The following amendment has been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Lesley Griffiths.

Item 7 this afternoon is the second Welsh Conservatives' debate on habilitation training for sight-impaired children. I call on Altaf Hussain to move the motion. 

Motion NDM8205 Darren Millar

To propose that the Senedd:

1. Notes research from Guide Dogs Cymru suggesting that 2,000 sight-impaired children would benefit from habilitation training.

2. Further notes that habilitation training is vital for developing personal mobility, navigation and independent living skills for sight-impaired children.

3. Is disappointed that a number of Welsh local authorities do not offer habilitation training, despite their duty to have due regard to Article 26 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

4. Calls on the Welsh Government to:

a) urgently provide a workforce plan on habilitation services; and

b) ensure local authorities employ at least one habilitation specialist per 100 children who are visually impaired.

Motion moved.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. It is a pleasure to be moving this important debate this afternoon. Making childhood equal is sadly not something we have excelled at. Article 26 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities states that, 

'States Parties shall take effective and appropriate measures, including through peer support, to enable persons with disabilities to attain and maintain maximum independence, full physical, mental, social and vocational ability, and full inclusion and participation in all aspects of life. To that end, States Parties shall organize, strengthen and extend comprehensive habilitation and rehabilitation services and programmes, particularly in the areas of health, employment, education and social services, in such a way that these services and programmes: 

'a) Begin at the earliest possible stage, and are based on the multidisciplinary assessment of individual needs and strengths;

'b) Support participation and inclusion in the community and all aspects of society, are voluntary, and are available to persons with disabilities as close as possible to their own communities, including in rural areas.

'2. States Parties shall promote the development of initial and continuing training for professionals and staff working in habilitation and rehabilitation services.

'3. States Parties shall promote the availability, knowledge and use of assistive devices and technologies, designed for persons with disabilities, as they relate to habilitation and rehabilitation'.

Despite this obvious duty to provide habilitation support, some local authorities in Wales offer none at all. According to Guide Dogs Cymru, large parts of Wales have very poor provision of habilitation training. They believe that there are approximately 2,000 sight-impaired children and young people who would benefit from such training.

But, what are we talking about here? What is habilitation training? Essentially, it is a way of teaching children and young people with sight loss the skills that we all develop early on. A child or a young person who can see typically develops a range of independence skills as they grow up with their family. These skills include being able to move around without hurting themselves and being able to get where they want to be safely. Independence skills include the practical and social skills of washing, dressing, eating, drinking, shopping, cooking and finding friends. Sighted children and young people learn these skills within their families, largely by watching other family members. Children and young people with vision impairment cannot watch and learn in the same way as a sighted child. As a result, many key foundation skills may be missed without additional help and support. Habilitation training provides alternative ways of learning, using the child or young person’s other senses of touch, hearing, taste, smell and balance. This approach develops a child’s early movement skills and is useful for children with a range of vision or none. Habilitation in the early years also helps to develop children’s awareness of their own bodies, as well as the child’s awareness of the space around them when still or moving and the use of their senses. Habilitation specialists work closely with parents, school staff and other professionals, as well as one to one with the child. They are qualified to teach practical strategies and skills to maximise independence, and work in both mainstream and specialised settings, as well as in the home and out in the community. Habilitation training maximises the personal independence of a child or young person with visual needs, as well as helps to prepare them for moving on as an independent young adult to college, university, apprenticeships or work.

Last October I had the pleasure to meet Amy, a young woman who had benefited from habilitation support from Guide Dogs Cymru. Amy told me how the support she received gave her the confidence to go to university, and was even planning a trip to America, a lifelong dream that would not have been possible without habilitation support. Habilitation enables these young people to do the things that we all take for granted, things we all do without a second thought, things that everyone should be able to do, whether that is going out to play with friends or going travelling in your late teens.

Without habilitation support for Welsh children and young people, how can we possibly hope to create an equal Wales? If we don’t have equality of opportunity, then we don’t have equality. Sadly for visually impaired children and young people in Wales, where you live has a huge impact on your opportunities. There is a postcode lottery for habilitation services. Provision is very stretched across north Wales, where one specialist covers a very large area. In Ceredigion, Conwy, Merthyr Tydfil and Pembrokeshire, there is no service at all. There are just 11.4 full-time equivalent habilitation specialists covering the whole of Wales, well short of what is needed to provide at least one specialist per 100 visually impaired children. As our motion calls for, we need to urgently implement a workforce plan, a strategic commitment to a long-term solution. Whilst we dither and delay, blind and partially sighted children are missing out on vital specialist support to enable them to achieve their full potential. Ministers can find a few million pounds down the back of the Welsh Treasury sofa in order to bail out a failing airport, yet they do nothing to support thousands of visually impaired young people in Wales.

I'm also disappointed that the Welsh Government have amended our motion to pass the buck onto local government. For years, Welsh Ministers have been told that specialist habilitation provision has been lacking, and yet no action has been taken, no plans put in place. We can’t leave national planning to local authorities. Welsh Ministers are ultimately responsible for ensuring councils comply with their duties, as well as ensuring Wales has the workforce needed to provide habilitation support to our young people. I urge colleagues to stand up for visually impaired young people by supporting our motion today and rejecting the Government’s amendment.

With the right workforce plan in place and sufficient habilitation specialists employed to meet the needs of visually impaired children and young people, we can make childhood equal. By removing barriers—that we, non-impaired, ironically, don’t see—we can ensure every visually impaired child in Wales has equality of opportunity and is allowed to thrive. Diolch yn fawr.

The Llywydd took the Chair.

I have selected the amendment to the motion, and I call on the Minister for health to move formally amendment 1.

Amendment 1—Lesley Griffiths

Delete points 3 and 4 and replace with:

3. Calls on all Welsh local authorities to offer habilitation training, in line with their duty to have due regard to Article 26 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

4. Calls on the Welsh Government to engage with relevant stakeholders to help develop an improvement plan for habilitation services for children who are visually impaired, to include consideration of their training needs and how to meet these.

Amendment 1 moved.

Formally.

It is formally moved. Therefore, Sioned Williams.

Diolch, Llywydd. Plaid Cymru welcomes this debate today, and we will be supporting the Conservatives' motion, and that's because it's clear that many of our young people and children in Wales with vision impairments are being failed in the sense that they are not being supported to live as autonomously, independently and freely as they are entitled to, as noted in article 26 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We in Wales have prided ourselves on leading the way when it comes to children's rights. The Welsh Government has had to have had due regard to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and article 23 says that

'a child with a disability has the right to live a full and decent life with dignity and, as far as possible, independence and to play an active part in the community.'

The Welsh Government has committed also to progressive steps to ensure the rights of disabled people. The stated aim of their disability rights taskforce is to remove inequalities experienced by disabled people, and among the priority areas of that programme of work are children and young people.

You would think, therefore, that the findings in an article in the British Journal of Visual Impairment authored by Guide Dogs UK, the University of Liverpool and Bangor University that the key to empowering and supporting children and young people with vision impairment to achieve their potential lies in the delivery of habilitation training would be wholly aligned with the Government's vision. It is, therefore, disappointing to hear from Guide Dogs Cymru that there are potentially 2,000 children and young people with vision impairment who would benefit from the better provision of habilitation training that is not currently being provided. The research that informs this article found that 37 per cent of parents they surveyed reported that their child hadn't received mobility training at all during the previous year. Similarly, in 2019, the Royal National Institute of Blind People suggested as much as a third of children with visual impairments are suffering as a result of a lack of money in council budgets to pay for the extra support they need. This was before even accounting for the current inflationary and budgetary crises facing our local authorities at the moment.

So, it's evident, we believe, that Welsh Government have to do more work alongside our local authorities to ensure this essential service is provided to these children and young people who need it in order to achieve the independent living skills noted in the motion, which I'm sure every Member would support as crucially important, and as outlined by Altaf Hussain.

I'd also like to briefly highlight some other points made by the RNIB in relation to this matter that perhaps the Conservatives could perhaps push their Westminster counterparts to take action on if they truly have the best interests of blind and partially sighted people at heart. Because, even before this cost-of-living crisis, one in five blind and partially sighted people said they had some or great difficulty in making ends meet, a situation that has only now worsened in the light of the current economic pressures. People with sight loss are twice as likely to live in a household that has a total income of £1,500 a month or less, and, from this spring, they will be spending upwards of 16 per cent of their total income on energy. Many are reducing the use of lighting and assistive technologies, which are crucial, of course, both to their safety and which support everyday independent living. Some blind and partially sighted people will this year no longer be eligible for the Warm Home discount either.

In their recent cost-of-living survey, the RNIB found that more than a third of respondents said they often skipped meals. One said, 'I am missing a meal today. I have a small bowl of cereal, then miss lunch and have something cheap in the evening like beans on toast. This is the only way I'm surviving. I'm also taking less showers now, which makes me feel dirty and uncomfortable.' People with sight loss are more reliant on benefits as only one in four registered blind and partially sighted people of working age are in employment. So, while supporting your motion today, Plaid Cymru asks the Conservatives, while calling on the Welsh Government to do all it can to support children and young people with sight impairment and ensure they're funding and supporting local authorities in Wales to provide that support needed for habilitation and other services, to also call on their Government in Westminster to properly support disabled people through the benefits system. Because, Llywydd, no-one in twenty-first century Wales, least of all those with disabilities, should have to skip a meal or feel unable to afford to keep clean. Diolch.

I wanted to start by saying that, although I recognise providing for the complexity of disabilities that exist in Wales is challenging, I'm nonetheless still surprised, given all the information that we know about the positive impact of helping those with disabilities to gain independence and to live prosperous and fulfilling lives, and how it can bring positive contributions to a wider society, that people are still finding themselves having to fight for the support that they are fully entitled to, and have to work so hard to get those in power to take their needs seriously.

Indeed, I am astonished that, in Wales, we have a postcode lottery to habilitation services. It is simply not right that some local authorities do not provide this support, and it’s wholly unfair to those and their families who've been left to source these services on their own at one of the most difficult, stressful and uncertain times in their lives. It is also wrong, for those who are lucky enough to have a local authority support them, that they find themselves having to jump through so many hoops before they receive those services.

Whilst there is an agreement when access to habilitation is required, the experience of those who need the service is still very poor. They find that there is little to patchy understanding of what habilitation entails, why it is needed, and the length of time the support is required for. The process of receiving habilitation training is, and continues to be, a source of great worry.

We know that habilitation is best begun as early as possible when sight loss is diagnosed, and is particularly important for children in early years, because it helps not only to develop a child’s awareness of their own body and condition, but an awareness of the space around them, whilst still developing the use of their other senses. So, in many ways, it is time critical for these services to be available, and for people to receive them as quickly as possible. Having to spend several months or even years waiting to receive habilitation not only makes it more difficult for individuals, but is counterproductive, because it often means that these services are required for much longer.

Astonishingly, research shows that the older a person is, the less likely they are to receive habilitation support. So, it is not acceptable that, in a number of local authority areas, young people with vision impairment are not receiving mobility and independence training at a key time in their education. The difference that habilitation support can make is profound. It can unlock so much potential from children and young people with vision impairment. It will enable them to fully engage with their education and help them prepare for the world around them, such as moving to college or university, applying for apprenticeships or work, and to live as an independent young adult.

Furthermore, we know that there's a high social return on investment, and that, for every £1 spent on habilitation services, £7.13 is created in social value. While some of the value relates to parents, the majority of the value is based on the children and young people themselves. Indeed, a habilitation service creates £5.72 for every £1 spent, solely from service user outcomes alone.

Finally, I want to finish by highlighting the benefits of habilitation felt by people. The improvement in confidence and the ability to carry out tasks for themselves is life changing, and this in turn improves emotional well-being and mental and physical health, which they desperately need. With this in mind, I would urge everyone here to fully support this motion. The Welsh Government needs to act urgently to ensure that people are getting the services they require. They need to help remove the stress and worry for those affected by reducing red tape and the hurdles that people go through. And they also need to finally provide much-needed leadership on this, to get local authorities to provide the services they're duty bound to provide. Thank you.

I'm pleased to take part in this debate this afternoon. Coming from a rehabilitation background in physiotherapy in the NHS, it's pleasing to see the work being done to improve children's mobility, navigation and independent living skills, in order to better the lives of people who are visually impaired or blind. I think that should be celebrated.

I'm also pleased to see the support for the idea of this motion from Guide Dogs Cymru, as I think that the role that guide dogs play in supporting the blind and visually impaired is remarkable and also needs celebrating. It's quite incredible, really, what versatility dogs show in their training to become guide dogs, and how adaptable they become to their environment, which is a celebration in itself, as it supports many people who are most in need of them. Most of the dogs that are used for guide dogs are Labradors and retrievers, and they can be the most loving, caring—greedy, but loyal—dog breeds you will find, and serve the blind and visually impaired so well in their duties.

I and the Welsh Conservatives firmly believe that everyone in Wales deserves to live their life with as much independence as possible, including those with disabilities such as blindness and visual impairment. Guide dogs are often the greatest way, as I’ve mentioned, for visually impaired people to go out and live their daily lives. Habilitation training allows young people to be young people by being able to find new friends and do normal things with them, such as go out eating, shopping and playing, just to name a few examples. Equally, it also allows young people to continue their independence into further education and employment.

It’s important to note also that the Welsh Conservatives respect and admire the parents of these young people, who are the first habilitation trainers and do fantastic jobs. However, there is a need for professional practitioners to provide qualified training that supports both the young people and indeed the parents as well, and the cost of up to £600,000 for providing at least 20 habilitation specialists is a price worth paying, in my opinion, to ensure that this Parliament believes in giving young people in Wales independence and the easiest life possible. I’d urge Members to support our motion unamended this afternoon. Thank you.

I’ve been very fortunate since having been elected that I was able to work quite closely with Andrea Gordon. Now, she’s from Guide Dogs Cymru and, through her, I was able to meet numerous individuals who actually have visual impairments, and it really made me understand a lot more about their needs and what they have to have in life. Some of the things that we often don’t even think about can be huge barriers for people and children with visual impairments, and it’s vital that we as Members from every party do all we can to make all aspects of our society accessible for those with visual impairments, and also those with disabilities as well.

For me, habilitation training is indeed the key to helping set children and young people up for the rest of their lives. Not only does it go a long way in helping them live independently, but it also helps prepare them, as my colleagues have mentioned, for college, work, apprenticeships, ultimately university, and later life as well. Habilitation training would teach those with visual needs the vital skills that other children would perhaps have traditionally learned through sight. RNIB Cymru estimates that there are 265 children with sight loss in the Aneurin Bevan health board, all of whom would greatly benefit from habilitation training.

Now, as I mentioned, habilitation training, which is a vital part of children’s educational development, equips young people with listening skills, social skills, toilet training, dressing skills, money recognition, and even shopping skills. It can also teach people how to travel independently, use public transport, assess risk, and also prepare their own meals. I’m sure that everyone here will ultimately agree that these are essential skills and every single person and child should have and needs these sorts of skills in today’s day and age.

You cannot put a price on a person’s freedom and independence. As my colleagues Gareth Davies and Altaf Hussain have mentioned, simply employing at least 20 specialists to offer training to the estimated 2,000 visually impaired children in Wales would roughly cost £600,000 at most. When you compare that to some of the mammoth sums that the Government has spent on some frivolous projects—and I won't repeat what my colleagues have said—such as Gilestone farm, and Cardiff Airport, it really is a drop in the ocean.

It is paramount that this Government comes forward with a workforce plan and engages with councils all across Wales to make sure that they have at least one specialist per 100 children who are indeed visually impaired. We need to ensure equality and fairness, because there is nothing more heartbreaking for me to hear than a child being denied essential services just because of a postcode lottery system. Without a doubt, there are some incredible charities out there, supporting visually impaired children and young people going forward, but now it’s time for the Government to step in and take action. We can all make a real difference to the lives of thousands of visually impaired children in all four corners of Wales, so I really hope that you all support our motion here today. Thank you so much.

The health Minister now to contribute to the debate, Eluned Morgan.

Diolch yn fawr. I would like to thank the Conservative Party for bringing forward this important debate about habilitation support for visually impaired children in Wales. I must say, I agree with the sentiment in the motion that there is more that should be done for this group of children. I note the Guide Dogs Cymru research that states that 2,000 sight-impaired children could benefit from access to habilitation training here in Wales, and many of you have noted that in your contributions. That is an important point. However, it is important also to understand the need for both habilitation and rehabilitation services in the round.

Providing for the social care and related needs of their local populations is an important local responsibility. Under the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, local authorities and health boards must work together via regional partnership boards to assess, plan for and meet the care and support needs of their population, including in relation to sensory impairments.

Through the implementation of the Act, we have set out clear and unambiguous rights and responsibilities in relation to social care and related matters. That includes local authorities having regard to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities when they discharge their functions. The expectations set out in the statutory framework under the Act also include duties on local authorities to establish and maintain a register of sight-impaired people, and provide them with habilitation services. These duties apply to all people—children as well as adults. 

To help understand the position in relation to adults, the Welsh Government funded the Wales Council of the Blind to scope and consider the services and support needed within this sector, and they engaged with stakeholders across Wales to consider service improvements. The final report highlighted the need for local and national initiatives aimed at providing training for new rehabilitation officers in Wales, as well as supporting existing officers through professional development training packages.

Following this, in May 2022, the Deputy Minister for Social Services met with Wales Vision Forum to discuss some of the issues around the provision of rehabilitation and habilitation support across Wales. Since this meeting, officials within Welsh Government have continued to engage with Guide Dogs Cymru representatives to try and understand more about some of the challenges that exist with regard to access to this type of support for children and their families here in Wales, thus tying in this work to the work already done in relation to adult services.

From this work, we acknowledge that, in some cases, access to habilitation training can be essential in enabling a child to develop personal mobility, navigation and independent living skills. Not only do habilitation officers work with the child, but they also work with the extended family to support them and teach them skills to enable them to effectively support the child to learn key life skills, through listening and touching.

We know that the provision of habilitation specialists is variable across Wales, with some local authority areas having better access to this service than others. We also understand that, like many others in Wales, these services have been significantly impacted by the pandemic. Indeed, I understand that Guide Dogs Cymru have been providing some support for areas with little to no access, and I'm really grateful for the support that they've been able to offer to date.

Therefore, taking account of the recommendations in the report, and further official-level discussions, a letter sent by the Deputy Minister to the Wales Vision Forum last November indicated that the Welsh Government would be keen to facilitate further engagement with representatives of the forum to identify ways to take forward improvements in habilitation. We believe it's important, reflecting the spirit of this debate, for that work to include consideration being given to children and young people's training needs, and how best to meet these. But I don't believe that it's wise to separate out workforce planning from the assessment of need, or to take away the role of developing these plans from those who have the responsibility and practical experience on the ground of social service delivery, and this is reflected in my amendments to the motion proposed.

In closing, I have spoken principally about the role of social care, habilitation and rehabilitation, but health services also have an important role to play. Health professionals refer people with sensory loss to social care at the earliest opportunity to enable them to access services and support when they need it. But it's also vital that they play a role in treatment and care for such loss.

NHS Wales eye and ear healthcare services are delivered differently from the rest of the UK. We have a much stronger emphasis on more treatment and care being available within the community, and our primary care services are underpinned by prudent healthcare principles. This puts a new emphasis on what would work best for patients and makes the most effective use of all available resources across primary and secondary care. Wales continues to be a leader in optometry and audiology provision of services, and the other UK devolved nations follow our lead. Scotland and Northern Ireland are already replicating the work that we've pioneered, and England are now seeking Welsh Government advice. They're particularly keen to learn about developments in primary cluster areas.

I began by acknowledging that we are very aware of the challenges in this area, and I'll end by making it clear that we will continue to work with local authorities and other partners, with the aim of promoting comprehensive habilitation services to support children in Wales. Diolch yn fawr.

James Evans to reply to the debate.

Diolch, Llywydd, and it's been a really important debate today, and I think it's really important that we've heard contributions from right across the Chamber, from Members in Plaid Cymru and from Members in my own group, of how we can raise this really, really important topic here. And it's vitally important for some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

We opened the debate with Altaf Hussain, who talked about article 26 and reminded us of our obligations to the most vulnerable people in our society. Sometimes, we forget what we owe to the most vulnerable people in society, and it's important that we all recognise the duties that we have. And that's why it's very important, as Altaf said, that we offer that habilitation training across Wales, as we need to make sure that everybody has opportunities to develop and ensure that they have the opportunities to live an independent life. And that was raised by a lot of people here, and it's not just for this, but for disabled people right across Wales, that we do as much as we can to improve their lives. As Altaf Hussain said, there are many parts of Wales where this training isn't even provided, and that's a failing that we have here for those vulnerable children across Wales. And Altaf also talked about the workforce plans and not having those in place, and I think it's very important that we have those, so we can identify the service needs and where we need to put people in place to make sure we can roll out this training right across Wales.

Sioned Williams, I was very grateful that Plaid Cymru will be supporting our motion this evening, and it's very good that we can work in this cross-party way across the Senedd, so we can raise these important issues and actually highlight them and work together for the interests of children right across Wales. I think you mentioned the third of children who are suffering due to local authority budgets, and I think it's really right to highlight that, because we do not want to see children in Wales, who have visual impairments, suffering; it's just simply not right in a twenty-first century society. And you also mentioned the UK Conservative Government and things that they could do, and I'll just put on record that we on these benches did ask for the UK Government to raise benefits in line with inflation. That's something that we did on our benches, and we will hold our own Government to account where we think they are failing. That is why we are the Welsh Conservative Party, not the Conservative Party in England, and we'll do as much as we can to hold our Government to account where we think they're not doing things correctly.

Joel James talked very passionately about giving people the power to listen to their needs, and I think that's very, very important that we do listen to service users when we do design these systems as well, to make sure that they're included in what we do. Because if we don't include young people in what we want to do, then I don't think we'll ever have a system that works for them. That's something we do too often is design a system without listening to the people who use it, and then I don't think it's ever fit for purpose. Joel, you also talked about the economic elements of why habilitation training is very, very important. For every £1 spent, that £5.72 back to the economy in how they actually contribute to society, I think we don't think about that enough when we look at health outcomes right across Wales. This is a very important issue here, but right across Wales. If we just invested a bit more money upfront in services like this to help disabled people, we could actually really improve the economic outcomes across Wales and really enable those people to live the full lives that they should by right be entitled to live.

Gareth Davies, you talked about Labradors. It's not a dog breed that I particularly like; I'm a big fan of spaniels, but I recognise the important work that those dogs do, actually, to really help those people with visual impairments. And I just want to put on the record the thanks to the people who actually rear guide dog puppies and bring them through the system and take them into training. I think those people do get forgotten about sometimes. I think it's important to recognise all those people who do that, which actually helps the service as a whole. I know my colleague Mark Isherwood hosted an event in the Senedd not so long ago about this. I think it was important to get, yet again, that cross-party consensus over this.  

Will you take an intervention?

Yes, I will take an intervention quite happily.

You mentioned the role of guide dogs there, and my mind actually took me back to the event that you mentioned that Mark Isherwood hosted in the Senedd a few weeks ago. It struck me that you can't really put a price on independence. Independence is one of those words that we bandy around sometimes in these debates and we forget what that really means, that independence to be able to follow our dreams, our pursuits and the things that we want to do. So, the work that goes on in terms of training those guide dogs is really important, I'm sure you'll agree.

That's very true. Actually, one person at that event that my colleague Sam Kurtz talked to—I'm sure other Members did—had a visual impairment. I took the time to talk to that person myself, and they actually said that they'd had habilitation training, and they found it very useful, but the dog that was with them was also that lifeline to them. So, you're totally right.

Natasha Asghar picked up this point as well, that you cannot put a price on somebody's independence. Most of us probably in this Chamber take for granted our independence, and I think sometimes we don't recognise that there are some people who really are suffering at home who live very isolated lives because they do not have access to the services that they need to help them to live that independent life. I do not think, as Natasha Asghar said, that we can put a price on the independence of that person, because I think a lot of people take it for granted. It's very important that issues like that are raised in this Chamber so we all understand and recognise those people.

Then we moved on to the Minister. I agreed with some of the things that the Minister said. You'll be very surprised, Minister, to hear that, I'm sure. But I'm disappointed that the Government has amended this motion. I don't think our motion was overly political. We actually put the motion down—and Guide Dogs Cymru helped us informally with this motion—because this is what organisations are telling us that they want to see. I think it's very, very important that, when organisations come forward, we are the democratically elected Parliament here and we represent those organisations in this Chamber to get those issues raised. When the Government amended it and basically passed the buck on to local authorities, who I think have failed sometimes in their duties here—as Altaf said before, there are vast swathes of Wales where there is no service at all—I think it's incumbent on the Government to step up here to make sure that we have that service right across Wales and the workforce in place right across Wales so that people who are visually impaired and those young children who need that habilitation training are not left at home and they're not forgotten, because it is very important to their future development, their education and their future life that they have the opportunity to live that full life, as we all live in this Chamber.

I hope we can all agree that it simply is not good enough that 2,000 children in Wales who are visually impaired are in need of support. The support they're getting is dire, and I think it's about time that we did our jobs in this Senedd and make sure that we represent the views of those disabled people across Wales, and especially those vulnerable children who are in desperate need of this vital support. Diolch, Llywydd.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] There is objection. We will therefore defer voting until voting time. 

Voting deferred until voting time.

Unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung, we will move to voting time. There are more than three Members who wish for the bell to be rung, so we will adjourn and ring the bell.

The bell was rung to call Members to the Chamber.