The following amendments have been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Rebecca Evans, and amendment 2 in the name of Darren Millar. 

Item 7 on the agenda is the Plaid Cymru debate on the Welsh independent living grant, and I call on Leanne Wood to move the motion.

Motion NDM6967 Rhun ap Iorwerth

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

Calls on the Welsh Government to retain the Welsh Independent Living Grant in full.

Motion moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. When historians come to write the history of the last decade from the perspective of disabled people and how they've been treated by successive governments, I believe that we will be judged harshly. The consequences of the series of changes to social security that were first started by Lord Freud under the Tony Blair Government—yes, let's not forget that it was a Labour Government who created Atos—those changes were accelerated then under the coalition Government and they have been so devastating that they amount to one of the biggest violations of human rights in British history.

Now, in this Senedd and elsewhere, there have been enough of us calling out the UK Government on their behaviour, even if we've had limited influence as a result. So, it's doubly disappointing to see patterns of behaviour at Westminster creeping into the Welsh Government as the story of the independent living fund will tell us. Yesterday's announced changes to the way assessments are carried out are of course welcome, and no doubt the Minister will be responding to this debate by outlining those changes. I'd like to place on record our gratitude and congratulations to the campaigner Nathan Davies, whose campaign on this has been absolutely tireless. But the behaviour of this Government as a whole up until now has been one that demonstrates similarity to the approach that we've seen from the Tories in London.

When responsibility for managing the independent living fund was devolved to Wales, there were two main options that the then Welsh Government faced. On the one hand they could copy England and devolve the independent living fund to local authorities, and ask them to take responsibility for the care and support provided. Or, on the other hand, they could keep the fund and administer it, just as they did in Scotland and the north of Ireland. Now, my colleagues will elaborate further on the flawed decision-making process that has occurred here, but there is just one rhetorical question that summarises this whole debate: if you adopt a similar approach to the Tories, why would you expect a completely different result? And it's those predictable results that led to yesterday's announced changes. From the Minister's own statement:

'Considerable local variation is evident, with the percentage of former ILF recipients within a local authority whose hours of care have reduced ranging from 0% to 42%.'

What, of course, can't be measured is the level of anxiety and stress of having to go through constant reassessments, where your quality of life is on the line. Disabled people talk to each other. They know what happened with the introduction of the work capability assessment, and they know what happened when DLA was replaced with PIP. They know what happened in England to those people who were receiving the ILF. So, they knew that they faced assessments from staff working in an institutionally ableist public sector, assessments from organisations under massive financial pressure, and assessments with little protection against poor judgment. Yet, your Government still forced over 1,000 people to go through this and spent years resisting those campaigners and your own party activists, until the new Minister effectively overruled previous decisions.

Now, if the changes announced yesterday are implemented properly, we should, thankfully, see no disabled people at all lose out. But we will still have ended up with a system that has greater administrative costs and bureaucracy and imposed unnecessary stress and anxiety on some of the most vulnerable people in this country, and I believe you should apologise for that.

The Llywydd took the Chair.

I have selected the two amendments to the motion, and I call on the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services to move formally amendment 1 tabled in the name of Rebecca Evans.

Amendment 1—Rebecca Evans

Delete all and replace with:

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Recognises the Welsh Government has always committed the full amount of funding transferred for the Independent Living Fund for that purpose.

2. Commits the Welsh Government to work with recipients and local authorities to ensure the intentions of the Welsh Independent Living Grant continue to be delivered in Wales.

Amendment 1 moved.

Formally.

I call on Mark Isherwood to move amendment 2 tabled in the name of Darren Millar. Mark Isherwood.

Amendment 2—Darren Millar

Add as new point at end of motion:

Calls on the Welsh Government to ensure that disabled people are full partners in the design and operation of an Independent Living Fund for Wales which safeguards the rights of disabled people to live independent lives.

Amendment 2 moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. Independent living enables disabled people to achieve their own goals and live their own lives in the way that they choose for themselves. The independent living fund enabled severely disabled people to choose to live an independent life in the community, rather than in residential care. I move amendment 2, calling on the Welsh Government

'to ensure that disabled people are full partners in the design and operation of an Independent Living Fund for Wales which safeguards the rights of disabled people to live independent lives.'

The Welsh Government announced a two-year transition period from April 2017, during which all Welsh independent living grant, or WILG, recipients will be required to have this element of their care needs assessed by their local authority.

Scrapping the grant on 31 March is a betrayal of the rights of disabled people to live independently and make their own decisions. In 2015, the independent living fund was devolved by the UK Government to local authorities in England and to the respective Governments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Welsh Government worked with local authorities to establish the WILG, but otherwise only undertook a consultation exercise and established a stakeholder advisory group, which it says produced a range of views.

In contrast, the Scottish Government states that its new scheme was co-produced by the ILF working group, with representation from the Scottish Government, ILF Scotland, disabled people, carers, disability groups and local authorities. Scotland then launched ILF Scotland, to ensure that recipients have choice and control. Northern Ireland chose to join the Scottish scheme, and disabled people and disabled groups in Wales have told the cross-party group on disability they wanted to join it too.

Unlike the Welsh Government, which only transferred the annual funding received from the UK Government for this to local authorities, the Scottish Government also committed an extra £5 million a year. In November 2016, the then Minister here argued that transferring fully to local authority responsibility would equalise access to support amongst disabled people and avoid the WILG becoming unsustainable. The then First Minister, Carwyn Jones, said,

'We would expect local authorities...to fulfil their obligations to disabled people and to put sufficient funds aside in order for their financial needs to be recognised and satisfied', and that local authorities, he said,

'are answerable to their electorate if they pursue policies that the electorate deem to be unacceptable.'

Unfortunately, severely disabled people do not have many votes. However, Welsh Government estimates obtained by disabled campaigners suggest that over 200 former WILG recipients will see their funding cut, and some Welsh local authorities admitted to them that a significant proportion of those currently receiving support through the WILG had already had their support packages cut. So much for the written statement by the Welsh Government in May last year that local authorities were reporting that most people were receiving similar support to that they'd had with their ILF payments, with no significant issues being raised. Who on earth are they listening to?

I chaired January's packed meeting of the Assembly cross-party group on disability in Wrexham. At this meeting, the leader of the Save the Welsh Independent Living Grant campaign, Wrexham's Nathan Davies, who I've got to know over many years, emphasised that this is about the difference between staying in bed or getting out of bed, about having dinner or not having dinner, about having control or being controlled. Attendees agreed with Nathan that they just don't understand the importance of one word to disabled people—independence—and the impact on mental health and well-being and the ability to interact with society.

This was lived experience talking, straight from the horse's mouth, and I was asked to get answers because time is running out. I subsequently raised this, as promised, with the Welsh Government during the business statement here. As Nathan Davies stated in his open letter to the new First Minister, the deep-dive review that was recently undertaken by the Welsh Government to analyse the performance of local authorities relating to the WILG transition is full of errors and, quite frankly, not worth the paper it is written on. How can an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the end of WILG be conclusive without having consulted disabled people who will be affected?

In 2017, the UK Government announced that people with a severe lifelong disability, illness or health condition will no longer need to be reassessed for employment and support allowance and universal credit. In 2018, they announced an equivalent exception for the personal independence payment. However, the Welsh Government announced yesterday that former ILF recipients 'unhappy' with their care and support package will be offered another assessment. What shocking hypocrisy. 

Well, talk about shocking hypocrisy. I have to say that I have got, as we all have, deep concerns about the way the Labour Government has handled this here, but I am not going to take—and nor would I expect the Welsh Labour Government—any lessons from any Conservative when it comes to the administration of benefits to disabled people. My colleague Leanne Wood has just rightly described it as an absolute scandal, and I frankly—though I have every respect for Mark Isherwood as an individual—find it very, very difficult to take those messages from him. I know he absolutely believes them himself, but the party in whose name he sits in this place conducts themselves very differently at the other end of the M4 corridor, and I will happily take an intervention from Mark Isherwood. 

We've not got time to debate the whole of welfare here, but I made the point that the UK Government, which you are not a great fan of, has nonetheless prevented people with severe disabilities having to be reassessed for a range of benefits—PIP, ESA, universal credit—and yet we've told people with severe disabilities that they will have to be reassessed again to get what they should have kept in the first place.  

Let's be clear that that is a belated change of heart very late in the day, after many disabled people across the UK have suffered dreadfully from that system. And you're quite right to say that we haven't got time to debate it here, but I'll happily take you on on it any time, anywhere, because it's not okay. Now, I think it's regrettable that the Minister is going to have to people through reassessment, but my understanding of the function of that reassessment is potentially to restore support that's been removed. So, my understanding from disabled people is that they actually rather welcome this.

So, to return to what I'd intended to say, Llywydd, I had expected to be giving a very different speech until the Minister made her announcement yesterday. I have watched this debacle both from outside this place and from inside it, and it has been incomprehensible to me, given the number of times that successive Welsh Ministers have committed themselves to the social model of disability, and I have been absolutely unable to understand what has happened. And while the Minister's change of mind yesterday is really, really welcome, as Leanne Wood has already said, it does leave questions unanswered.

We must express the extreme distress that this whole sorry process has put disabled people through, and those who love and care for them. To be honest, I sense from the Deputy Minister's statement that she understands that level of distress and wants to put it right, and we can't hold this Deputy Minister, as an individual, responsible. But we must ask her to look at what went wrong. How was this allowed to happen on the watch of a Government allegedly committed to the social model? We have to understand that if we are to prevent it from happening again. Was it a question, as we suspect is the case around the Government's proposals around post-Brexit agricultural support, of officials being reluctant for Welsh Government policy and practice to deviate from the English model? I hope I'm wrong. If that is the case, it's profoundly worrying. Was it a case of Welsh Ministers taking their eye off the ball? Again, I wasn't here at the time, and I'm not able to say categorically, but it certainly looks like that to me.

Will you take an intervention?

I will, happily.

Do you also find it worrying and very distressful that it's only when they've been backed into a corner by this Plaid Cymru motion today that they have actually taken this step?

Well, I am worried about that and I am very glad that the step's been taken, but an awful lot of sadness, distress and upset could have been prevented had it been taken further. Now, of course, it is the function of an opposition to put the Government on the spot and, hopefully, we have done this in this case. But I would reiterate that we need to understand why this really poor set of decisions happened, because, otherwise, it may happen again.

I wish to turn, briefly, Llywydd, to the Deputy Minister's statement yesterday where she refers to independent social work assessments. Now, while I share some of the concerns about people being endlessly reassessed, if the purpose of these reassessments is to enable people to get support restored where it's been taken away from them, that has to be welcome. But I think the key word there is 'independent', and I would like to ask the Deputy Minister today how she sees those assessments being undertaken. If the staff undertaking those assessments are directly employed by the local authorities who have already withdrawn support from those disabled people and their families, those people will be left with concerns about whether or not those assessments are truly independent. Those people who have had their support cut will, I'm sure the Deputy Minister understands, be sceptical. So, I hope that she can tell us today how she will ensure that not only those assessments are independent, but they are perceived to be independent by those on the receiving end. I'm sure she will not be surprised—and it's clear in her statement that she has dealt directly with the campaigners—if they have lost faith in the system and need a lot of convincing to have that faith restored.

Finally, Llywydd, if I can beg your indulgence having taken some interventions, I want to ask the Deputy Minister today, in her contribution to this debate, to recommit the Welsh Government clearly and unequivocally to the social model of disability. That model being, of course, that the disability consists, not in an individual's impairment, but in the barriers society puts in the way of that person with that impairment participating fully. I was under the impression that we were unanimous in this place in that regard—absolutely unanimous, I think, across all benches. The actions around this have demonstrated that perhaps we are better at words than we are at deeds. The purpose of this particular support is specifically to enable our disabled fellow citizens to live independently and fully participate. So, I hope that the Deputy Minister today will commit to ensuring that this support continues, to support that independence, that it does so equitably across Wales, and that it's done in the context of a meaningful commitment to the social model of disability. Our disabled fellow citizens deserve no less, and they deserve an apology.

I heard Helen Mary Jones say she's making a different speech to the one she expected, following the statement by the Minister. I'm going to do something different—I'll be voting a different a way than I expected to, following the statement by the Minister, because I was going to vote in favour of the Labour Party policy if the Minister hadn't made the statement that was made there.

I'll start by restating Labour Party policy agreed by the Wales Labour Party conference in 2018—a policy I supported then and support now: defend and save the Welsh independent living grant. The Welsh independent living grant was introduced to help people who previously claimed from the UK Government's independent living fund, which closed in 2015. More than 1,500 people are helped by the Welsh independent living grant scheme across Wales and recipients all have a very high degree of care and support needs. The Welsh independent living grant was due to run until the end of March 2017, but it had been agreed that funding would continue for another year. The annual £27 million fund would then transfer directly to local authorities during 2018-19 so they could meet the support needs of all former ILF recipients by 31 March 2019.

This conference called upon the Welsh Labour Government to maintain the Welsh independent living grant, at least until the next Welsh Assembly election, and to do so whilst retaining the following principles: preservation of the triangular structure of the grant between the local authority, the individual and a third party stakeholder; that the available funding should be ring-fenced in the future to ensure that allocated moneys are used for the purpose for which they are intended; that the well-being of disabled people should not be put at risk; that the most vulnerable people in society should be protected not endangered; and that quality of life is a human right for our vulnerable individuals, rather than merely maintaining existence.

As a member of the Petitions Committee, I was there when we received evidence. The primary concerns raised by the petitioner and others relate to a fear over the impact of transferring responsibility for supporting former ILF recipients to local authorities, in particular the financial ability and resources of local authorities during a time of austerity to adequately replicate the focus on independent living promoted by the ILF and WILG. And I'm not criticising local authorities. Anybody who's got any knowledge of local authorities will realise just how much pressure they are under. It's like squeezing a balloon—every time you push it in somewhere, it goes out somewhere else.

The concerns also relate, however, to previous experiences of the petitioner and others supporting his campaign of working with or receiving services from local authorities. This included a concern over the understanding of the term ‘independent living’ itself:

'It is no secret that a Medical Model attitude towards disabled people remains endemic and institutionalised across the public sector and it is clear from the regional needs assessments and particularly Social Care Wales’ summary report, that there is no understanding of the distinction between "being independent" [meaning managing without support] and "Independent Living" that Welsh Government have formally accepted as meaning disabled people living the lives they choose, in the way they choose and supported how, when, where and by whom they choose.'

Another further concern expressed by the petitioner related to a loss of the tripartite structure within the operation of the ILF. This incorporated the recipient of funding, the central administration of the fund and the local authority in making assessments and reaching decisions about care and support. The petitioner explained:

'the other element of the Independent Living Fund was that independent Social Workers carried out the assessments and reviews so that disabled people felt protected by the independent oversight of a qualified and experienced social worker who could not be intimidated by' or instructed by the local authority because they weren't working for it.

I welcome the statement by the Welsh Government that it will provide additional funding to local authorities for the cost of independent social workers and additional care hours that may result from these independent assessments. This means that there can be no question of—

Will the Member give way?

Can I finish this sentence? There would be no questions of changes to a care and support package being a cost-cutting measure. Certainly.

Given that former recipients of the independent living fund had to qualify for that by proving that they were severely disabled, why should they have to prove it again when, rightly, we criticised UK Government when they told people they'd have to prove it again?

I think this is because some people have—local authorities had their needs reassessed and downgraded, and this is an opportunity for them to get reassessed and upgraded. It is something that disabled people themselves want to see. It's not perfect, and I'm sure we wish we weren't here. I wish that, last April, the Labour Party conference decision had been implemented in this place, but it wasn't, and that's nothing to do with the Cabinet Minister—or the current leader.

I welcome the Minister’s acceptance that the underpinning principle in undertaking independent assessment is that the result should be consistent with people’s agreed well-being outcomes. As there is no financial barrier, no-one needs have less favourable care and support than they currently have, and 'currently' means whatever they had before the changes were introduced by local authorities.

I welcome the preservation of the triangular structure of the grant between the local authority, the individual and a third party stakeholder. I believe the Government of Wales have met the spirit of both the petition and the Labour Party conference resolution. I just regret that it's taken so long. Finally, I thank Nathan Davies for his continual and consistent campaigning—I think I'd describe him as 'indefatigable'—and Julie Morgan for coming through now and providing this continuing support that I believe and I think the vast majority of people in my party believe is something that should have been done a long time ago.

May I thank Mike Hedges for his comments? He has reminded me of the irony here that Plaid Cymru has had to table a motion in order to try and persuade the Labour Government to commit themselves to their own policy. So, that tells us something about where this Government finds itself at the moment. And this is the party, of course, that claims to be 'for the many'—no. 'For the many, not the few', yes, I was right the first time. I have become confused today. But who are we talking about here? Who do they represent? Well, if we are talking about a group that needs representation and needs a voice to speak on their behalf, it's the 1,300 people who have been reliant on this independent living grant; that 1,300 people who have suffered anxiety and concern over the past two years as to the implications of losing that grant. And the u-turn that we've seen from the Government came 24 hours before this Plaid Cymru debate is news that is to be welcomed—of course it is. And I understand that the intention now is to do some more research to see what the options are in terms of developing an alternative proposal or varying the scheme. So, my plea is that you listen to the evidence of those who are in receipt of these funds, their families and carers, when you come to look at the options whilst making progress.

Now, much of the discussion has focused, and has done over the past few years, on the funding element, but I think it's important to remind ourselves of the importance of the independent living element. The experiences of those in receipt of this grant do lead them to fear that life under local authority control would be far more prescriptive, and that it would risk removing independence from them. And the swingeing cuts that the local authorities have suffered do mean that it would be almost inevitable that the systems would be more prescriptive because of the need to prove value for money. But what is value for money if the value put on the life and the quality of life of these individuals decline as a result of that? How can you measure an individual's quality of life on a financial spreadsheet at the end of the financial year? The recipients of this grant are already suffering a lack of independence because of circumstances that are out of their control. They are taking medicines and are using wheelchairs and they are already restricted to their homes, and the last thing that they need is further restrictions because of the financial rules and bureaucracy of local authorities who have to count every penny to prove value for money.

This proposal to scrap the Welsh independent living grant was nothing more, as we've heard, of course, than the Welsh Government following the lead of the UK Government. And the pause announced yesterday is certainly a step in the right direction. And we can do things differently here in Wales. We can show that we value the most vulnerable in society and that we look after each other as a society. Let's hope that this pause leads to a positive overhaul whereby everybody with a disability is lifted up to a better funding and support regime rather than pulling everyone down to the lowest common denominator.

We have examples of good practice in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where they are forging their own path, having not only retained the independent living fund but enhanced it as well. And we know, as we've heard, what happened in England with the scrapping of the grant there: people being thrown into a postcode lottery, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities having to say that it's led to a human catastrophe. And, of course, the concern is that we will be heading down that very same route here in Wales with the most vulnerable suffering.

Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is dedicated to disabled people's right to live independently and be included in the community. People with disabilities shouldn't be infantilised, with their lives dictated by bureaucracy. We all value our independence, our ability to make our own choices, our ability, yes, sometimes, to make our own mistakes, but that right should not be taken from disabled people simply because of their disability.

Now, if you're genuinely concerned about inequalities facing disabled people, then the Government should be bold enough to admit it and face this issue head on. Let's see the depth of the real problems and challenges facing disabled people in our communities and let's act on that to improve the quality of life for those people instead of taking away their hard-fought funds and independence.

Yesterday's announcement gives us an opportunity to do that, so I ask the Government whether you'll take this opportunity to look at the whole picture of disabled people living in Wales. Will you set up a commission to look into the funding of disabled people here in Wales? What are the needs of disabled people in Wales today? What are the challenges that they face? And how can your Government and this Assembly make things better and improve the quality of life of disabled people here in Wales? This is what we should be looking at and not cutting the little funds that are provided to some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

Yesterday, we saw an admission from the Government that all their previous promises about how the transition away from the ILG system would be painless for its recipients meant nothing. The panic statement, no doubt prompted by Plaid's motion today, came not so much out of concern for the disabled people involved, but because they don't want to be politically embarrassed. But that statement was a red herring. Their announcement only delays the abolition of the ILG, it doesn't stop it, so, in a lot of ways, disabled people still currently have an axe hanging over their heads.

Over a year ago, Welsh Government were being warned about the problems that were going to arise, but they ignored the warnings and went ahead anyway. So, you'll have to excuse me if I don't accept that their surprise or apology for the current problems, hardships and anxieties is genuine. I don't think it is. 

Let me say something about what's going on right now, right at this moment, as we're discussing this. There are some men and women—a parallel of you and me—who, were it not for the throw of the dice landing on a different number, could be sitting here with us in this Chamber, but unlike us, they have a disability that's deprived them of many of the opportunities, freedoms, life chances and choices that most people are able to take for granted. We're not supposed to be looking at these people as figures on a spreadsheet or as part of an accountancy equation. This Government may well define the recipients of ILG by their disability, but they're so much more than that; these are people with every single hope, dream, aspiration and wish that you and I have every day. And these few who receive the ILG could, in no way, be accused of being workshy, not bothering to properly look for employment or just trying to play the system. These are the most disadvantaged vulnerable people in Wales and this Labour Government is taking their money to subsidise the coffers of local councils. To remove some of their hope and make them worry about how their life is going to become even more difficult, purely in an effort to make the financial books look a tiny bit better, is inhumane and utterly shameful.

Welsh Government is absolving their responsibility in a cynical, cost-cutting exercise. The individuals and charities concerned are all against this move, and when Labour say that the same amount of money will be spent on disabled people, what they mean is they will take the money from the individual recipients and give it to the local authorities to use as they please. Then they'll blame the local authority if it goes wrong for disabled people. Only a proportion of the money that used to go directly to disabled recipients will actually be spent on meaningful help. They're giving this money to councils to keep council tax low in the hope that people will vote Labour in local elections. The Government know this money will not all be spent on the person it's been spent on so far—that's the reason they're doing it—otherwise, they'd leave this well alone. And the urgent mail received yesterday by me and possibly some other Members in this place from a disabled person backs this up. During the process of losing her ILG, she has experienced an inadequate review and has had her funding halved. She says she knew that as soon as it became apparent that what the councils didn't spend on the former grant recipients they could then put into the generic social care pot, she knew that the most vulnerable people, like her, would lose out. She says, quote:

'I knew that there could only be injustice to each of those who are going to be reassessed. The likes of myself, whose life is going to change into basic existence from a fulfilling and rewarding one'.

Welsh taxpayers would be much happier to think that their hard-earned tax is paying for a disabled person to get the help they need than go on a council employee's salary to tell a disabled person that they're going to get less help than before.

So, finally, I call on the Welsh Government to be inclusive and not act in a way that will make people think that you're ignoring the needs of disabled people, simply because there aren't enough of them to vote against you and affect the outcome of your next election campaign. I call on you to reverse your decision to abolish the ILG. Thank you.

I call on the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, Julie Morgan.

Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and thank you to everybody who has contributed to this debate. Everyone in Wales deserves support to live independently when they require that support. The independent living fund was established over 30 years ago across the UK to support disabled people with complex needs to live independently. The UK Government closed this scheme to new entrants in 2010, and in 2015 they transferred responsibility for it to the devolved administrations. At that time, to ensure continuity of support, the Welsh Government established interim arrangements by creating a Welsh independent living grant. On the basis of a consultation exercise and with input from a stakeholder group, a new approach was developed, whereby local authorities would plan, with Welsh independent living grant recipients, their whole care and support needs and arrange for this to be provided. 

So, starting in 2017, a two-year transition period was put in place to establish these arrangements. By the end of December 2018, approximately 1,000 of the 1,300 former WILG recipients were having their whole care package arranged through local authorities, and the remainder are scheduled to complete that transition by the end of next month. For most of those people, their new care package is the same or greater than their previous arrangements, and for these people, the transition taking place is supporting their ability to live independently, as envisaged. In some cases, it is enhancing this further than previously. However, for approximately 150 people, their care plan is smaller than previously, and this could be for specific reasons. For example, I've been given the example of the effective use of modern technology and a focus on ablement not dependence. We know from our own inquiries and from the independent survey of recipients conducted by the All Wales Forum of Parents and Carers of People with Learning Disabilities that most people are happy with these outcomes, and this is even true in some cases where hours of care have reduced, and this is by agreement.

However, concerns have been raised, particularly over recent months, about the transition, because there is a considerable variation across Wales—and I know people have already raised that in this debate—with the percentage of recipients within the local authority whose hours of care have reduced following a transition care review ranging from 0 per cent to 44 per cent. And at this stage, I would also like to thank Nathan Davies and his colleagues, from the #SaveWILG campaign, for the representations they have made to Welsh Government on this matter. They have been relentless in drawing the disadvantages of this scheme to our attention. I've met with Nathan twice in the last three weeks to hear his concerns and to seek to develop a new approach, and I was developing this new approach before I knew of this debate today, but I'm very pleased we're having the debate, because, obviously, it does give us the opportunity to discuss in more detail what this means. 

I've considered all the available evidence, including that gathered through a deep dive, which was undertaken by my predecessor, Huw Irranca-Davies, and I would like to thank him for all the efforts that he's made to look at this issue, but I have concluded that the variation between local authorities does warrant a change in direction. I therefore wrote to local government leaders yesterday to request a pause in the transition with immediate effect, in order to bring in revised arrangements. Now, the details of the new arrangements need to be worked through with the local government partners, but the key elements I'm seeking to secure are as follows: first, an independent social work assessment will be offered to all former recipients who are unhappy with their results and care and support package and would like a second opinion. The independent social work assessment, in answer to Helen Mary Jones's question, will be done by an independent social worker who is not employed by the local authority and who will be totally independent. This independent view will mirror the arrangements that existed under the ILF and so will restore a tripartite decision-making system.

Could I just ask a question, if I may? If it's wrong, as it is, for UK Government to state to a severely disabled person that they have to be reassessed because the benefits have changed, to see whether they qualify for the successor benefit, why is it right in Wales to say to somebody who qualified on the grounds of their severe disability for a benefit that they have to be reassessed? I understand that those who have lost their care and support packages now need to have them reinstated and there has to be a process to be followed, but why can we not say that because they had already qualified for ILF, just like DLA in England, they don't have to go through the process of reapplying, just as they have to with PIP in England?

There is no need for anyone to be reassessed if they don't want to be. Everybody will be offered the opportunity, but there is absolutely no need, and as the carers survey does show that many are satisfied with what they've got, we don't anticipate everybody wanting to be reassessed. It's only people who want to be reassessed, who are unhappy with the arrangement, who will have the opportunity, and they will have the opportunity of an independent social worker. 

Secondly, the Welsh Government will provide additional funding to local authorities for the cost of independent social workers and additional care hours that may result from these independent assessments. This means that there can be no question of changes to a care and support package being a cost-cutting exercise. The underpinning principle in undertaking that independent assessment is that the result should be consistent with people's agreed well-being outcomes, and as there is no financial barrier, no-one needs to have less favourable care and support than they had under the Welsh independent living grant.

These arrangements acknowledge the historical entitlement of former recipients. It is a significant change of approach that ensures that the needs of former recipients will be fully met and that resources are no barrier to a full package of care and support. In fact, I believe that these new arrangements are much stronger than the Welsh independent living grant, and that is why we are seeking to amend the motion before us today. The Government amendment will enable the whole Assembly to get behind my plan to put something better in place. We will accept the Conservative amendment today.

Access to independent assessment and new resources to back up the potential outcomes of these assessments are at the core of this new approach, and it's because of these key features that Nathan Davies and his colleagues from the #SaveWILG campaign are supportive, in principle, of the approach that I intend to take. In fact, they have published their welcoming of what I'm saying here today. But, of course, we share a common interest in seeing that it's implemented properly, and that is one of the key issues.

To go back to some of the other questions that were raised during the debate: yes, we are committed to a social model and that is what we will be working on. I think Llyr asked if there could be a commission on disabled people. I can just assure him that we are totally committed to looking at the needs of disabled people and, in this job, I will be having that at the forefront of what we do. And I know there's been a few calls for me to apologise. Well, I don't intend to apologise today because this policy has come about in good faith. The recipients—people who are disabled who have been leading the campaign—don't want us to apologise. They're rejoicing at what we've achieved. So, I think that what we need to take forward today is to make sure that these new arrangements work and that we make sure that disabled people, this severely disabled group of people, have the best possible care they can have during these arrangements that we've put forward.

I call on Leanne Wood to reply to the debate. 

I thank Members for their contributions, and I'll be brief in my closing remarks. When Plaid Cymru tabled this debate, we'd had years of intransigence from this Government on this question. So, I am glad that that intransigence has finally ended. Now, we've heard this afternoon how many people have already had their support cut, and it's good that those people will have the opportunity to have their cases reviewed on a voluntary basis, but I very much hope that those people who have lost out on their support will have it fully reinstated. Otherwise, you're going to risk putting people through an extremely stressful process again for nothing at all.

Helen Mary Jones pointed to the understandable lack of confidence on the part of the recipients with this process. She also made an excellent point about Tory hypocrisy on the question of welfare benefits. Listening to them, it's like they've never spoken to somebody who's been knocked off PIP: so out of touch. So many people have been put through hell. Just yesterday, we heard the UK Government admit that the rise in food bank usage is down to universal credit. Surely that says all we need to know.

Thanks to Mike Hedges for reminding us of Labour Party policy—grateful to you for that. He also pointed out the campaigners' concerns about cuts to this provision from cash-strapped, austerity-hit local authorities. While guarantees may have been there now in the current financial year, the fear is what would have happened over the longer term, and it's pretty obvious what would have happened, really. As my colleague Llyr has pointed out, our Senedd here provides us with the opportunity to do things differently, to lift people up, to enhance people's support. 'We all value our independence', he said. Well, I say, 'Amen to that.' A commission to look at the whole picture facing disabled people is an excellent call, which I'm sure most of us will be able to get behind. 

I thank the Minister for her statement and I very much welcome the announcement that she made yesterday. The Minister said that some of the people could have had their support cut for a number of different reasons. I looked at the analysis from the deep-dive review and I've seen that one of the reasons given in that review was that some recipients may have had their allowance cut because they now receive support in a day-care setting. Well, the problem with this is austerity, and cash-strapped councils are all cutting their day-care provision because they can't afford it. So, what might exist for people now may well not exist in the future. So, looking at this again was an absolute must, and the impact of other decisions taken in other places have to be considered here as well. This question can't be considered in isolation.

To everyone who's paid tribute to Nathan Davies, who I met for the first time back in 2015, it may well be an overused word, but I have to say Nathan Davies is a real inspiration on this question. I'm pretty sure that we'll see him continue to campaign on disability rights. I very much hope that we do anyway, because he is very, very effective. He's shown what is possible with political campaigning. As some of the contributors have already said, the issue of the independent living fund isn't over. There's more to do after this pause, and I'm sure Nathan will be on the case. 

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? The motion without amendment is therefore agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.