3. What is the Welsh Government doing to protect and promote the rights of people with disabilities in South Wales Central? OAQ52836

The Welsh Government published its new framework, 'Action on Disability: The Right to Independent Living', for consultation yesterday, 22 October. The accompanying action plan sets out priority actions under way across Welsh Government to tackle key barriers identified by disabled people themselves, including transport, employment, housing and accessibility.

I'm grateful for that answer. You may know, as part of Mountain Ash's regeneration, a Mountain Ash community hub is being developed, and people with disabilities have contacted me to say it's essential that that hub has disabled parking facilities. The day centre building never had those, nor a dropping-off point. I do commend RCT council for their consultation exercise. I have written to the lead cabinet member, Councillor Rhys Lewis, who has given me a very helpful answer that final plans are yet to be developed, but consideration of disabled parking as near as possible to the community hub has been highlighted as a priority consideration. So, when we ask disabled people for their views, we should act on them. There are many excellent regeneration schemes going ahead at the moment, but this sort of consideration ought to be at the heart of them.

Yes, I entirely agree with the Member. It very much should be part of the consideration, and one of the things the framework sets out, amongst many others identified to us by disabled people themselves, is the need for physical access to be facilitated. I mean, there are many other forms of access. So, I entirely agree with the Member. I hope that RCT council will take that into account. The voice of disabled people is rightly front and centre of this new action plan, and it highlights such issues as a matter of paramount importance.

The leader of the campaign to save the Welsh living grant is a Labour Party member, who has succeeded in getting a motion to the Labour Party conference in support of that grant's retention. Nevertheless, your Government is determined to push ahead with scrapping this grant, which is a lifeline to its recipients, in favour of transferring the fund directly to local authorities. Meanwhile, the Scottish Government, under the SNP, is retaining its version of the independent living grant. In the words of the recent petition on the matter, I'd like to ask you: why are people in receipt of the Welsh independent living grant being

'treated like guinea pigs when their high care and support needs require long-term stability and structure'?

I disagree entirely with the Member's take on this. Following the UK Government's closure of the independent living fund, back in 2015, we put in place the Welsh independent living grant with local authorities to enable them to continue payments at the same level to people who used to receive the payments, as an interim measure whilst consideration was given to what the longer term arrangement to support those people ought to be. 

But you're cutting local authorities' funds.

This was only ever a short-term measure, and the grant has since ceased to be being replaced by alternative arrangements. On the advice of our stakeholder group, we are introducing future support through local authorities' social services over a two-year transition period. This commenced from April last year and is to allow sufficient time for authorities to agree, with the people affected, the well-being outcomes they wish to achieve, the future support they are required to deliver, and to provide that support. Our approach aims to ensure that all disabled people in Wales, whether they receive payments from the ILF or not, receive the support they require to live independently in the community, and we are keeping a close look on the progress in implementing these changes as they go forward.

What does the Welsh Government intend to do to address the communication failures between GP surgeries and the Welsh interpreting and translation service? This failure of communication has meant that the deaf community is unable to access vital healthcare due to administrative problems within the NHS in Wales. It's a very serious problem.

I'm afraid I don't know. I'm not familiar with the issue that the Member raises. Perhaps he would be good enough to write to me with the details and we'll ensure a response.