Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:35 pm on 24 June 2020.
He referred, also, to the non-COVID health impact and the risk that that was going to lead to further loss of life than any lives that would be saved by continuing lockdown. I think that's a very strong point, and when the Minister and others urge caution, I would respond that caution cuts both ways and, as I think some Members recognise, there's no avoidance of risk in the decisions that we make.
Darren also, I think, rightly made the point that Wales was not just a comparison with England, but we were lagging behind Scotland and Northern Ireland and the UK generally in a four-nations approach, or the lack of one. I mean, he was perhaps a little less strong, I thought, with the emphasis towards the end on the cruel five-mile rule that we've heard so much about from the Conservatives. We heard about it at First Minister's questions as a slightly puzzling exchange, because the First Minister took great exception to Paul Davies describing it as a rule, but then told us that he'd be keeping the rule for another two weeks.
We then had Caroline Jones from the Brexit Party group give us all an excellent contribution. And, yes, at the beginning, when we didn't have an opportunity to vote on the regulations until much later, it did make sense to put the whole country in quarantine in order to protect the vulnerable, because the country was so woefully unprepared that either test or trace, or what was then described as 'cocooning' the vulnerable, were unlikely to work. But the purpose of what we did was to flatten the curve, and we were successful within that, yet the restrictions have continued. Social distancing can quickly become social isolation, she told us, and that has a particular impact on people's mental health. I think the best we can do now is to stop an exponential, substantial increase rather than expect the virus to be eradicated, although, of course, that would be very good and could happen for reasons that are totally unconnected to any intervention we may make.
We then heard from Rhun ap Iorwerth. I was slightly puzzled by his initial comments about whether there were links between smoking and cancer. I mean, that's been clear since at least the Doll studies in the early 1950s. He emphasised safety, but again, that applies both ways. Again, I was puzzled by his final sort of attack on the Brexit Party for not including reference to proper robust test and trace in our motion. Indeed, that's why we'd have been happy to vote for Neil McEvoy's amendment. If Rhun was so keen to have it in the motion, all he needed to do was to move that motion from Neil McEvoy. But I know, because of the challenge the Welsh National Party may be making to Plaid Cymru, that was not something that he wanted to do.
We then heard from Mandy Jones, who spoke, again, about the need to flatten the curve, as we were told this was for, and when did it change? We've had no answer to that. And without an answer to that, what this lockdown does, it may postpone COVID deaths, but it may not eliminate them, or not to any significant degree, while creating greatly more non-COVID deaths as well as destroying the economy and people's well-being. So, that's why we say it's time to lift these restrictions.
Gareth Bennett then referred to differences between UK and Wales and how the First Minister and Welsh Government were seemingly creating differences for the sake of it rather than reflecting the science. He then said, very similar, again, to a First Minister's question I put earlier: who's going to pay for this in the end? They'll try and blame the UK Government, but when we've got things differently in Wales because we insist on it, why is the UK Government going to step in and pay for the consequences to that? So, ultimately, Welsh rates of income tax are going to go up. Yet, as Gareth may have seen earlier, if you raise that with the First Minister, you're accused of wanting to live in another country, as if people aren't able to object to what the Senedd does, to what the Welsh Government does, without people questioning their presence in the Welsh polity. And in that conclusion Gareth came to, he ended, I think, by saying more and more people concluding, 'Abolish the Assembly', which I assume was a reference to his exciting announcement that he had earlier today, although he didn't refer to it expressly.
We then had Neil Hamilton, who said the wrong remedy was the lockdown and, actually, we should be protecting the vulnerable. And, again, the burden of proof on this should be for the proponents of people who are taking away people's liberty and trying to keep people in lockdown. When these measures are lifted in different countries, there has not been a terribly clear link between the degree of lockdown and the prevalence of this disease.
I'd then like to thank the Minister for her comments. She refers to being personally cautious, but, actually, the inverse of that is the contrary for the economy, and also for people's health, potentially, from a non-COVID perspective. I'm slightly perplexed that she then said it was all a problem with the UK Government pulling away and not having meetings or co-operating with the Welsh Government. I recall it was, I think, the First Minister who boycotted a meeting with Michael Gove, and he'd been pre-empted on Brexit or similar. But, we're clearly going to disagree with the Government on this.
We're pleased to have the Conservative support, even if they did vote to put the 2m social distancing into law, and that's one of the things holding back the economy. But we need to get going, we need to sort this out, we need to get the economy back functioning again and the balance of risk on this lockdown is now the other way, such that we need to lift it as soon as possible not just to get the economy going, but also to protect our health generally.