Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 2:42 pm on 11 March 2020.
I have been having these discussions with my colleague the health Minister in terms of how we deal with COVID-19, and there are also discussions that I've had with colleagues from the other devolved nations, and also with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. We're clear in Wales that funding is not going to be a barrier to the NHS being able to deal with the coronavirus. We were also clear at our meeting with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury that funding that flows from the UK Government in relation to this exceptional circumstance should be done on the basis of need. I was really keen to press home the fact that, in Wales, we have a proportionately older population and, obviously, that puts us at potentially larger risk of having to look after people who are much sicker. So, that's something that we need to very much bear in mind as funding is allocated across the UK. We don't yet know how the picture will develop in the different regions of Wales, so this is very much an ongoing discussion, but I do want to give that confidence that funding is not going to be a barrier to supporting the NHS.