Thank you. We'll now turn to spokespersons' questions, and the first this afternoon is Mark Isherwood.

Diolch. Last Sunday, all Members of the Senedd received an e-mail from a Flintshire resident whose complaint against Flintshire council regarding a development in Flintshire had been upheld by the ombudsman for Wales, but who stated that there needs to be an inquiry into the approval of this development, with the officers involved being held to account. I've received several similar complaints regarding approved developments in Flintshire.

How do you therefore respond to another Flintshire resident who said that county hall planning departments often struggle to defend existing green barrier demarcations when faced with demands from large scale speculative estate developers—[Inaudible.]—of yet more swathes of of easy-to-build private houses on our precious fields and countryside? As we stand to lose yet more of our finite green barrier land, what measures can the Minister put in place that will urgently mandate that Welsh planning policy will affirm the robust conservation of all existing open spaces and defined green barriers?

Thank you, Mark. I'm not going to comment on the specific issue, because we know that it's the subject of a series of complaints, and so on. So, I'm not going to comment on that for obvious reasons. But, in terms of the more general remarks around protecting green space and so on, we're working with authorities across Wales, both to get their planning departments up and running and to ensure that we do a proper audit of skills across Wales. Many local authorities have been forced by austerity into stripping back what are termed, in inverted commas, non-essential services, although actually, of course, they turn out to be essential in the end. So we're very much looking to strengthen that on both a regional and local basis, and to assist from Welsh Government with officials who can help reskill, or help regionalise the shortages of skills in those areas. 

You'll know that the most recent edition of 'Planning Policy Wales' emphasises place and communities as very much at the heart of it, and very much at the heart of that is the green infrastructure that you talk about—not just greenbelt, but green infrastructure right through our planning developments and our towns. So, I'm very happy that we've done that at that level. We're about to publish the national development framework. It's a little delayed because of the pandemic, so I hope that that will be published very soon, and then, we'll be working with local authorities to put together regional strategic plans to do just what you said, which is to protect—to make sure that we have the right planning in the right place, the right development in the right place, and to protect the countryside where that's what the local development plan and the regional plan indicate.

Thank you. In November 2017 and again in May 2019, you wrote to Flintshire council stating that it was extremely disappointing that that authority had submitted a further request to extend the time taken to prepare its local development plan, especially in the light of previous assurances, and that this was particularly pertinent as that authority is continuing to suffer the pressure of speculative planning applications in the fields due to the lack of an adopted development plan. And, the longer the situation persisted, it would be to the greater detriment of local communities and the reputation of the planning system. That's the end of your quote.

The Coronavirus Act 2020 introduced flexibility for councils to carry out their democratic and governance arrangements differently and proportionately, given the challenges faced, but as you know, this was not intended to diminish the voice of communities or weaken democratic accountability and representation. How, therefore, will you ensure that councils without LDPs do not pursue a challenging use of the emergency procedures to get them approved? 

We've been working very hard with local councils across Wales, both with LDPs and without, more particularly those who are in the formative phases of the LDP, to ensure that they were first of all able to function at all—and that goes for all planning authorities across Wales. There is a series of regulations in place about allowing virtual meetings for planning committees, virtual site visits, and all that kind of stuff, different notification procedures, and so on, and then, at the LDP level, to understand from them what effect the pandemic was having on the timetable and to put in place better plans to bring that forward. That's a piece of work that's ongoing and, as we ease out of the lockdowns, we're working with each local authority to make sure that we get a reviewed and properly resourced plan to get their LDPs in place. And the reason for that, Mark, is exactly what you pointed out: that authorities that don't have a plan in place tend to be subject to speculative developments that they find more difficult to fend off, because they don't have an adopted plan. So we've been working very hard with them to do that. Flintshire is not the only authority in that position, so we're working with a number of authorities across Wales to get there. 

And then, at the same time, we're encouraging them to work together with partners across north Wales or the particular region that the authority happens to be in, to put a strategic plan in place, because where a strategic plan is put in place, we will work with them on what we're starting to call 'LDP light' procedures, so that they're not duplicated from the strategic plan. We're very much hoping that Flintshire, alongside a number of other authorities, will come along with us on that journey. 

Well, new regulations came into force in Wales last month in respect of the pre-application consultation for developments of national significance during this pandemic. Although these claim to introduce safeguards to guarantee that the revised process is as inclusive as possible, concern has been raised with me that they will allow applicants to conduct a consultation virtually and that, given both the potential impact of developments of national significance on communities and the need for the public to understand the technical aspects of these, virtual consultations do not constitute a meaningful consultation and breach the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. How, therefore, do you respond to concerns that applicants with previously delayed physical consultations are now announcing virtual remote consultations, avoiding the need for face-to-face interaction, and that this discriminates against older and disabled people who do not have access to the internet, or who may not be competent or confident on the phone?

Obviously, these are things that have to be balanced, and so we were very aware that there were a number of things that simply could not progress that were integral to infrastructure development in particular areas and we needed to bring those forward. And at the same time, we wanted to make sure that people had the best chance to be consulted and bring forward their views on that. So, we introduced a number of areas in which you could do a virtual consultation. We also, though, said that local authorities had to facilitate having paper plans in place, and facilitate people being able to see those where that was something that they wanted to do. 

I'd be the first to say, Mark, that that's not a perfect system, but we needed to do something in order to be able to ensure that these things were still happening, and that they weren't all completely on stop because, as you know, we're likely to be facing an economic downturn at the end of this pandemic, and if we'd absolutely stopped all development during this period, we would've been in an even worse position. So, it's about trying to hit the right compromise between getting democratic engagement in the planning process, which I've been committed to throughout my career, not just as a Member of the Senedd but as a lawyer practicing in that field—it's something I'm completely committed to. So, it was about trying to hit the right point of allowing it to proceed and still ensuring democratic engagement. 

If you have any specific examples where you think that that's not working, or you think that people have been specifically disenfranchised, I'm very happy to look at the specifics. Obviously, I'm not aware of them at the moment. 

And Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Delyth Jewell. 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Minister, as we move out of lockdown, there is a risk of seeing local outbreaks—

I'm sorry, Delyth, I can't hear you at all. 

Can you hear me if I speak here, Minister?

Are you wearing your headphones?

No. Can you hear me now?

That's better now, yes.

Okay, I'll get closer to the—. So, Minister, as we move out of lockdown, there's a risk of seeing local outbreaks emerge, as has happened in Ynys Môn; there could be no option but to impose local lockdowns. I'd ask what specific support you're giving Ynys Môn to help them with the current situation that they're facing and, more generally, if there will be a policy of providing extra support to local authorities that face similar outbreaks in the future. If local lockdowns are needed, that could necessitate the need for local furlough and additional support. 

Yes, we're working very hard with Ynys Môn. I've been in contact with Llinos, the leader there who's been working very hard in difficult circumstances. I spoke to Llinos on Sunday, we had a meeting with her on Monday morning and I have another one later today and another tomorrow to just make sure that the situation is under control, and the local authority has the support that they need. There are a series of official-level meetings that include the meetings of the strategic control group, as it's called, and a range of other meetings that go on as part of the gold command structure in order to make sure that everything is in place as it should be. I'm pleased to say that the test, trace and protect appears to have been working very well, obviously, staffed by Ynys Môn staff. We've done it as a public enterprise here in Wales and that seems to be working well.

Contact tracing has worked well and we've managed to contact the vast majority of people who've come into contact with the virus. We're working hard—. Some of the things you mentioned, of course, are in the hands of the UK Government—we're not able to put a furlough scheme in place—but I understand that the Prime Minister said that they are working on local lockdown plans now as England comes out of its easing procedure. So, we'll be working alongside them on the things that we rely on the UK Government for, and in the meantime, we are putting in place a series of regulations here that allow specific things to happen in particular areas, if there is a need to do that. I would like to emphasise that we don't think that there is a need just now, but we're obviously keeping a very careful eye on it. 

So, at the moment in Wales, my understanding is that we have two outbreaks and an incident, which is based on the level of infection that we have, but the local authorities involved are all working very well with us and the teams on the ground to make sure that we have containment. This language is new to all of us, but my understanding is that that's all in place. I'm meeting, as I said, with Llinos and her team with Vaughan Gething and myself at five o'clock today. 

Right, thank you, Minister. I welcome what you've just said. As you alluded to in your answer there, local authorities are playing a key role in the test, track and protect system, but it's been observed that another element should be added to that system, and that is 'support'. It's clear that low wages, insecure work and poor—well, the failures in the welfare system, have significantly undermined the effectiveness of self-isolation as a public health measure. Now, many workers across Wales who should be self-isolating may feel under pressure by poor employers, or because of financial pressures, to actually carry on working instead. Could I ask what work you're doing with the economy Minister to ensure that a full package of support could be tailored for anyone asked to self-isolate, as that will inevitably lessen the burden on local authorities who are co-ordinating so much of the contact-tracing system?

Yes, we're very well aware of some of the difficulties, and this particular outbreak is obviously associated with a meat-packing factory, and you'll be aware that that actually seems to a bit of a feature of the industry; we've had a couple of other outbreaks on the continent and so on. So, there's a review that my colleague Lesley Griffiths is undertaking here in Wales, but in conjunction with other Ministers from across Britain, and, actually, on the European continent, to understand what the specifics of that industry are that are causing that. It's possible to guess—it's cold and it's damp and there are a lot of metal surfaces and so on—but we need to understand exactly what's happened in this particular incident, and we also need to understand what the pattern of employment is, as you say, and what happens to people who are asked to self-isolate, not least, actually, because we want the industry to survive, and we don't want it to go out of business because it doesn't have a workforce, but we also want the workforce to be secure and able to self-isolate so that we can contain the incident. So, you're absolutely right to identify that. 

Some of the measures that you suggested there I would absolutely agree with you should be put in place, but they're obviously not in our devolved competence. So, we have been talking to the UK Government about making sure that people have rapid access to universal credit. We lobby them constantly on the five-week wait, for example, which is obviously very difficult in those circumstances, and we're maximising people's access to other incomes and support mechanisms; there's a range of things that the local authorities can do to do that. Each incident is likely to be different, so we're very much trying not to have a one-size-fits-all response as well because it depends on the nature of the workforce and people's living conditions and so on. I understand that, in this instance, a number of the workers at the factories live in houses in multiple occupation and so on, which has particular issues associated with it. So, we're working on that guidance, alongside the local authorities, to put what we can in place, and my colleague Hannah Blythyn has written a number of times to the UK Government on the welfare reforms that we'd need, and we're making sure that we keep the pressure up on them as well.

Thank you. Diolch. Finally, Minister, local authorities are working with health boards to co-ordinate antibody test programmes for NHS staff and teachers. No care home residents or staff have so far got those antibody tests. Now, I understand, in Gwent, cases of COVID-19 in hospitals have decreased significantly, but in the last week there were new cases in 29 care homes. Now, there may well be a good reason for not providing these tests, but as the care sector has felt so betrayed so often during the pandemic, at great cost, could you explain why local authorities are not currently being asked to provide those antibody tests to care home staff, as those test results might help us understand the levels of exposure that care homes have been facing these past few weeks?

Okay. So, that's not at all in my portfolio; that's obviously for my colleague Vaughan Gething, and I can't pretend in any way to be an expert in the different testing regimes or the percentages or anything else. My understanding is that those tests aren't particularly useful to individuals; they're more useful to the Government to understand where the virus has been and what the spread might have been. They're quite invasive tests; they require taking a vial of blood from people and so on, so they're not a finger prick or a swab in your cheek, and it doesn't tell the individual very much because, as yet, as I understand it, we don't know, if you've had the disease, whether you've necessarily got immunity or how long it lasts for and so on. 

I understand that there's a document going out to school staff about the test, and explaining what it does and why people should or shouldn't have it and so on, and I don't see any reason why we can't share that with Assembly Members—sorry, with Members of the Senedd. And so I'll make sure that that happens, Delyth, because I cannot at all pretend to be an expert in that.