Most AMs want extra disabled cash

Most assembly members have backed a call for £21m to be safeguarded to support disabled children in Wales.

The figure is the equivalent of the sum being spent on such schemes in England over the next three years.

Campaigners gathered at the assembly on Tuesday to demand "significant extra resources" from ministers.

Children's Minister Jane Hutt told AMs she was considering the funding issue and also how best to develop flexible services to meet individual needs.

Lee Ellery, 23, from Swansea has cerebral palsy and said he was hopeful ministers would respond positively to the campaign. He said: "Disabled people need to have the services that everybody's entitled to - education, social services and all the other services that go with it. The problem for many disabled people is the transition process from school to college. They don't have the correct careers advice and general problems from people not seeing disabled people quite as they should. They sort of assume that they should be able to do jobs which are not the jobs that they want to do themselves."

Labour AM Lynne Neagle said she was encouraged so many backbench AMs, from all parties, had supported her call for better funding by signing up to a statement of opinion she had tabled in the assembly.

She urged the minister to respect the "majority opinion" in the assembly and do everything she could to get the £21m spent in the way most AMs wanted.

Ms Neagle said: "It does seem, minister, that planning for disabled children and young people is often first in our thoughts but last in terms of our delivery".

Responding, Ms Hutt said she was considering funding matters with other ministers. In a statement a few minutes earlier, she had said the assembly government was "working closely with young people to ensure services are delivered in a flexible way that will meet their own individual needs".

Campaigners from Disabled Children Matter Wales gathered at the assembly to hear the statement and to lobby AMs. Keith Bowen from the group urged the assembly government to offer "leadership" on the issue.

He said: "We are very pleased with the all-party support we have received from assembly members in recent weeks. It is now time for the One Wales government to show their commitment to disabled children and young people by allocating significant additional resources in the final budget."