I wish to speak to two of the amendments, tabled in the name of Siân Gwenllian—amendment 4 with regard to supporting the police and crime commissioners and the chief constables in their wish for higher fines for breaches of the health regulations, and amendment 9, which talks about the need for a universal basic income as we move out of the lockdown.

I'd like to begin by commending the approach that the Welsh Government has taken. I think a more cautious and more sensible approach is certainly what I hear from my constituents across mid and west Wales that they believe is right. It's also what I hear from my friends and from my daughter's friends. We don't think it's safe—as a nation, we don't think it's safe to lift the lockdown too quickly. And while I hear what Nick Ramsay says about a four-nations approach and I know that that's what the First Minister and his colleagues seek to achieve, if the UK Government, acting as the Government of England, gets things wrong, then the First Minister is obviously, in my view, right to disagree.

I want to talk about the situation in mid and west Wales with regard to people's fears in terms of tourism kicking off again. And I need to say to the First Minister that my constituents across mid and west Wales are frightened. Many of them are lucky enough to live in parts of Wales where the R rate has remained really, really low and we really, really want to keep it that way. They also know that they are very lucky to live in some of the most beautiful communities and most beautiful places in these islands, and I feel proud to represent them. But this is not the time for people to be coming.

Now, the vast majority of our regular visitors to Wales, and to rural Wales from urban Wales as well—because this is not about Wales and England; this is about keeping the rural communities safe—are being respectful; they are staying away and we look forward to welcoming them back. But our police service are making it really clear to us that there is a small minority of people who are flouting those regulations. I think we would all agree, and I'm sure in this the First Minister would agree with me, that the approach the police service is taking in terms of educating and informing is the right one, and the vast majority of people, last weekend, who were confused because of the changes of regulation in England, which didn't apply in Wales in terms of being able to drive to take a walk, for example, were happy to turn around and go back. 

But the police are telling us that there is a small minority of people who simply appear not to care. There are police officers in the north of my region who are telling me that they have seen repeat offenders—people who have driven repeatedly, not one weekend, but weekend after weekend, back into the area, because the fines just simply don't put them off—they don't provide a deterrent. Now, I know that this Welsh Government prides itself rightly on listening to people on the front line, and when we are in a situation where the police and crime commissioners—all four of them—and the chief constables—all four of them—tell us that, in dealing with that recalcitrant small minority, their hands are tied behind their back because the punishments available are not sufficiently severe to act as a deterrent, I really, really ask the First Minister to explain to me why he won't listen to them, and, more importantly, to explain to my constituents and to the police officers who have to implement these polices, why he appears not to be listening to them. I've heard what he's said; I don't understand his reasoning.

But I turn to an area where I hope that we can agree, and that is the idea of moving in the post-COVID era to a universal basic income. Now, this is an idea that I've been advocating for a very long time, and it has seen sometimes like a romantic idea that would be nice at some point in the future, but we have, of course, seen the Spanish Government introduce this. In response to the crisis, we must commend the efforts of Welsh Government and UK Government in terms of supporting people's livelihoods, but, as we've just heard in the statement from the economy Minister, that's left us with a very complex picture. It's left people confused about what they're eligible to and what they're not eligible to, and it has left some people, through no fault or through no intention, I don't think, on the part of the Government, without support.

We talk a lot about building back better, about living our lives in a different way, about perhaps being able to learn some positives about what we've all had to live through in this crisis. And we, in Plaid Cymru, believe that now is the time—and we accept that, with the physical settlement as it is, it would have to be at a UK level, but that we would aspire in the longer term for Wales to be able to do this ourselves—for our nation to provide all citizens with a basic income so that they know that they are safe.

Now, where this has been introduced, there is no evidence whatsoever that it has stopped people from wanting to work, and, where it's been piloted, it's had the opposite effect. It's enabled people to work in different ways. It's enabled them to take risks—entrepreneurial risks—that they might otherwise be afraid to do. It's enabled them, for example, to work in the creative sector, where their contribution is huge but where the pay is low. It's enabled people to provide a better balance between work and family life, and it's enabled people to take on civic responsibilities like doing unpaid public work as a community councillor, for example.

We really need to be thinking differently now, and I think most of us, though perhaps not all of us in this Chamber, would acknowledge that the current benefits system is unfair, is divisive. It's also very expensive to implement, very expensive to police. I've lost track of the number of people who've never come across the benefits system but who are now having to in the last few weeks and who've said to me, 'I cannot live on this', when they're talking about the level of universal credit. And, yet, the truth is, as the First Minister knows, that there are many of our citizens that have no choice.

I hope that perhaps, in this greater understanding where more people who perhaps would never have expected to find themselves in economic hardship, find themselves in difficulties, where we are all rightly praising a lot of very low-paid staff who could also be helped by a universal basic income, like carers, one of the good things that will come out of this dark time is a stronger sense of social solidarity and a chance for us to live our lives in a different way. A citizen-based universal income that was available to all of us and, for those of us who didn't need it, would be repaid through the tax system, would be the best and clearest indication of that new social solidarity and would put everybody on a firm footing to enable them to really be part of the process of building back better. Diolch yn fawr.