Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:13 pm on 29 April 2020.
Well, Llywydd, it is like slipping back not 20 years, but 120 years. The Member may as well have authored that famous entry in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'For Wales, see England', because the answer to his question is: if I was to agree with him, what would be the point of the National Assembly for Wales? What would be the point of Wales at all? Because his argument is entirely that we should simply do what other people are doing elsewhere.
He was wrong when he said, in the beginning, that the UK Parliament had set a set of rules that somehow we were departing from. What the UK Parliament did was to provide the power to Wales, to Scotland, to Northern Ireland, and separately to England, to make rules and regulations for the different parts of the United Kingdom, and that is exactly what we have done. And where we have requirements that are different to other parts of the United Kingdom—and I so profoundly disagree with the Member in his constantly setting up England as the touchstone against which everything we do should be judged—where we do things differently to any other part of the United Kingdom, we do so because of Welsh needs and circumstances.
We were the first part of the United Kingdom to introduce rules in relation to caravan and campsites. Why did we do that? Because we were hearing the message so loud and clear from south-west and north-west Wales of people travelling to those parts of Wales and causing a public health danger to themselves and to others. Why do we say, 'Exercise once a day'? Because Ministers across the United Kingdom, including, he'll be glad to hear I'm sure, English Ministers, constantly say to people, 'Leave your home once a day for exercise.' 'Once a day' is what we say; 'once a day' is what we mean; 'once a day' is what our regulations say.
As for the 2m rule, which I think he was referring to, then I think that will be an asset to businesses in Wales, because what we are finding in the rest of the world is that simply to row back on regulations, open up things that were closed during lockdown, provides no guarantee that people will turn up to undertake those activities. You can open a shopping centre, and if people don't think it's safe to go there, nobody will come. You can open up workplaces again, and if people who have to work there believe that their health and well-being has not been thought about and protected, they will be reluctant to go there too. Our 2m rule, which responsible businesses in Wales have been abiding by very willingly, sends a message to workers in Wales that when the time comes to return to the workplace, their health and well-being will have been thought about, planned for and in place, and that will make those businesses more likely to succeed than if we had not taken that course of action.