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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:29 pm on 22 April 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:29, 22 April 2020

Llywydd, I want to distinguish between two things. On the one hand, we are working very closely with colleagues right across the United Kingdom on procurement. Procuring as a UK is to our advantage because of the extra strength that gives you in the market, and we're working on mutual aid as well. We have recently provided mutual aid to Northern Ireland in a supply of goods that they were about to run out of, and we've had help from Scotland to strengthen our stocks in areas where we were running low.

So, I'm still completely committed to that way of doing things. The contrast I would make, however, is one that Alun Davies points to. Here in Wales, we still have a national health service—a system that is planned, a system that is easy enough for people to be able to operate where common rules happen in all places. The struggle that our colleagues in England face is an atomised service, where people have been encouraged to compete with one another rather than to collaborate with one another. And just at the point when collaboration and working together has to be the way through, they are having to battle the system they now have and the culture that they have created in a way that we simply don't have to here in Wales.