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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 10:41 am on 24 March 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 10:41, 24 March 2020

Dirprwy Lywydd, I thank Dawn Bowden for those questions. Thank you for what she said at the start about the flow of information from the Welsh Government. The Welsh Government is in no different position to any other organisation; we have significant numbers of people not in work because of illness or self-isolation and we are instituting a very strict work-from-home policy, so sometimes, the work of getting that information out falls on very few shoulders and people are working very hard, and I know that sometimes we're having to work even harder to catch up because of the rapidly moving position, but grateful to Dawn for what she said about the usefulness of that.

In relation to supermarkets and safety, I'm certain there are things we can learn from other places. Supermarkets are recruiting additional security staff, some supermarkets have already instituted a one-way system around the store. We talked yesterday with other UK Governments about measures that we might be able to put in place and there are powers that we could use in Wales if the position demanded it.

A billion-pounds-worth of food beyond the normal sale disappeared off shelves across the United Kingdom last week and is now sitting in people's larders, and the advice to people must be to start eating it, because there is no need to go on adding to it. The sector is absolutely clear: there is enough food in the system. The problem is not the supply. The problem is in the way in which people—understandably, I'm not being critical of people—the way in which people have responded to the anxiety that they feel. But if people are able to get on a more even keel, supermarkets able to do the things they say that they can do, then so far, we believe that the position can be stabilised and people do not need to worry about there being insufficient food in the system: it is there.

As to universal credit, the DWP, I know, have been very badly affected by people self-isolating and people being unwell. They have a huge increase in the number of people who are out of work and needing to make claims, and fewer people to respond to them. We were told by the Secretary of State at the DWP yesterday that they are working to strip out some of the complexity in the system to make it easier and quicker. I make an appeal again to the UK Government to abandon the five-week waiting period for universal credit. That is the single biggest barrier that people face; the fact that even when you do manage to fight your way through the system, you still have to wait five weeks and people in the current emergency are just not in a position to do that. So I say again, as I said yesterday to the Secretary of State, 'Please, change that rule.'

As to free school meals, the Welsh Government announced £7 million in additional funding for local authorities on Friday to help them deal with the increased number of students coming through the door with free school meals. Let me be clear with local authorities: free school meals are an entitlement. If a child meets the rules, the child gets a free school meal, and there is no rationing ability that local authorities have to choose between children in that position. I understand the anxieties, of course, of local authorities faced with bills that they worry about how they might pay—that's why we announced the £7 million extra—but the child is the most important thing in that equation. If a child is now entitled to a free school meal where they weren't until recently, we must make sure that they get it.