Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 11:04 am on 1 July 2020.
Good morning, Llywydd. Good morning, First Minister. Picking up on Caroline's point, of course, none of us were prepared for this pandemic, and I think that we, as a world, have learned some very significant lessons about what happens when you impinge on nature and how we can all respond. And, of course, the point that Caroline has raised about the testing capacity is vitally important, and I know that you acknowledge that. But whilst we may have been caught on the hop in terms of the general pandemic, we have had now months to start getting our testing regime in place and working. Yet, figures produced yesterday show that little over a fifth of the daily testing capacity in Wales has been utilised, and for the seventh week in a row there was a slow-down on testing for healthcare workers. Additionally, we are still waiting 48, sometimes 72, hours for tests to come back. And the point made before, which I think we'd all agree with, is that we need to get people back into the workplace, back out into their real lives, as soon as possible if they're self-isolating because people around them or they have symptoms.
So, First Minister, what are you going to be able to do to ensure that we have a comprehensive and responsive testing regime that can move forward, that can deliver for Wales? How will you change things to improve it? How will you ensure that this testing regime is fit for any purpose that might be thrown at us with any other pandemics that may come our way?