We now turn to the party spokespeople, and the first this afternoon for the leader of the house is the Conservative spokesperson, Mark Isherwood.

Thank you and good afternoon.

Your responsibilities, as you know, include covering the protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 and human rights in relation to UN conventions. The Equality Act 2010 requires service—

[Inaudible.]—the beginning of that. I'm very sorry, Mark Isherwood, I didn't hear what you started saying. I wonder if you'd be kind enough to repeat it.

I shall repeat it. I'll speak a little bit slower. Your responsibilities include equality, covering the protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 and human rights in relation to UN conventions. The Equality Act 2010 requires that service providers must think ahead and take steps to address barriers that impede disabled people and states you should not wait until a disabled person experiences difficulties using a service.

The Welsh Government incorporated the UN convention on the rights of disabled people into the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 Part 2 code of practice, which said that

'Local authorities must seek to empower people to produce innovative solutions'  through local networks and communities, and that this

'means putting robust arrangements in place to secure involvement of people in the design and operation of services.' 

Now, I've raised this question with Welsh Government Ministers many times: what action will the Welsh Government take to address the growing concern, distress and damage being caused when those very public agencies are failing to carry out those responsibilities and duties? I'll give you just a couple of examples. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Flintshire gave its contract for disability support services to outside agencies, not the agency FDF Centre for Independent Living, on which the local disability community depends, who told me at their AGM that they had not been involved in the decision. The news today from Wrexham, that a number of social businesses providing work for disabled people are set to close, but no reference whatsoever to designing and delivering with the communities affected. We know about the Conwy deaf community having to go to ombudsmen after their British Sign Language services were withdrawn. And, of course, concern in Cardiff that Autism Spectrum Connections Cymru has had to pull back services from its one-stop shop, despite the autism community locally saying they weren't consulted and that they absolutely depend upon those services. So, given your responsibilities in these areas, how will you now ensure that the Welsh Government intervenes to help these local authorities understand better what they must do, and also how that will not only benefit disabled people, but also, ultimately, save them money and help them manage their budgets better? 

I'm not aware of all of the details of some of those examples, and I'd be very grateful if Mark Isherwood would kindly pass them on to me; I am aware of some of them. There are three things to say about that. Where somebody has signed up to the ethical code of procurement practice, then they ought to comply with it, and I'll be taking those up with the local authorities in question where that's been breached. It's not a matter for the Government exactly how they carry out the procurements, as long as they do it in line with the guidance. And we will be issuing a new set of guidelines—action on disability—towards the end of November, certainly before the end of the Christmas term, and that will address some of the issues that he raises there, in terms of duties on local authorities and enforcement. That has been very much developed in consultation with disability communities around Wales. It will go out as a consultation, and I very much hope that we will be able to reach a conclusion, alongside our disabled citizens, that suits their needs. And that's very much how we've designed that, in order to facilitate those things.

Thank you. Well, I hope that will help local authorities and health boards to better understand how to reconcile their procurement obligations with their obligations to design and deliver services for local people, because there is a conflict between the two.

Again, noting your responsibilities, you know that the Welsh Government's 'A Healthier Wales: our Plan for Health and Social Care' has an ambition to bring health and social care services together, so they're designed and delivered again around the needs and preferences of individuals. And the Welsh Government itself says,

'We may also need to change how we pay for health and social care services.'

Again, noting your responsibilities, how do you respond to, again, a growing concern raised with me of local authorities removing direct payments from people, in discussion with health boards, who are then being moved on to continuing health care? They're losing their independence, they're losing their ability to live in their own homes, sometimes with support, and frequently ending up being told through the health support that they're going to have to go into some sort of statutory residential provision, or commissioned care, rather than having their own front door. And this is exacerbated by a Welsh Government requirement that personal budgets must not be pooled, unlike in Scotland and England, which prevents a local authority pooling the direct payments with the continuing health care budget. How, then, is the Welsh Government going to enable people affected by this to continue to live independently, rather than being forced to lose voice, choice and control over their own lives?

Actually, that's not in my portfolio area, but I do have extensive discussions with the Cabinet Secretary over it. There's a complex set of issues there that Mark Isherwood raises—quite rightly so. It's not my understanding that that's the outcome of the change, but it isn't my portfolio area, so I'll have to write to him, because I'll have to consult with my Cabinet Secretary colleague who is the portfolio holder for that particular fund.

Well, given your responsibility for the Equality Act 2010 and the UN convention, I would argue that you have some overarching responsibility, although clearly it's not your departmental responsibility.

I do; I'm not arguing that I don't. I have had those discussions with the Cabinet Secretary, but I don't have the detail that you're asking for, as it's not my portfolio responsibility.

Right. And finally, again, a similar question, relating to another part of your responsibility areas: the Gypsy, Roma, Traveller, Fairground, Circus-folk, Show-people and Bargees community. They've issued a notice of a training day in Cardiff on 5 December, and I'm wondering how you respond to this, which is within the information on the notice that's gone out:

'The...workshop will focus upon the current policy initiatives associated with the "Well-being of Future Generations Act (Wales, 2015)" have left behind the Romani and Traveller communities of Wales, particularly in terms of the "Well-being Assessments" carried out by the Public Services Boards established by the Act and the recent review of these by Netherwood, Flynn and Lang (2017) for the Future Generations Commissioner, Sophie Howe. These crucial processes have ignored the needs of Romani and Traveller people in "planning today for a better tomorrow"'.

I don't accept that, I have to say. We've got three plans in train for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller citizens of Wales. The Welsh Government published the 'Enabling Gypsies, Roma and Travellers' plan on 28 June, which built on the work that we'd undertaken since 2012 around accommodation, education, health and community participation. It introduced new commitments on employment and training as well as building bridges with social services and criminal justice agencies.

We also introduced the Gypsy and Traveller accommodation assessments and they've identified unmet need for 237 residential and 33 transit pitches across Wales. We're currently in the process of undertaking a second annual review of those assessments and we're encouraging local authorities to work with Gypsy and Traveller communities to develop their own small private sites, and that's including liaising with planning authorities and getting the right planning consents in place.

The Member will know, because we've had quite a lot of discussions around how the Gypsy and Traveller site capital grant links to those assessments and the assistance that we're looking to give, both to local authorities and to individual groups where that's appropriate. During 2017-18, for example, £3.4 million of funding was invested in extending the existing site in Gwynedd, creating an additional five pitches, a nine-pitch site in Newport, a two-pitch site extension in Powys and a refurbishment project at several sites in Pembrokeshire. So, we're in very direct contact with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities and the liaison has been very good, and the response very good to those plans.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Siân Gwenllian.

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?

Thank you for raising that, Siân Gwenllian. I'm afraid that that also isn't directly in my portfolio area, although I have had many conversations with the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport. I'm not actually familiar with the issue around the charities' applications that you raised there, so I'd be very grateful if you'd write to me and I'll ensure that I'll have that conversation with the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport.

Thank you very much for that. It’s a little odd that an issue that is fundamentally about equality is in another portfolio, but I will write to you on that.

I will continue to ask questions on blue badges because it’s becoming more and more apparent that over the past decade the attitudes of governments towards disabled people have veered towards placing criteria that are much harsher and processes that are far more bureaucratic, where they are required to prove their disability in order to access their rights. Unless that proof is provided, they are seen as being misleading. You’re very familiar with the personal independence payments, namely that a high number of decisions go against disabled people and that these decisions are often overturned at appeal. Indeed, there are a number of Members in this Chamber who have fought against the Westminster Government on these policies. But blue badges are within your control as a Government and our casework highlights that the exact same thing that is happening with PIP is also happening with the blue badges. I have constituents who have been rejected without face-to-face assessment, people with respiratory problems who have been refused blue badges because they don’t use walking aids for the few steps that they can take before they're out of breath, and a number of others facing a very harsh interpretation of the rules until they get through a successful appeal. So, is your Government at risk of falling into the same trap as has happened with PIP payments, namely making people who apply for blue badges feel that the system is against them?

I very much hope not. Just to explain, I don't have direct portfolio responsibility for a large number of areas that impact on equalities, because equalities impact on everything. So, I have some direct portfolio responsibilities. But, what I do have responsibility for is ensuring that those equalities duties and obligations are carried out by all of my Cabinet Secretary colleagues. So, I'm not in any way trying to abrogate my responsibility for it; I'm just saying I don't have the detail with me because that detail is held by the Cabinet Secretary.

Having said all of that, the reason I explained that is because I very much want to see the social model of disability embraced throughout Wales, and that is where we do not ask the disabled person to do anything that anybody else wouldn't be asked to do. We simply look to remove the barriers facing that person in accessing all of the aspects of society that they need to access. So, I'm very happy to undertake to go away and speak with the Cabinet Secretary with responsibility for the scheme to ensure that we are not doing that.

I too am very vehemently opposed to the way that the PIP assessments have been carried out. I have many constituents who face similar problems. So, I will undertake to go away and speak with the Cabinet Secretary, because if that's happening it really ought not to be.

Thank you for that. There’s one other aspect that I’d like you to discuss with the Cabinet Secretary for the economy, therefore, namely the guidance that is related to organisations that own minibuses that use blue badges. The regulations and the guidance have been drafted poorly and an organisation that would hope to take disabled people out on day trips and so on will have difficulty with the whole system of accessing a blue badge for their minibus or whatever vehicle they use. The problem lies in the drafting of the regulations and that then creates a problem for the local authorities in the way they are considered and there is a lack of clarity.

So, can I ask you to also look at that issue? I do think it’s important. I do compare it with what has happened with PIP payments, and I’m sure you would agree with me that that isn’t the way we want to do things here in Wales.

I absolutely do agree with you that that isn't the way we want to do things here. I will certainly take that up with the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport. Indeed, Siân Gwenllian, I'd be very grateful if you'd come to a meeting, if I broker it, between the three of us so that we can discuss the detail.

The UKIP spokesperson, David Rowlands.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Leader of the house, Innovation Point, Wales's leading digital business growth agency announced last week the first meeting of an extra group set up to prepare and shape a coherent national 5G programme in Wales. This will support the wider 5G UK ecosystem and help to position Wales as a world leader in the development and delivery of 5G. Can you give an update on this announcement, leader of the house?

Yes. As I explained in answer to an earlier question, we're extremely keen to support the development of 5G, including a very large number of test beds across Wales. We're looking to test innovative solutions across the various aspects of Welsh society so that we can show what 5G can do in different circumstances and given different criteria. We're very keen indeed, for example, to ensure that in areas where there's no 4G coverage that people don't have to climb a ladder and that they're able to leapfrog up from 0G, frankly, in some areas right up to the top. To that end, we've been having a lot of discussions around how that can be facilitated. That is all tied up with the way the spectrum sale will be done by the UK Government in the end. So, the Member will have heard me talk about the way that 4G was sold off. There's no end to the use of that. I'd like to see that like a planning consent, so if you haven't used it in five years it reverts to the public sector so that we can use it. Whereas in fact what's happened is it's been sold to the private operator and I can't get it back. I very much wish I could. 

I thank the leader of the house for that answer. It is encouraging, leader of the house, to see that Wales is already establishing itself as a leader in the area of digital innovation through initiatives like the compound semiconductor cluster based in my own South Wales East constituency. Fifth generation technology will undoubtedly be an enabler of new technologies, which can only support and accelerate wider digital opportunities across Wales. What further plans have the Government put in place to take advantage of this new vital technology?

Yes, as you said, I've recently agreed with Innovation Point that they will advise on, stimulate and exploit opportunities in the emerging 5G landscape, co-ordinate the work of all key stakeholders and delivery partners, and establish appropriate governance frameworks for that activity.

There's a large number of projects going on around Wales. I mentioned the one in the college, for example. We're also doing it as part of the automotive technology park planned in Ebbw Vale. A very large part of the digital infrastructure proposal for the Swansea bay city region is focused on 5G, and the Cardiff city deal is also looking at it.

I say to the Member that we're very keen to ride that wave, and there's no reason at all why we wouldn't be one of the absolute forerunner take-up nations for that. I should also say to the Member, though, that there are lots of other exciting technologies that don't have quite the buzz, if you like, of 5G. So, all of the way around Wales, we are looking at very effective use of something called long-range wide-area network technology, which is very low frequency. The devices have a hugely long battery life as a result, and they can monitor all kinds of things that give us really useful data around social isolation, for example. So, there is a large number of other technologies that we're taking a very keen interest in as well. 

I thank the leader of the house for that enlightening answer. Can I now turn to another matter, which I know you take extremely seriously—that of bullying, particularly in the context of schools? Given the recent tragic incident in St John Lloyd Catholic Comprehensive School in Llanelli, where a young boy, Bradley John, suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, committed suicide whilst on the school premises due to bullying, is the leader of the house content that all schools are treating bullying in an appropriate manner? I understand that the bullying that the boy's parents had complained of on numerous occasions was simply logged as 'incidents'.

We have a very extensive programme of anti-bullying—again, in conjunction with my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Education, who has responsibility for the schools programme. We support a large number of curriculum developments. We've recently supported the healthy relationships and sexual relationships roll-out for the guidelines there. We support, for example, Stonewall Cymru's Come out for LGBT campaigns, and we also work very closely with a large number of other organisations that have members who particularly experience hate crimes, to ensure that our schools are very safe places, as well as the rest of our society. So, we have a very large and extensive framework that schools must comply with in order to ensure that we don't have that sort of behaviour.

Thank you. We'll return to questions on the order paper. Question 3, Paul Davies.