we have again allocated £50 million in 2018-19. The scope of the fund has expanded to include regional partnership boards' priority areas for integration, including people with a leaning disability, resulting in financial backing for a wide range of projects that increase the community integration of people with a learning disability.

Finally, we all will recognise that one of the most powerful ways of ensuring that people feel integrated into their communities is ensuring that people have a route into work. With only 6 per cent of people with a learning disability in paid employment, I recognise the enormity of the challenge we face. So, I will work with the Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning to explore options for people with a learning disability to access employability support, including the possibility of introducing supported paid-work placements.

Our final priority is the need to look at improving data and access to funding. Social services registers indicate that there are 15,000 people with a learning disability in Wales, but it is thought that there are many more not currently in receipt of services. As the needs of these people change, they may well require greater support. So, it is therefore proposed that we conduct research and gather data on the population of people with a learning disability in Wales to better understand their needs going forward.

We also need to make better use of existing funding through looking at how direct payments are used and reallocating health and social care funding to enable swift packages of care to be agreed, combined with the joint commissioning of services.

So, I am indebted to the support of the learning disability ministerial advisory group in delivering this report and the recommendations. I very much look forward to working with them and the chair, Mrs Gwenda Thomas, and the co-chair, Miss Sophie Hinksman, to deliver services that will indeed improve the lives of people with a learning disability in Wales. Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd.

Thank you for your statement. As chair of cross-party groups, including on disability and autism, I endorse your statement: there are pockets of good practice, but too many people are having to fight for the support and adjustments to services they need to enable them to lead an ordinary life.

You refer to working with the Minister for Housing and Regeneration. How, alongside her, will you be looking at the Equality and Human Rights Commission report, recently considered by the cross-party group on disability, which showed that only one in 22 Welsh authorities have a percentage target for accessible and affordable homes, and also at concern raised in my own North Wales casework that there's a disconnect between the needs of individuals, particularly on the autism spectrum, to live independently with appropriate support and local authority awareness and engagement with, often, social housing providers, such as First Choice Housing Association, which are working in my region, to plan for and deliver those? Because when they get it right, it can revolutionise the quality and independence of lives.

You refer to regional partnership boards. How do you refer to the concern that I know was expressed to you by Age Alliance Wales at the beginning of this year that the third sector representatives, including in this area, on those RPBs felt sidelined? This was a view or concern also expressed to me as recently as last Friday—when I opened with the chief constable of North Wales Police the Centre of Sign-Sight-Sound in north Wales—by regional partnership board representatives who attended as guests.

You refer to ensuring that people have a route into work. What engagement have you or your colleagues had with the new regional Department for Work and Pensions community partnership teams, which have been recruited externally, primarily from the third sector? I recently met people in my area who had previously worked in an autism charity and for Remploy, delivering a 12-month project supporting vulnerable people, upskilling Jobcentre Plus staff and building bridges between the public, private and third sectors.

You referred to the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act in the report that you're making the statement about, and, of course, this places a specific duty on local authorities to promote the involvement of people in the design and delivery of care and support services. The 'Part 2 Code of Practice (General Functions)' very much emphasises that, giving people clear and unambiguous rights and responsibilities. How, therefore, do you respond to the situation, for example, currently occurring in Wrexham where changes within Wrexham adult learning and disability services to the work opportunities project in Wrexham threaten the jobs of around 100 people with learning difficulties? I'm told by a number of families that Wrexham adult services are reviewing the projects, and as part of the review, running a consultation period, but the terms of the review and consultation are misleading, because they suggest that social services are listening to what parents are saying and will take this into account before a decision is made, when the reality is the decision has already been made. The officer, they said, claimed that the review was being carried out to meet the criteria of the social services and well-being Act, but they don't see how this can be the case.

Just two final groups, if I may mention—. The National Deaf Children's Society, as you know, has highlighted concern about the continuing attainment gap for deaf learners. As they say, deafness isn't a learning difficulty, but deaf learners are being disabled by the continuing inequity in outcome. They're 26.2 per cent less likely to attain an A to C grade in English, Welsh language, maths and science, in combination, than the general school population. Of course, this has been going on now for as long as I've been in this place. And also, to their concern, although deaf children struggle to have their social care needs acknowledged and understood, and the Care and Support (Assessment) (Wales) Regulations 2015 say:

'A local authority must ensure that any person carrying out an assessment...has the skills, knowledge and competence to carry out the assessment in question', in the case of a deaf child, too often assessments are not informed by specialist knowledge of deaf children's social care needs.

Finally, in relation to the event I hosted at lunchtime today for Epilepsy Wales, I hosted their annual Supporting People with Epilepsy in Wales event, and they asked me to raise these final points. One in five people with epilepsy have a learning difficulty. Those with complex epilepsy have very common learning difficulty comorbidity, but people with complex epilepsy are not being able to access treatment or services, such as, and particularly, the keto diet, even though this is a first-line treatment recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines, and also recommended by NICE for children with epilepsy after unsuccessfully trying two first-line drugs. They raise concern about awareness and support services. They raise concern about mental health support services. They raise concern about further investigations when a diagnosis is not obvious, including the need for genetic tests, which, too often, as we heard from the people present, were not being offered. 

I'll conclude on that point. I could, unfortunately, as you can imagine, go on all day on this subject, but I hope that you will give real consideration to these concerns, every one of which has been raised with me by non-politicians without party political interests.

Thank you very much, Mark. I think there may have been about seven or eight points there, so I'm going to try, if I can, to deal with them as quickly as I possibly can. First, in terms of the Equality and Human Rights Commission report, which made some recommendations against themes such as more accessible and adaptable homes, installation of home adaptations, matching people to the right people who need them, and supporting people who live independently, well it very much falls within the work streams that we've now identified within this independent living programme and the ministerial group as well. So, we will work within that to make it quicker and easier for people to secure helpful adaptations when they need them, to improve access to building the facilities.

We're also currently collecting data to help us understand how we can streamline this process further. So, we will carefully consider the recommendations in that report, and it'll help us inform our ongoing work, with the local authorities, I have to say, as well, and with wider partners, to improve access to suitable homes. In terms of engagement with the DWP community partnership teams, I will indeed make sure that we have that ongoing engagement with them. It's important to have joined-up work across different streams of Government, both devolved and non-devolved.

In respect of Wrexham adult services, I'm sure they'll have heard the point that he's made today, but, if he wants to write to me with any further information, I will be happy to ask my officials to enquire about anything that he's raising.

I recently attended the deafness and hearing loss CPG, where some of these issues were raised, and I took them up immediately with my officials. It is important that appropriate assessment by local authorities is conducted and the right specialist services are provided. 

On the points raised around epilepsy, I'll certainly take those back. I'm sure my colleague Vaughan Gething, the Cabinet Secretary for health, will have been listening as well, and I'll take those back to him so that we can discuss those further.

In respect of regional partnership boards, Mark, you're absolutely right. The point has been raised about the meaningful engagement at those. In fact, there is some really good practice and, in fact, one of the regional partnership boards is chaired very ably by a third sector partner, representing the wide umbrella reach of those third sector organisations, and, in some, it's really working very well; in others, it's an evolving feast, because the RPBs are relatively recent. But I have indeed, and in fact I'm on a tranche of going around the regional partnership boards at the moment, and it's one of the things that I'll be stressing to them as I go around, the meaningful engagement with social value, with third sector organisations—both in delivery, but also at a strategic level. I think that has covered all the points, but, if I've missed any, I'll happily chat to you afterwards as well.

May I thank the Minister for his statement? Yes, indeed, the improving lives programme for those who have learning disabilities—and, of course, from that title, and from my personal experience over the years, there is a genuine need to improve the lives of those who have learning disabilities. If truth be told, these people have been forgotten. Perhaps I should state now that I have been a trustee with Swansea People First—the organisation for people with learning disabilities—for almost 20 years now. We have extensive experience locally of the co-ordination that we need with health services, and care services as well. But, first of all, I note the excellent work that the voluntary sector does in this area. Swansea People First, of course, and similar organisations in Wales as a whole, give excellent support to our people. But there is a significant challenge—there's never enough resource, we're losing services, issues are always at crisis point, the system is always under pressure, and the support staff are always changing because they lose their jobs or they're on short-term contracts.

And, of course, in how Swansea People First is run, we have meetings as a management board that include people with learning disabilities themselves. They're on the management board too and we produce minutes and so on in language that everyone can understand, with images and so on. We need more of that kind of collaboration and provision of information. The City and County of Swansea council are part of this very often, and, when they can, in a system that is also under pressure, they do excellent work.

I welcome the intention for the different sectors to collaborate, because there is a genuine need for the different sectors to collaborate, especially in times of austerity, as we're facing at present, and where budgets are very scarce. But, in acknowledging the need to collaborate, people do need to be able to work in the first place—that is, that we have enough staff, especially in terms of community nurses in the care sector. It's those specialist nurses that we need, who can provide the care for those with learning disabilities and sometimes very complex needs. We've seen, over the past years, a decline in the number of specialist nurses, especially those working in the community and in our social services. So, that's a challenge, and I would ask the Minister to outline what he's going to do about that challenge. I'm sure that there is a great deal of work happening behind the scenes. In terms of the statement this afternoon, we can't see all of the details, but it's fair to note that there are concerns about staffing levels.

There are also concerns with regard to the need to fund long-term projects. I'm aware that Swansea People First have bid for different projects over the years, and they are excellent projects, they're funded for a certain period of time, then the funding runs out, the project comes to an end, we lose the staff, we need to come up with a new idea for a project, and we need to bid for further funding. All of this sucks the energy from a system that's already facing more than enough pressure.

My final point—as well as all of this collaboration, people with learning disabilities need employment; they need careers. Only 6 per cent of adults with learning disabilities are in employment. Being in employment is one of the most important things that any individual can face. It defines us as an individual, and we're disenfranchising our people who have learning disabilities from having that hope. I hear what you say about the need to fund projects that do support people in work placements and in work experience, but we need to be much more proactive. I think we need to have a purposeful system to ensure that people with learning disabilities are in employment in the first instance, and to make that a priority. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Dai.

Some important points there. First of all, thanks to you and others who do work with organisations that represent people with learning disabilities—your role with Swansea People First. But there are many others throughout the land, actually, that do tremendous work as well, and you rightly paid credit there to all the volunteers and the charitable sector, the third sector, who make this possible.

You raised the important point there about how we make this sustainable. I don't think it's looking for individual pots of funding so much, although there has been some good work done under the ICF funding. So, for example, when you mentioned there the issue of nursing, one of the things that the ICF funding—. One good example—and, in fact, the report draws out some of these good examples—is in north Wales, where there was ICF revenue funding that went to what was called the Diana service in Wrexham. This provided additional nursing support for children with complex medical conditions, keeping them at home in their community. Twenty-one children received this service in 2017-18. There were others in Gwent and west Wales that I can draw attention to.

But, actually, the ICF funding, of course, is there to pilot and innovate, and then to say to those areas, in line with our statutory commitments, 'If it works, if it looks good, then take them up there and make them part of your core business.' That should be whether or not it's in the statutory sector, quite frankly. So, if there is support that is needed to make the right interventions that change the lives of people with learning disabilities and it's proven, then we would be looking, in the wider taking forward of the long-term plan on health and social care as well, to make sure that that works, that we draw in those sorts of avenues of funding as well.

Dai, you mentioned the issue of careers, as I referred to in my statement as well. There are a couple of things here. One is actually challenging the stigma and the misconceptions around here. Because people with learning disabilities have much to contribute, actually, in the workplace, and that's what we need to say right up front. But then, I think there are ways—and I mentioned one of them, possibly, here, the discussions that I can have with the Minister for Welsh language and skills, exploring things such as paid supported placements. I think the evidence shows that, once an individual has their foot in the door, it leads then to long-term paid employment. So, we do need to deal with that.

But it is the right challenge, and I think, on all these matters—the ones that have been raised here today but also in going forward—the ministerial advisory group and I would be keen to hear suggestions of the way forward, whether it is in terms of sustainability or actual work streams that build on the 27 actions identified within this report. Because this is going to be not an overnight fix—this is a journey of improvement, improvement, improvement.      

Thank you. We are over half way through the statement and we've had two questions. I'll grant you from spokespeople, but if we can make some progress—. Michelle Brown. 

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thank you also for your statement, Minister. I'd also like to thank the Paul Ridd Foundation for their valuable work in helping to produce the report. As you say in your statement, the report's three immediate priorities are health inequalities, community integration, and improving planning and funding systems. The report's first priority, or at least it's the one that appears first on the document, is to address the health inequalities suffered by people with learning disabilities, and rightly so.

Testicular cancer sufferers who also have learning disabilities have a one in 10 chance of dying as compared with a one in 36 chance in the general population. In the most recent year for which we have figures, 75 per cent of people with learning disabilities eligible for colorectal cancer screening had the test, compared with 80 per cent of those eligible people without learning disabilities. Corresponding figures for breast cancer screening were 51 per cent and 67 per cent, and, for uterine cervical cancer screening, 30 per cent and 76 per cent. It's ironic, to say the least, that some of the most vulnerable people in our society are still being let down by the healthcare, social and education systems, after 70 years or so of state education and the NHS.

You've made some general statements about the ways that health inequalities will be reduced, but they are not very detailed. In England, in 2013, a report was produced by Bristol University that made 18 detailed recommendations aimed at reducing premature deaths of those with learning disabilities, and the Government responded later that year. Again, in England, objectives have been set since 2014 for the NHS there to close the health gap between people with mental health problems, learning disabilities and autism, and the population as a whole. Again, NHS England also published a national action plan to develop community services and close in-patient facilities for people with a learning disability and/or autism. I could go on, but I won't. 

Now, no doubt the opposition parties at Westminster have their own views about how effective all that work has been, but the fact remains that the work is still being done across the border. So I'd like to ask: to what extent are you using the information gathered from those studies, and the work being conducted over in England, to inform the work that you're doing here? Have the Welsh Government measured any impact of the approach that the English NHS and the Government responsible for it are taking? Have you looked at that research, have you looked at the reports that have been produced, have you looked at the action plan, and what's your view? Are you learning from it for Wales? The Westminster Government has been looking at this in detail in England, so I wonder why it's taking your Government so long to catch up.

If implemented, your report is likely to make a positive impact, and don't get me wrong, I really do welcome your report. I think it's a good report and I think it's a very good first step. But you do admit that there is no new money to implement it, and the existing budget is under strain. So, what assurances can you give us that what you say you want to do will actually be done and will continue for years to come? Will the money and the funding be there in the future to support it? The people whose lives are affected by learning disabilities deserve to know that they're high upon your list of priorities. So, if there are problems with budgets in the future, which areas of spending will be cut before these proposals are put at risk?

What detailed plans are there to increase the screening and take-up rates in Wales and the other inequalities suffered by people with learning disabilities in the health system? Now, I know the healthcare system isn't in your portfolio, Minister, but the welfare of people with learning disabilities is. What happens to people with learning disabilities in the healthcare system is intrinsic to their overall welfare. So, I'd be very interested to hear what work you're doing with the Cabinet Secretary for health to co-ordinate your activities to work together to improve the chances and reduce the health inequalities that people with learning disabilities are suffering.

The recommendations in the report itself are very laudable, but without knowing who has a learning disability and therefore needs the help, you're at a bit of a loss to help those people. There are a great number of people who haven't been identified, and you've acknowledged that yourself in your report and in the statement. I am very pleased to see that you're actually looking at ways that you can gather the data so that you're better informed in the future. What specific research will you be conducting, though, to gather that data, and how will you actually go out and gather that data? Which sources are you looking at using? Or are your plans in such a prototype phase that you aren't going to be able to tell me that? Finally, what plans have you and the Cabinet Secretary for health put in place, will you be publishing your own action plan to achieve the objectives of the report and, if so, when? Thank you.

Thank you, Michelle. I'm not going to cause you any anger, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'll try and be very, very quick, but there were about seven questions in that as well. Can I go to the core ones here—

You don't have to answer them all.

I'm not going to. Otherwise I would be here—. But I'm going to try and address the key ones.

First of all, in terms of learning the lessons from England or elsewhere, we definitely do that. The LeDeR report that came out looking at issues around the mortality review for people with learning disabilities—we're very aware of that. So, the recently agreed improving lives work actually has very clear recommendations aimed at reducing those health inequalities for people with learning disabilities, and in fact it's been very much informed not only by the stakeholders, but by the Paul Ridd Foundation as well. So, we have a national steering group improving health outcomes for people with learning disabilities, and the remit of this group is to plan and oversee ways in which a national approach to reducing those health inequalities can be taken—for example, by promoting the use of care bundles for people when they go into hospital. As I say, this work within the NHS—and I hope that deals with your point about the work that Vaughan Gething the Cabinet Secretary and I do together on this—is supported by the work of the Paul Ridd Foundation, where brother and sister Jonathan Ridd and Jayne Nicholls have both recently been awarded, in tribute of their work, the British empire medal in recognition of their work to improve care standards for people with learning disabilities.

The other substantive point that you raise, Michelle—there were many—is the issue of the annual health checks. We're aware that the uptake of the annual health check for people with learning disabilities indeed can be improved and must be improved. So, we have indeed established a national steering group to oversee the development of work in relation to these annual health checks and other health issues for people with learning disabilities. Officials from across departments across Government are working with Public Health Wales to develop a health action plan for people with learning disabilities and annual health checks. And on the other points that you raised, I'm happy to write to you, because of the strictures imposed quite rightly on this debate by the Dirprwy Lywydd. Diolch.

It's great that you managed to speak to 2,000 people, but, as you remark in your statement, whilst there are pockets of good practice, too many people have to fight for the support and adjustments to services they need to enable them to live an ordinary life. Inclusion is very much at the beginning of its journey. It was great to see yesterday, at the Jo Cox awards, that the person who won the tackling loneliness award was a mother of an autistic boy who wanted to take part in organised football. She knew that he would never thrive in a mainstream scenario, and now this has become a mainstream football academy used by huge numbers of families with autistic children, with support from Swansea City, who provide a disability coach. This is, obviously, something to celebrate, and well done to Andrea Smith.

Last week I visited Autistic Spectrum Connections Cymru, which is based on High Street in Cardiff city centre and provides a service to people on the autistic spectrum from across south-east Wales. I really would just like to celebrate the work that they're doing. Whilst I was there, I met people taking part in the creative writing group, some of whose work was definitely of Booker award quality. One of the people there told me that he only went out on one day a week because he had other health complications, but this was his one social event of the week. I also met people who were setting up a social enterprise catering business because they say there's no reason why people with disabilities can't be paid the rate for the job, rather than being expected to work as volunteers—you know, fantastic.

I also met an Oxbridge graduate who is advising employers and employees about the reasonable expectations that both sides have to make to ensure that they make a success of the employment contract, and keeping people with disabilities in jobs, just ironing out misunderstandings that could otherwise lead to them being dismissed. Because we have to remember that some of the most brilliant people are on the autistic spectrum. Saga Norén, the detective in The Bridge, demonstrates that. It means that they are, in some respects, better able to do the job than people who don't have autism.

So, there's a lot to celebrate. I'm sure that the programme's going to be in good hands with Gwenda Thomas, because I know that she appreciates the social model of disability rather than the medical model, which I think is extremely important. My question to you is: how are you going to ensure that people with disabilities are not under-represented in screening programmes like cervical, breast and bowel screening? Because if they've got a learning difficulty, they may neither understand the letter that comes through nor understand the importance of screening to ensure that they avoid having serious diseases.

Thank you, Jenny, very much. I also recognise the work of that organisation, Autistic Spectrum Connections Cymru, and others. The issue that you raised is that this needs to be a life-course approach—it's those wide areas outside of viewing it through a medical-only spectrum. It's very much that social model. This is a new way of working, and it's the way of working that has been put forward by stakeholders out there—people with learning disabilities, by carers and others who've said, 'This is the way that we actually need to take forward this programme of work, not putting things in silos.' It's very much the social model.

I think the comments you make on making sure that there's a wide variety of views will have been heard not only by me, but also by Gwenda Thomas as well and also Sophie Hinksman, the co-chair, in taking this forward. It's worth saying that there are now identified policy leads for each of the 26 recommendations within this. There's a commitment to work with representatives from the learning disability community on those 26 recommendations, along with their carers and with other stakeholders, to drive delivery.

The best ways that these ministerial advisory groups have worked is when they are tight and they are focused and they're targeted on the priorities and on the work streams, but they also reach out and engage wider as well. I'm sure that this is the way that Gwenda and Sophie will want to take forward this ministerial advisory group. The good thing, in closing, would be to say that it's at that stage where there is still opportunity for Assembly Members here to input their thoughts on the recommendations and how this group will evolve. Gwenda is now new in the chair, they'll be meeting shortly, they'll be up and running, but they will be listening as well on the way to take this forward.

I welcome this report and I welcome the philosophy behind it. It does remind me of the all-Wales mental handicap strategy that was introduced here in Wales in 1983, which at its time was seen as being very visionary, and I know that is referred to in this report. I was involved in some work with that strategy. So, I wondered if you could tell us if you see a legacy in Wales of that strategy, which was acclaimed at the time. I'd like to be reassured that we're not beginning again, because that was a stress on—you know, the philosophy that was behind that, I think, is very much the same as the philosophy that's here now. So, that's one question. 

The other question is: I wondered if we had many or any adults with learning disabilities who are placed outside Wales and whether you are able to give an estimate of the cost of that and whether there's any chance of bringing them back to Wales.

Finally, in terms of the health inequalities, I was staggered to read in one of the English reports that the overall life expectancy of people with learning disabilities lagged far behind: 23 years for men and 29 years for women, which I think is an absolutely staggering figure. I wondered whether we had any Welsh-based research that's indicated whether that was a similar figure for Wales. I think you've already answered about how you're going to tackle health inequalities, but could you comment on those figures?

Thank you, Julie, very much. The prime legacy of that earlier strategy is indeed the philosophy of this in taking it forward. So, it is cross cutting, it is very much driven by stakeholders, it is very much that lived experience approach rather than a top-down Government-driven one that says, 'Here are the easy answers'. That philosophy of working, and in taking forward the work streams on the recommendations, is what is probably the greatest guarantee that this will be well focused, well targeted and will deliver the right results. 

In terms of the adults with learning disabilities outside Wales, I don't have a precise figure to hand, but I know you'll be interested to know that what we are developing at the moment is some more, I would suggest, progressive thinking about how we can develop the models, including bespoke support that will allow us to not rely simply on out-of-county, and out-of-Wales when it does happen, and to make sure that adults with learning disabilities are actually placed within the communities, within the support structures that they know. We have some innovative work going on at the moment within Government and with stakeholders to try and develop those models that are a different thinking on the way forward on this. 

You asked for details on the actual numbers within Wales. Now, I don't have those to hand. I have the UK figures to hand, but not the Wales-only figures. What I can say is that we do now have, as one of the areas of priority, a national steering group improving health outcomes for people with learning disabilities, and this has a couple of sub-groups that are looking at these specific areas. So, I think, as the group evolves, I'm sure I'll be able to come back to the Senedd and update people on what we're identifying in terms of numbers, but also what we're identifying in terms of solutions for that going forward. But I think this is something that we're very hopeful that the group will actually focus on.

Finally, Suzy Davies.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Perhaps I can just start by saying, of course, that autism itself is not a learning disability. I think that's perhaps something we should make plain in the Chamber. Autism Spectrum Connection Cymru's one-stop shop that we've been speaking about, as far as I understand, is being forced to close because it's lost its funding. I'd be grateful if you could have a look at that, please, Minister.

My one question was about the cross-Government review of learning disability policy, and I'd be grateful if you could tell us something about how you've consulted with the culture Minister, in particular. I'm thinking in particular of Hijinx Theatre company which, of course, has performers with all kinds of abilities, and perhaps you didn't realise that they'd been taken on by Cardiff Airport in order to help their staff with their communication strategy. So, it's not just a case of actors of this nature going into businesses and raising awareness, but they're actually doing good work in helping Cardiff Airport, in this case, to improve their communications. Thank you.

Thank you very much. On the specific of Hijinx, I can't comment directly on that one, clearly, but there is an expectation that in delivering this the statutory obligation that we place on providers, but also those who have funding at their fingertips, is that they actually use it to deliver these outcomes that we are focused on. And, yes, in terms of bringing this forward, it's not only been the wide involvement with over 2,000 stakeholders, but also right across Government as well. That defines this programme, so including with the Minister for culture—the contribution is right across Government. I think that has to also characterise the taking forward of this work as well, as the recommendations are taken forward and the ministerial group comes back and says, 'This is where you now need to target your priorities, your funding outcomes and so on.' It has to be across Government.   

Thank you very much, Minister.