Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:28 pm on 22 April 2020.
I'm very grateful to the First Minister for his statement and for his openness in answering these questions. I'd like to return to the subject of procurement, if that's possible. We saw yesterday the absolute chaos of a Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office being forced to write to a House of Commons select committee to retract evidence that he'd given yesterday afternoon to that same committee on the issue of EU procurement of ventilators. We saw last night reports on the BBC on Newsnight that the privatisation of the health service in England has led to real issues and problems with the procurement of PPE. So, I'd like to ask the First Minister to what extent and whether he believes the chaos that we're seeing across the border in England is having a detrimental effect on the ability of the Welsh Government to procure both the equipment needed for hospitals and personal protection equipment needed for our front-line staff to deliver care for people, and whether the problems being faced by the UK Government in England are causing him difficulties in ensuring that we're able to provide for people and staff working on the front line in Wales.