As you stated, today is the International Day of Disabled People. The theme this year of the international day is 'the future is accessible'. In March 2013, I chaired an event here—'Towards an Enabling Wales: improving employment prospects for disabled people'—as then co-chair of the cross-party group on disability, which I chair today. In my introductory comments then, I detailed the purpose of the group: to address key pan-impairment disability equality issues, including implementation of the social model of disability and the right to independent living, emphasising that people are disabled by society, not themselves, that we must work together to tackle the barriers to access and inclusion for all, and that everyone must be allowed independence, choice and control in their lives.

In September 2013, I chaired a parallel meeting in north Wales with the theme of disability and employment. In March 2017, I sponsored and spoke at the Engage to Change project event in the Assembly. Led by Learning Disability Wales, the project was funded for five years by the Big Lottery Fund in partnership with the Welsh Government to support 1,000 young people in Wales with a learning disability, learning difficulty and/or autism spectrum condition to gain employability skills and find sustainable employment. There's no reference to this excellent project in your statement, and I'd be grateful if, either now or subsequently, you could provide progress on that, particularly as it's designed to embed sustainability from the end of that project.

As you say, many of the barriers that disabled people face are illegal. We have in Wales, as in the UK, under the Equality Act 2010, a public sector equality duty, and regrettably, I still find, when representing disabled constituents with public bodies, they rarely, if ever, volunteer the existence of the duty until I make them aware of it. And that has also applied to employment or disabled people seeking to negotiate perhaps the planning process for self-employment purposes. So, how can we give that a greater push, not to make local authorities and others feel this is an imposition, but an opportunity to make things work better for everybody, improve lives and ultimately reduce pressure on statutory services?

As you say, more needs to be done to reach the UK average employment rate for disabled people, where the figure is 48.6 per cent in Wales. But, in terms of autism, National Autistic Society research in 2016 found that only 16 per cent of working-age autistic people were in full-time employment. That had flatlined for a decade, and the figure was believed to be even lower in Wales. So, how do you propose to focus not only on the general disability rights agenda, in terms of employment, but on the disparity that exists across different conditions, and also the disability pay gap, which in Wales remains, I believe, at 9.9 per cent between disabled and non-disabled people?

You state you're exploring opportunities to provide disabled people's employer champions. In fact, at the cross-party autism group meeting I chaired in Prestatyn on 18 October, Ben Morris from NEWCIS, which you may well know—the North East Wales Carers Information Service—discussed his work supporting carers and autistic people to find work, as well as his own experiences as an autistic person in the workplace. And he said that, while autism awareness is increasing, the number of autistic people in the workplace was not. He said he'd worked with employers to help them realise that their responsibility to make reasonable adjustments doesn't just begin when they hire someone, but that they're missing out on hiring lots of qualified autistic and disabled people because they don't make adjustments in their recruitment process. And he said his work also involves helping employers to understand the qualities of autistic and disabled employees and the value of having a diverse workforce. So, in driving that agenda forward, do you agree that the champions that you propose should have lived and/or direct experience rather than be well-meaning people, but people who do not have that key added asset?

You state that assessing options to build on the current DWP Disability Confident scheme—or you are assessing options to build on that, and changing the nature of conversations with business. Of course, the UK DWP Disability Confident scheme helps employers make the most of opportunities provided by employing disabled people, it's voluntary, and has been developed by employers and representatives of disabled people. They're working with employers through Disability Confident to ensure disabled people and those with long-term health conditions have the opportunity to fulfil their potential and realise their aspirations. And I've met some incredible DWP officers working on this programme in Wales—most recently only a couple of weeks ago. How are you ensuring that you will complement rather than replicate this work, and ensure that, together, you're adding value rather than doing the same thing?

Similarly, you refer to the Working Wales employability advice service. Speaking here last year, after visiting Remploy in Wrexham to discuss their launch of the UK Government employment support programme, the Work and Health Programme, in Wales, I stated the Welsh Government must therefore provide assurance that its new employability programme adds to rather than replicates that programme also. And I wonder if you could confirm how you're ensuring that, by working in partnership in the way you describe, you're working with the complementary DWP programme. Similarly, the Access to Work programme—