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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:17 pm on 13 May 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:17, 13 May 2020

Well, I thank Leanne Wood for that, and I want to join her in recognising the work that carers, informal carers, and the people who do such important jobs in the care sector do. Our decision to offer £500 to all those people who provide direct personal care in domiciliary and residential settings was one that balanced our wish to provide that recognition against the current financial restrictions that we face. So, what I am very happy to say is that we go on looking at that. If there's an opportunity to do more, we would really like to do more. It is not about devaluing the contribution of other people who don't provide direct personal care but provide other important services in the sector, but if you're devising a scheme, you have to have some criteria that the scheme can operate within, and you have to be able to deliver it with the budget that the Welsh Government has available. It's going to cost £32 million to provide for the 64,000 people who are covered by the scheme as announced, and we will continue to keep that under very careful review and see whether it is possible to do more in the future. 

We've chosen to do it that way rather than in the way that the Scottish Government has done, and our £500, I think, has some advantages, in that it is a progressive measure. We're offering it to all care workers who provide personal care, however many hours they are working. So, it makes the biggest difference to those who have the least. And, in thinking of the question that Dawn Bowden was asking about inequality and our ability to try and make some impact on that, our scheme is designed with some deliberate aspects of it in order to make sure that the help is felt the most by those whose need for help is greatest.