COVID-19: 2 Sisters Factory

Part of 5. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 2:58 pm on 24 June 2020.

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Photo of Dawn Bowden Dawn Bowden Labour 2:58, 24 June 2020

Can I thank you for that, Minister, and thank you for mentioning Merthyr Tydfil in your response to Rhun ap Iorwerth? Because I was very disturbed, but not surprised to hear reports over the weekend of significant numbers of people testing positive for COVID-19 at the Kepak meat processing plant in Merthyr, and perhaps even more alarmed to find that this has actually been going on since around April time. You'll be aware that I've been concerned for some time about the levels of COVID infections in the Merthyr area, which have been worryingly high, even when infections elsewhere in Wales have been falling, and I've been asking what work epidemiologists have been doing on identifying the causes. I've always had concerns about Kepak due to their working practices, their lack of social distancing and how they were going to ensure the safety of workers who were working closely together and in conditions where the virus thrived. And Gerald Jones MP and I wrote to the company about this at the beginning of lockdown, and while we received assurances from the company, the unions and the staff there remained concerned about what was going on. I'm aware that Public Health Wales, Merthyr council and the Health and Safety Executive met yesterday to discuss the COVID infections linked to Kepak, but what my constituents will want to know is whether the high levels of infections across the area are in any way related to this factory, and if so, what action is now being taken to close down this operation, isolate the staff and ensure that we have no further spread beyond the people that are employed there.