Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 11:25 am on 8 July 2020.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Paul Davies Paul Davies Conservative 11:25, 8 July 2020

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, key to tackling the spread and indeed the eradication of this awful virus is Wales's testing programme and its ability to reach as many people as possible in order to better inform people before they make decisions about socially interacting. We know that lab capacity in Wales is just over 15,000, which, as you know, is still a long way off the potential 20,000 tests per day that the Welsh Government proposed in the 'Test Trace Protect' document. Indeed, we know that the total number of tests in the last 24 hours was 3,054, which means that just a fifth of capacity has been used. And more worrying, according to official figures, no extra tests were carried out between 28 June and 5 July for healthcare workers across Wales. Clearly, this shows that more testing could and should be done. First Minister, can you tell us why the levels of testing in Wales are so low and can you also tell us what the Welsh Government is doing to increase the level of testing across the country?