6. & 7. The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (Wales) Regulations 2020 and The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2020

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:58 pm on 29 April 2020.

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Photo of Angela Burns Angela Burns Conservative 5:58, 29 April 2020

Thank you for bringing forward these regulations; as you say, they're already in action. The Welsh Conservatives are going to be supporting them, but I do have a couple of questions, Minister, that I would like to ask you, about them as we go forward.

We do welcome the part of the regulations that actually says that people must not leave, for any length of time, their home. In other words, this is a way of stopping people going to second homes and deciding to take up residence there. But I have been asked for clarity on this by a number of organisations. Do these regulations actually give the police the power to knock the door and say to the occupants, 'You now must get in your car and go away' or is it still that the police can only advise them that they should be returning?

It is very welcome that these regulations have brought forward the ability for people to go out and undertake all forms of exercise more than once a day if they fall into a certain sort of category, and I'm grateful for that. And I know that that's actually brought a great deal of cheer to some families under enormous stress because they have children with learning disabilities and who need to have that ability to go outside and do further exercise.

Could you please tell me how you have risk-assessed these lockdown measures, or the regulations that lead to this—so, both the original set of regulations and these? I'm assuming that there is a cognisant process around it that looked at what risks are in place while we have these regulations. So, I'm assuming that risk assessment would have looked at mental health issues, how people are going to react to this—it might have looked at social isolation issues—and I'd be really interested to know if you're able to give us some insight on this, especially if these regulations are going to have to continue for a specific length of time, going forward.

And that brings me to my last point, which is: will it be via these regulations or another amendment to them that you would start to seek to lift lockdown? Because I've made an assumption, and it may well be incorrect, so I'd be grateful for your steer, that, as we move forward and if we are able to lift some of the lockdown, then these regulations will need to be constantly altered and shaped. Will you continue to do that and will these regulations be the ones that will actually still say to people, 'You must be 2m apart', or would you be seeking to bring in longer term legislation?

We're in a very difficult situation, and I've had, obviously, an awful lot of e-mail traffic, as I'm sure others have, from people who are beginning to feel that perhaps this is an infringement of their human rights. I know that the Chair of the committee did raise that point and just made an observation. We're in unprecedented times. I think these regulations are as light touch as they can be, but I do think it would be very good if we could let people know how long you would see these to be going on as we move forward. Thank you, Minister.