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.