Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Minister for European Transition (in respect of his European Transition responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 2:51 pm on 7 October 2020.
It's very nice to hear your warm words about older people now; it's a shame that none of them were contained in any of the documents that were published by your office yesterday. And, of course, you didn't reference older people either in your statement to this Senedd. And perhaps, frankly, if you'd been more supportive of my older people's rights Bill when it was presented to this Senedd, we might be in a slightly different position. I can assure you that the commissioner's office has made it clear to me that she had to put the request in to your office for the meeting, which you eventually did have, and not the other way around.
Look, we all know that older people have faced serious consequences as a result of the pandemic and, in fact, they've been disproportionately impacted by it. We know that they're more likely to die, they're more likely to suffer serious illness, more likely to have to self-isolate, more likely to suffer the impact of loneliness as a result of this pandemic. And, of course, they're more likely to be victims of the even longer delays that we are now going to have in accessing NHS tests and treatments as a result of the backlog that has built up in our health service during the pandemic. Now, the recovery plan you published yesterday, for all your warm words today, does not address a single one of those challenges. So, I ask you: will you now agree with me that there needs to be a further round-table specifically focusing on the needs of older people, bringing experts together, including the older people's commissioner and other important stakeholders in the third sector and the public sector, so that we can make sure that we get this right and that older people can be confident that the Welsh Government is actually listening to and addressing their concerns, not, frankly, ignoring them, as you have been to date?