5. Motion under Standing Order 26.91 seeking the Assembly's agreement to introduce a Member Bill on Older People's Rights

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:57 pm on 23 January 2019.

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Photo of Darren Millar Darren Millar Conservative 3:57, 23 January 2019

I've already given a commitment to engage with the Government on that agenda. I'm a member of the cross-party group on human rights. I'm committed to human rights, and I want to further their cause all the way. I think that my concern about the approach being taken by the Government is that it's in its very early stages—it's embryonic. There's absolutely no hope whatsoever of us getting something onto the statute book by the end of this Assembly, whereas with my older people's Bill, there is. There's a lot of groundwork being done within Government, by the older people's commissioner and others on this agenda. We have the opportunity to get this through this Assembly by December 2020. That's the indication that I've had from the clerks supporting me with this Bill. Doing this does not preclude doing the other. There's still the opportunity to take a twin-track approach. We're always going to have unique arrangements for children and older people, by virtue of the fact that we have commissioners for those particular rights-based agendas. We don't for anything else in terms of human rights, but we do for children and older people. That's why I'm advocating this approach, and I very much hope that there will be some people on those Labour benches, on the Government benches, that will just think again before rejecting this proposal today.