I’d like to start by thanking the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee for producing what is a really excellent report. I’m not a member of that committee, but the issues it covers are of great concern to many of my constituents. And I’d go further to say that for a substantial period of time since I've been elected, helping constituents who've been denied a blue badge has comprised the largest single element within my casework, so I'm really pleased to be able to contribute to this debate.

I’d like to focus on the experiences of people within the Cynon Valley, noting how the report’s recommendations reflect the realities of their lives, starting with recommendation 1. Changes to the eligibility criteria that have occurred are to be welcomed, in my opinion, and as other speakers have said, blue badges are lifelines to enable their holders to access essential services, to enhance their choices and empower them to live independent lives.

It is right that the application process recognises other conditions and diagnoses—that blue badges are available to all who could benefit from them. But I was struck by the evidence given to the committee that this isn’t happening universally. For example, the National Autistic Society Cymru are quoted in the report saying that the potential benefits from including cognitive impairments hasn’t been truly recognised. And this is something that I have seen really strongly within my casework. I've dealt with numerous cases where people with anxiety and other mental health issues have been denied a badge. From my casework, I’d say that this group are disproportionately affected when there appears to be any move towards the tightening up of applications. These are debilitating illnesses that affect people’s ability to function socially, when a blue badge would really help the holder to get out and engage more.

I’ve also been approached by constituents with significant health issues that affect their mobility, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. However, because they strive to overcome their condition, they can be affected because their level of mobility does not meet the eligibility criteria. Neither does it appear to take account of the fact that people with ongoing health problems feel better on some days than on others.

I also have a constituent who told me that they could receive one of the benefits that would automatically entitle them to a blue badge. However, their financial situation meant that they didn’t feel they wanted to apply for that particular benefit. But as a result of not applying for it, they lost out because their application for a blue badge was then automatically turned down. Now, this seems like a ludicrous situation to me, and I think we really need to get the eligibility criteria right.

Similarly, I would support recommendation 2. Some of the most heartbreaking, inexplicable cases that I and my staff have had to deal with have involved terminally ill applicants being denied a blue badge.

Recommendation 13—dealing with renewal—is also crucial. The most frequent reason for people to contact me, as I am sure is the case with other AMs, is for support when an application has been refused. In many of these cases, it has been a renewal that has been turned down, and constituents who had been affected in this way were people with serious, life-limiting conditions who had heldblue badges for many years, whose conditions had not got any better, but, despite this, had been refused the blue badge that they had relied upon. I'll give you just one example. A constituent of mine had a plethora of physical and mental health difficulties, and she'd been using a blue badge for over 20 years. She was denied a renewal on account of her not using a walking stick. The use of a walking stick was taken as evidence of walking difficulties. What wasn’t taken into account, despite lots of medical evidence that had been supplied from professionals who'd worked with her, was the fact that my constituent could not use a walking stick because she was recovering from breast cancer, had had a mastectomy, and had lost the strength that she needed in her arm to actually hold one.

Dealing with appeals, I’d also like to mention recommendations 9 and 10. I would like to see some form of formal appeal process. In Rhondda Cynon Taf, there is such a capacity for unsuccessful applicants to appeal, but many of the cases that I have dealt with are applicants who've been turned down on appeal before coming to me. So despite this process, I think there is still something that is going on.

To conclude, I feel we need to introduce twin principles of responsibility and clarity into this system. It's been more than a little frustrating, when I've raised constituent experiences, when Welsh Government have told me that the problem is how local authorities interpret the guidelines, and councils say the fault lies with how those guidelines are written. The recommendations the report sets out could introduce responsibility and clarity into the system, which will only benefit my constituents' experiences of the blue badge scheme.