5. Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Coronavirus (COVID-2019) update

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:05 pm on 10 March 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:05, 10 March 2020

Thank you for the series of questions. I think I'll start with some of your early points—I'll try to take them in order. I don't always agree with Matt Hancock, and I certainly don't always agree with Boris Johnson, but, during our COBRA calls, there has been a genuinely serious and grown-up attempt to go through issues and to reach agreement on finding the best way through. In fact, the Prime Minister has said, and I agree with him on this, that the greatest risk of panic and the wrong response is often politically driven demands in contradiction of the science and the evidence. So, our response is based on the science and on the evidence.

In terms of the work we're doing across Government, I have already met with Julie James at the start of the now very regular COBRA meetings. We've had a conversation, and I've met with her lead official who co-ordinates much of the civil contingencies work. We've also formed, as the First Minister said, a core ministerial group—if you like, a COBRA Cymru group of Ministers—and we're meeting each week. I chaired the first meeting of that group last week. We're meeting again tomorrow, so there'll be regular conversations between Ministers so that Ministers are informed of different choices that are being made, but, equally, so Ministers can co-ordinate choices within their own portfolio areas, because every group of stakeholders working to every group of Ministers will be affected by this somewhere along the line, as you say.

And it's not only the choices that we make there, because your specific choices around small businesses, I think, are really important. Because there is a range of measures that Welsh Government could take, but, actually, on many more of those, there's action that the UK Government will need to take on a whole-UK basis. I hope that the budget tomorrow sets some of those out. That's why the finance Minister was in London at the start of the day to have that conversation. That, again, came from a previous COBRA meeting, where there was agreement that that meeting should take place with finance Ministers in all of the devolved national Governments.

We'll then need to see what measures are taken tomorrow, but as the outbreak develops to make sure there's a fleet-of-foot response from the Government across the UK as well. Obviously, the economy Minister has already asked his officials to look at the measures that we could take here to support small businesses in particular. That, potentially, could be as a consequence of the public health advice that we give. If we ask people to stay at home—if we ask more people to stay at home—that could have an impact on either the custom that goes out, but also people going to work themselves. A small business say with five employees—well, if two of those people are asked to stay at home, that can make a really big difference to the running of that business.

Your point about the human impact of this, I think, is also really important as well, because we're really talking with the Royal Colleges and regulators about the potential impacts of making different choices and holding people to standards at the time. But there is a human impact in, if people are seeing large numbers of very sick people, not making choices that they would otherwise make, and not feeling they're able to be in control as they would normally expect to be in delivering health and care, and that's something that we discovered both at the partnership forum, the NHS partnership forum, between the Government, the employers and trade unions on Thursday in north Wales, when I attended.

Again, we're trying to work through some consistent advice, so we don't see a wildly varying approach being taken between different NHS organisations here in Wales. There is a broader point there about public services too, because it won't just be NHS workers who will find themselves in a very difficult position, as you point out. That's a matter that I went through with social care cabinet colleagues from local government yesterday. So, across all parties, they recognise that they need to go and look at the way in which they run their services, and, obviously, the leaders of every local government organisation will need to think about that too.

I'm pleased you made the point about social isolation—if we're asking people to stay at home, what that means, regardless of the age profile. Given that we understand that social isolation and loneliness are a real challenge for lots of people, if we're then asking more of those people to not have that social interaction, again there's a choice for the Government, for the health service, but also for local government, about what form of social interaction can those people have to make sure that they're still being checked up on and not ignored, if we're asking them to avoid what would otherwise be normal social contact that helps people to stay well and healthy. So, it isn't a simple measure of, 'Take one step and that will keep everyone safe.'

The final point I'd make is just to give you some reassurance about the emergency powers Bill. All Ministers are cognisant of the fact that, in asking the legislatures across the UK to trust Ministers with powers, there should be some safeguards, and that definitely includes sunset clauses. So, any legislation, you'd expect to see sunset clauses in that about not just how powers are enacted but how powers get switched off again as well, because I recognise completely the point that the Member makes.