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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 10:31 am on 24 March 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 10:31, 24 March 2020

(Translated)

Well, Deputy Presiding Officer, thank you very much to Siân Gwenllian for those questions and for the manner in which she and other people in her party have collaborated constructively with us over this period of crisis. I completely agree with her that this is the message that it’s important for us to convey to people: when people are not in work, it’s not a bank holiday. We are facing a public health crisis and it’s important that people respond to the crisis in their approach to their everyday tasks in their lives.

Siân had a number of questions. As regards self-employed people, we expect to receive something from the United Kingdom Government. We’re not sure whether we will hear today or sometime during this week, but that’s up to them. We have no funding. Paul Davies alluded to the demands on the funding that we hold from public services and other important services. There isn’t sufficient funding in our budget to put a plan in place. We are looking to the United Kingdom Government, and we have heard from them—they are working hard at the Treasury to plan for greater help and support for people in that situation.

On what I was saying yesterday about the caravans, in the regulations that I signed off at 9.30, approximately, last night, in those regulations there are measures in place, powers for the local authorities to collaborate with the police to cope with the new situation. We have worked closely with people within the sector too, and they are eager to pursue what we have said and to collaborate and co-operate with us.

Vaughan Gething will be able to respond on the PPE, but just to say, Deputy Presiding Officer, I have given civil servants the powers, or the authority, to approach the Ministry of Defence officially and to set up a new agreement or contract between ourselves and the army here in Wales to receive the assistance and support that they can give and that they are willing to give. Support in the planning field: they can help us greatly with logistics, as they call it, but also with people.

In the field of education, to me, the best way for us to deal with free school meals is to give families money through the child benefit system.