COVID-19: 2 Sisters Factory

Part of 5. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:03 pm on 24 June 2020.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:03, 24 June 2020

On the second point I don't think there is a conflict, because there's the point there about the people who are directly running and delivering that service thinking about the adjustments they need to make for those assessments to continue, and that's actually something that, to be fair to the local government family, they've managed throughout the period of the pandemic. And there's more of that activity taking place as there's greater confidence because of the lower transmission and incidence rates, but also because, of course, for some time now, we've managed to stabilise our supplies of PPE to the broader social care sector.

On your first point, there is a relationship here between both devolved and non-devolved responsibilities. So, health and safety is not a devolved responsibility. It shows though that there is a very practical relationship between our responsibilities here and the way in which we interact with UK agencies. So, the Health and Safety Executive are involved in both of the outbreak management teams and they have a relationship with the incident in Merthyr, and that's exactly as it should be.

As for the headline call for an audit, well, we actually need to see whether that's the right thing to do or not. We need to understand the public health responsibilities and where we are in controlling and running the incident itself, to protect people who are not just associated with that workforce in Llangefni, but the wider community as well. As I said to Dawn Bowden, I wouldn't rule out any steps at this point. We will continue to take decisions that protect people here in Wales in local communities and further afield, and that will be the guiding point. I just don't think that it's helpful, though, to try to respond to an individual suggestion that doesn't appear to have a proper evidence base that it's the right thing to do. That's exactly why we have outbreak management teams drawing together all of those local stakeholders.