Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:34 pm on 17 July 2019.

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Photo of Mark Isherwood Mark Isherwood Conservative 2:34, 17 July 2019

Diolch, Llywydd. I want to focus my questions on your responsibilities as Minister for fair work and welfare reform. I note the Welsh Government website says your fair work responsibilities include both opportunity for access, growth and progression, and for safe, healthy and inclusive working environments.

On Monday, as you may be aware, I was privileged to sponsor the young disabled persons political skills day event in the Welsh Parliament to celebrate UN World Youth Skills Day and the skills of young disabled people in Wales, organised by Leonard Cheshire Cymru, Children in Wales, and Whizz-Kidz. As I said, disabled young people are currently one of the most marginalised groups, and, all too often, society has failed to recognise their talent, their creativity, their ability to see the world in a way that's often different to others, their lived experience, which can help identify and tackle the barriers of access and inclusion they face. And those young people raised many matters with me and other members of the question panel later that morning, particularly—not exclusively—around the barriers they face, not only to employment, but to the type of employment that maximises the skills that each of them individually has. For example, one of the questions was: 'What more should be done to help us understand our benefits to make informed choices about work, and how are people with disabilities expected to get a job when there's a lack of accessible facilities such as Changing Places toilets?'

So, how will you incorporate those needs, those wants, those ambitions, those opportunities, into your work on fair work and welfare reform, noting, for example, the joint work you've done with the Department for Work and Pensions on Communities for Work, the work that Remploy Cymru is doing with the work and health programme, the DWP disability confidence scheme, and, of course, the Access to Work scheme?