7. Statement by the First Minister: Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 10:18 am on 24 March 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 10:18, 24 March 2020

I thank the leader of the opposition for those questions and I entirely agree with the initial points he made. Governments of very different political persuasions across the United Kingdom are working very closely together on a daily basis on a common task.

As far as finances are concerned, our current intention is to bring forward a supplementary budget to realign Welsh Government budgets with the new and urgent priorities. We are doing exactly what Paul Davies suggested in interrogating every budget that every Minister holds to see what might be able to be released from plans that were previously in place in order to be able to fund new and more urgent priorities. The finance Minister will meet every portfolio Minister tomorrow in order to hear from them how much money they are able to release to make sure that that is being done in the most rigorous way possible.

Because we have two priorities and two priorities only, Dirprwy Lywydd: one is to support our essential public services in the efforts they will be making, and the second is to support businesses and people in employment, so that when people emerge from the other side of coronavirus they still have futures and jobs to go to and a prospect in front of them.

We are working closely with the third sector, of course, and they themselves are reprioritising their budgets. We're very grateful to the Wales Council for Voluntary Action, which has dug into its own reserves so that it can put money up immediately to be able to assist third sector organisations to do the extra things that they are keen and able to do.

We work very closely with local authorities, as Paul Davies suggested, in daily contact with key local authority leaders. There was anxiety over the weekend, Dirprwy Lywydd, that the number of parents who would bring children to the new provision on Monday would exceed the 20 per cent of children that is the maximum we can allow into those facilities, otherwise the epidemiological advantage of taking that course of action would be dissipated. There were some local authorities that decided to take a precautionary approach at the start of the week to make sure that that didn't happen. In practice, those difficulties didn't arise. The numbers were at the lower end of what might have been anticipated yesterday, and I know that those local authorities will now be recalibrating their plans. We will be working with those local authorities so that we have medium-term arrangements in place so key workers know not just how they will get through the next couple of weeks but how they will manage beyond Easter as well.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I'm going—I'm sure Members will understand—to leave health questions to my colleague so I can respond to as many other questions as possible. But just to give Paul Davies an assurance, the Bill that we will debate later for LCM purposes does provide the Welsh Government with new ability to accelerate the return to the workplace of retired health and, indeed, social care professionals as well.

We have worked very closely with the UK Government in relation to business support. And we are, of course, monitoring the demands on Business Wales. They have gone up exponentially over the last week, as you can imagine. The number of calls to the helpline, the number of visits to the website, way beyond what would normally be anticipated. We have had to move 21 additional staff to the helpline to be able to deal with the volume of calls, the number of calls, and our ability to respond to them are monitored every day.

Finally, in relation to the food business matters that Paul Davies raised, letters are starting to go out today to those people in the group who need to be shielded from the impact of coronavirus by staying in their own homes not for three weeks but for up to three months. That's a smaller subset of the Welsh population, and those letters will provide people with advice, firstly on why their medical condition requires them to take that course of action, but also the sources of support that will be available to them while they are isolated in that way, and that includes assistance from the food retailers as well.

Can I just end by saying this, and it picks up a point that Paul Davies made about pharmacies as well? I entirely understand the enormous pressures that everybody feels, that people are under pressure and that they act, sometimes, in response to that pressure, but there is no excuse at all for people visiting a community pharmacy or a food retailer to take that frustration out on front-line people who are there to help them. We have seen some examples—they're isolated examples, and we don't want to exaggerate them at all—but we have seen examples of that, and they really are not acceptable. Even in these most difficult of times, we will not accept them here in Wales.