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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:36 pm on 8 April 2020.

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Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 2:36, 8 April 2020

First Minister, can I first of all thank you for your efforts and your Ministers and, indeed, your officials over the course of the last few weeks, and also extend that thanks to those in Government outside Wales as well? It's a hugely difficult situation. The Prime Minister, I'm sure, has our best wishes, and my old friend and colleague Alun Davies has already been mentioned, and I add to all that's been said about him. I also know what it's like to receive advice that's not always uniform, that sometimes is not wholly in agreement with other sets of advice, and how difficult it can be to choose which advice to follow.

Two things from me. In my constituency of Bridgend, I have the town of Porthcawl. Porthcawl, of course, is a large tourist destination, very busy usually at Easter time. If you go down Danygraig hill, such are the times we live in, you'll see a sign that says 'Welcome to Porthcawl' and then a few yards down the road a sign that says 'Please turn back and go home', and rightly so, given the situation we find ourselves in. First Minister, would you join me in begging people—if that is the right word—to stay home this weekend, not to travel in the usual fashion to places like Porthcawl, in order to make sure that people in that town and beyond are properly protected from the spread of the virus? Of course, we all hope that people, as they have been, will obey the advice they have been given. There are still instances where I've seen small groups of younger people—four or five usually—congregating together, and that will need to be dealt with. But there are, of course, many of us who are there providing support for older relatives, and if there is a need to increase the restrictions that we have at the moment in future, could I ask you to make sure that that doesn’t adversely affect those of us who are in that situation?

The second point, very quickly from me then, is this: I've noticed by going to various different food shops that different approaches are taken by different shops. It's pretty universal now, actually, that you have to wait outside until it is your turn to go in. There's spacing inside the supermarkets and a particular one-way system for going around the supermarket or the shop, but in some shops, trolleys and baskets are sanitized before being made available to a customer and are sanitized when they are returned. In other shops that isn't happening at all. Where should supermarkets and food shops go for advice, in terms of best practice, when it comes to protecting their customers to the level that they and their customers would expect? Diolch, Llywydd.