6. Statement by the Deputy Minister for Social Services: Age Friendly Wales: Our strategy for an Ageing Society

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:39 pm on 30 November 2021.

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Photo of Julie Morgan Julie Morgan Labour 4:39, 30 November 2021

I thank you for those comments. Just to deal with what I can of all of those points: aspiration and little detail, I think we have specified specifically the money that we are allocating in order to bring about age-friendly communities. We've done this in conjunction with the older person's commission, and each local authority is taking forward plans to bring forward more age-friendly communities in their areas. And if they become members of the World Health Organization network, it will be monitored, so there's quite a lot of detail in all this. So, I think it's quite wrong to say that this is short of detail.

This is also very strongly supported by the older persons' commissioner; in fact, she took the original initiative, going around local authorities trying to encourage them to have age-friendly communities. I think it's absolutely vital that we do this, and I think there is a lot of detail in the action plan. Of course, it takes quite a long time to work out the action plan, because it is being done co-productively, so that is very important.

Obviously, older people want to be safe. Many of them have said to me, and have said to all of us, how reassured they are about the fact that the Welsh Government has been cautious about the way it has dealt with the COVID pandemic. They've been very pleased that we have been cautious and that we have had vaccine passports, so I think it's important to remember that.

In terms of the budget, obviously the budget will be announced next month and we'll see what's coming for health and social care. But I'm sure you will recognise that already the budget takes up nearly half of the Welsh Government budget, and we certainly spend a lot of our money on health and social care.

Now, to turn to the last point that you make about the inquiry, I think you probably heard at First Minister's questions that the First Minister asked the Prime Minister about guarantees with an inquiry that is UK-wide, because it is absolutely essential that the views of the people of Wales are taken into account. It's absolutely essential that those people who have lost people, that their experiences are heard. So, the First Minister has been pressing the Prime Minister for that and I think he said today that he has received a response. I don't think we can avoid the fact that the evidence that will come up will show the interconnected nature of the way that the pandemic has had to be dealt with, but I absolutely agree that the experiences of Welsh patients and Welsh relatives must be taken into account. Any UK-wide inquiry must include that, and I know that the First Minister also is very sure that that should happen.