Well, diolch yn fawr. Thank you very much, Laura Anne Jones. Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. And I am very grateful for her support to join that celebration and recognition of the positive endorsement of the United Nations International Day of People With Disabilities, and thank you for not only welcoming the statement, but also bringing out other issues, particularly issues that I didn't address, for example, in terms of disability sport.

It is important that we start, of course, in terms of responding to the very many points that you've made, by looking at the impact that disabled people have been experiencing as a result of COVID-19, and the importance of us learning, listening and working with disabled people to address these issues. I'm very conscious of the fact that, earlier on in the pandemic, we recognised that there were many difficulties, for example, faced by blind and visually impaired people: social distancing, and you mentioned that point about changes to physical environment, and difficulties in terms of maintaining the 2m social distance. They were raised—those points—at an early disability equality forum, and it was very helpful that there was a briefing drafted by RNIB Cymru and Guide Dogs Cymru, back in May, highlighting concerns around proposed sustainable transport measures. And, of course, those points had to be reflected in equality impact assessments; Guide Dogs Cymru sending a briefing to both myself and to the Deputy Minister for economy and transport, then communicating that to local authorities in terms of changes to physical environments, and then, in June, as I said, publishing guidance entitled, 'Creating safer public places: coronavirus'. These are all key issues to explain how we have worked with disabled people and their organisations to try and get this right, as much as possible, in terms of impacts.

And, of course, it has been important too, the fact that we have made funding available to the third sector, and particularly to say £1.1 million of support to 24 organisations supporting disabled people—the voluntary services emergency fund. Fourteen organisations, including Sparkle (South Wales), Mirus-Wales, RNIB, Disability Can Do, Vale People First, Cerebral Palsy Cymru—all these organisations being able to be supported as a result of that fund that we made available.

It is important that you raise the issue of hate crime, and the fact that the hate crime statistics that we more recently received did still identify that 11 per cent were disability hate crimes. This is very concerning. We have got to raise awareness. We've provided funding of £22,000 to All Wales People First for a hate crime consultation with all their networks of adults with learning disabilities. It's crucial that that, of course, had to be done through remote sessions, engaging with All Wales People First, to explore options. But also I have written to the Home Secretary to urge the UK Government to recognise hate crime and, of course, that is something where we await now for the position from the publication of the Law Commission review.

You raise a number of key points, many of which I have addressed in my paper today, but I think it is very important—as you have yourself acknowledged—that the access to the elected office fund is going to make a difference. Disability Wales actually was awarded the contract to deliver that fund—pilot project—to provide support for disabled candidates, in both our Senedd and local government elections, and we hope that fund will help them to compete on a level playing field with non-disabled candidates. So, I do welcome all your comments, on particularly recognising the scope and the recognition that it is through working with and learning from disabled people who want action—not just listening, they want action—that we can then bring this together and account for ourselves in the statement today.