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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:00 pm on 13 May 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:00, 13 May 2020

Llywydd, I thank Lynne Neagle for those questions. I think she's right—her experience in Torfaen I think is mirrored across Wales. There has been support for the Welsh Government's position in only being willing to move out of lockdown in the most careful and cautious way.

I think the decision on garden centres actually has been widely welcomed as well. Garden centres operate, by and large, in the open air. We know that the circulation of the virus is much less virulent in open-air circumstances, and, where garden centres are able to open and open safely—because they have to be able to do it in that way too—then the advice we had was that we should allow that to happen and that there are other benefits to well-being and mental health from people being able to use those facilities and then to use the products of garden centres in their own homes. And each of the measures, Llywydd—each of the measures—that we have considered has been evaluated against the tests that we set out in our framework document, published over two weeks ago, which showed how we would assess the case for and the case against any specific moves of the sort that we announced on Monday.

I think the point that Lynne Neagle makes about social isolation and children is a very important one. The lockdown doesn't come without its costs. We're doing it because the rewards are greater, because it does save lives in the here and now, and we've seen how that loss of life has such an unequal impact on different communities and different parts of the community. So, it's absolutely right that we do it, but it's also right, in the way that Lynne Neagle has suggested, that we don't lose sight of the impact that that has on people's lives and on children's lives in particular. It's why my colleague Kirsty Williams announced just over a week ago a fund to assist those young people who don't have access to the sorts of facilities that Lynne mentioned, so that they can at least take advantage of the sorts of electronic means of communication for education purposes, but also, as we do, to keep in touch with family and friends remotely, as we must. The Welsh Government will continue to keep a very close eye on the impact of these measures on children and Lynne, I know, will be aware that just this week we set out information about how we are directly gathering the views of children in Wales about what it has been like to be a child during the coronavirus crisis, the impact that it has on them, and what we as a Welsh Government and as a wider Welsh society can do to assist them as we begin to come out of the crisis itself.