3. How does the Welsh Government ensure that disabled people in Wales receive equal treatment and opportunities? OAQ53090

Our new framework, 'Action on Disability: the Right to Independent Living', currently out for consultation, sets out priority actions under way across Welsh Government to tackle key barriers to equality of opportunity identified by disabled people themselves. This includes transport, employment, education, health, housing and accessibility.

Leader of the house, I have received representations from constituents expressing dismay about their inability to travel on public transport with friends, because they all need wheelchair spaces. And, if you're lucky, most public transport has one or two spots for wheelchairs. Most of us take for granted the ability to travel together, yet disabled people in Wales are being denied that right. Leader of the house, what steps is the Welsh Government taking to ensure that disabled people can enjoy the same rights to travel together that the rest of us take for granted? 

Yes, I'm very aware of that as an issue; it's been raised with me by a number of constituents as well. We are having ongoing discussions with various public service travel operators to see what can be done about that; often on a bus, for example, there's one wheelchair space, not two, and, if you are travelling with two people together, they often have to catch subsequent buses, and so on. So, I'm very much aware of that. It is part of our consultation, and it is something that the current economy Secretary and I have talked about a great deal. I will certainly be recommending in the new Government that we take forward action with our public services to ensure that people do have equal access. Often, people have more than one disabled person in their family, and more than one disabled child, and it is a big issue for them; it can be very expensive otherwise. So, it's certainly something on our radar.  

Thank you for that answer to Caroline; that was most helpful. Almost a year ago, I held a short debate based on Bridgend coalition of disabled people's suggestion for a 'scores on the doors' system, which would help businesses and public services to display details about the type of accessibility that they have for disabled people. Groups and organisations—including yourself, leader of the house—have been supportive of the Disability Confident campaign. Julian John, who, as you know, as a mutual constituent, has been a real poster boy for this. [Interruption.] Well, we share him; he's fantastic. 

Yes, we share him out. 

Yes. Could you tell me whether Welsh Government has made any progress on the suggestion on the 'scores on the doors' idea and also what steps Welsh Government is taking so that it itself can become a Disability Confident employer?

Yes. So, on the second one, I'm very keen on doing that. I've had several conversations with the Permanent Secretary around the civil service, and I know that the Commission has also had a couple of conversations about it in terms of becoming Disability Confident. We're very keen to do that. The difficulty with this is that you need to get a standard in place. So, you can declare that you're a Disability Confident employer, but you need to be able to demonstrate a standard, and the 'scores on the doors' thing has the same problem. So, the issue is that we have to develop the standard against which you score the properties. So, we are very interested in doing it. We're working very hard with Disability Wales and others to work out what those standards would be in order to have some system of judging yourself against them. So, I'm very keen on doing it but I don't think the standards are in place for us to be able to basically do it, so we need to just put the work in. It will be part of the consultation, and it's part of a piece of work that we need to do to make sure that everybody is happy as to what the standard against which you're scoring people is so that we can all go forward on the same—basically off a level, a level playing field. I mixed about four different analogies there, but you understood what I was saying.

So, basically, it's a great idea but we have to develop the standards against which we judge people in order to give them the score in the first place, so we're in the process of doing that. That's a simpler way of putting it. [Laughter.]

One of the main findings of the Equality and Human Rights Commission Wales 2018 report is that disabled people are falling further behind and many are being denied their right to independent living. The report also found that there are gaps in educational attainment and employment, and those gaps are widening. Now, contrary to Labour Party policy, this Labour Government is doing away with the Welsh independent living grant, and people who are in receipt of this grant are concerned that they will lose out, that their support will be cut by local authorities that are already struggling with reduced budgets. Will you commit to ensure that no-one loses out when local authorities take over the paying of this grant from March next year, and will you undertake to reverse these changes, should it transpire that individuals do end up losing money?

Yes, I'm actually very happy to commit to that. There's certainly no intention whatsoever that any person, any individual, will be any worse off as a result of the transition. Most people should be better off, and people should be at the very least the same, so I'm very happy to undertake that. I know that, in our final budget proposals, we are looking to guarantee that. My experience in my constituency has been that people are reluctant to engage in case they suffer a detriment from it, so we're very keen to ensure that people feel confident in engaging, because we are very keen to ensure that guarantee or whatever you want call it—warranty; I don't know what the right word for it is—that no person would be worse off. People would be at the very least the same, and, actually, we think that the majority of people will be better off, so I'm very happy to give that guarantee.