1. Will the First Minister make a statement on reducing the risk of COVID-19 infections in factories and other closed settings? OQ55438

Thank you, Llywydd. Just before I answer the question, may I just say thank you to you and to everyone who's worked so hard to prepare the Chamber so that we can all return here today?

On Monday, Llywydd, I chaired the first meeting of a group to establish a national health and safety forum for Wales, as proposed jointly by the Wales Trades Union Congress and Confederation of British Industry Wales. It will advise on measures to reduce risk in closed settings, over and above the extensive guidance already issued to the sector.

I thank the First Minister for his response. I wrote to Kepak and Merthyr council on 1 April this year expressing my concerns about a lack of social distancing and hygiene procedures in their factory in Merthyr after a constituent had raised alarms with me. The constituent was concerned that, unless proper regulations were put in place, an outbreak of COVID-19 could happen there, a concern that was, sadly, justified. Now, whilst my letter to the company went unanswered, the council did take action: they told me that they arranged for the Health and Safety Executive to ensure the relevant regulations were being followed, and that they arranged to have a full-time Food Standards Agency employee at the premises. But we know that this still wasn't enough to prevent an outbreak of COVID-19 at the plant, with 135 people now believed to have been infected. 

First Minister, I'm interested to know whether you were aware that concerns had been raised about this plant and whether you were satisfied with the action taken by Merthyr council. Given that the outbreak still occurred despite their best efforts, do you now agree that you need to look again at tightening regulations for high-risk workplaces such as meat processing plants, and that our excess testing capacity should be used routinely to test workers who work under these conditions so that future outbreaks can be better contained?

Llywydd, can I thank the Member for that question? Of course, concerns about the factory were raised by my colleague Dawn Bowden, and those concerns were taken up not simply with the local authority, but with other authorities that have a responsibility for ensuring safety at the plant. That is now overseen by an outbreak control team, which is drawn from the local authority, the local health board, Public Health Wales, the environmental health department, the Food Standards Agency and the Health and Safety Executive. That team is investigating the causes of the number of cases we have seen at Kepak Merthyr.

It is still unclear in the advice that I have seen as to whether or not the rise in cases was caused at the factory, or was imported into the factory from the community. That work continues to go on, and the Welsh Government is regularly updated on the meetings of that team—there's one today—and we will be guided by their investigations and the recommendations that I expect to hear from them.

First Minister, I note that the World Health Organization is likely to modify its advice on the cloud effect that is generated through breathing and that the particles, very fine, that are so generated can hang in the air for hours, and they are particularly prone to do so in small spaces like toilets where there are hand dryers, for instance. Can you assure us that, as we gain more scientific knowledge of this disease, you will be modifying your guidance as to the proper thing to do, ensuring that it gets to those who need to know about it—[Inaudible.]—?

I thank David Melding for that. Some of us had an opportunity to discuss this issue briefly with the chief medical officer earlier today. His interpretation of the evidence that has emerged at the World Health Organization is that the bulk of transmission is still more likely to be communicated through droplets rather than through fine particles, and that was the view of Welsh virologists yesterday. But, of course, I can give the Member an assurance that we continue to follow the science, and if the science changes and if our actions need to change, then we will take those actions in line with the emerging evidence.

Coronavirus has turned out, all the way through, to be a virus that causes surprises, and we know an awful lot more now than we did only weeks ago. The evidence that emerged yesterday and overnight will form part of the body of evidence that the Welsh Government will continue to draw upon. 

Thank you for the answers to Delyth Jewell's question, First Minister, and thank you, also, for your acknowledgement of the work that's been going on there with the company, with the council and with other partners for some considerable weeks before this.

Can I thank the incident management team in Merthyr Tydfil and the Welsh Government for the updates on the incident? That's been invaluable in keeping us informed. So far, it is encouraging to hear that this incident remains contained and that there is no evidence, at this stage, of community transmission, and I thank everyone involved in co-operating to ensure that that remains the case. However, in light of this incident, can you advise me as to whether any other large workplaces in the area, particularly those with similar environmental characteristics that may not always be able to manage social distancing, are also to be inspected and their workforces tested?

And can I ask what measures the IMT are putting in place to ensure that issues of community cohesion are also addressed, given that there's a very large eastern European migrant workforce at these plants?

I thank Dawn Bowden for that and for her acknowledgement of the work that the incident management team have carried out. They were unanimously agreed recently that an outbreak should not be declared at the factory and that it should continue to be managed as an incident.

Dawn Bowden, Llywydd, makes two important points, firstly, in relation to inspections of other factories; I certainly would expect there to be a heightened awareness amongst the Health and Safety Executive and others of the need to do that. And can I pay tribute, for a moment, to the role of the trade unions in all of these sites? Much of the from-the-front-line intelligence that we get comes through the trade union movement and alerts us to the need to inspect, and were the evidence to point in that direction, to extend testing to other settings.

The second point that Dawn Bowden makes is also very important, Llywydd—issues of community cohesion—and that has been very much in our minds at all the sites that have been involved in outbreaks or incidents. And we have learnt a number of things about the need for messaging in languages other than English and Welsh, to find different ways of communicating with workforces drawn from other parts of the world, and then to communicate clearly to other people in those areas about when there is evidence or, in these cases, no evidence of extensive wider community transmission, to allay fears that inevitably arise that this may be an outbreak or an incident not confined to the plant itself.