Thank you very much. You will recall that an attempt to scrap the regulations on the distribution of temporary blue badges was one of the first debates in the fifth Assembly. At that point, we on this side of the Chamber supported you on the basis that having a deficient scheme for the blue badges was better than having no scheme at all. But the deficiencies of that new scheme are now becoming more and more apparent, and these are the problems that we had anticipated, of course.

We see that requests for badges are being denied to people and people are losing their independence as a result because their health is expected to recover in less than 12 months. Institutions that help disabled people to apply for these blue badges are being asked to sign legal documents, which places the burden of proof of this 12-month rule on these organisations, with the possibility of hefty fines if they make errors or mistakes—namely helping someone who only needs a wheelchair for 11 months rather than 12 months perhaps. Do you think therefore that it is time now to look at improving this scheme, so that these charities wouldn’t have to face policing their own clients?