1. Statement by the First Minister: Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 1:56 pm on 5 August 2020.

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Photo of Mark Reckless Mark Reckless Conservative 1:56, 5 August 2020

First Minister, may I thank you for your statement and also thank you for the continuing extraordinary hard work that you've been putting in? We've been on recess—I suspect you're not going to have the chance to get away on holiday like, perhaps, some others may—and I know your workload has been extraordinary. So, thank you for that.

You were speaking about the aim of the regulations. At the beginning, I thought we were told that it was to protect the NHS and for the capacity of the NHS not to be overcome. It seems, relatively early in the process, that that was achieved. When Adam Price invites you to say if you intend to eradicate—'Is that the aim?'—you don't say 'yes' to that. I had thought not allowing R to go above 1 was a clear aim. I've questioned that before. It seems to me that prevalence is at least as important as R. I think, in your remarks just now, you did give more focus to that than, perhaps, we've had before. But the ambition of the lowest possible level—I don't see how, practically, that assists in making decisions, particularly when R is low and volatile. You mentioned prevalence rates of 0.7 per cent and 0.8 per cent compared to 4 per cent as the emerging concern standard—at least from the biosecurity centre—and you talk a lot about headroom, but how do you make these determinations?

Surely there must be some degree of cost-benefit analysis involved when you look at the, thankfully, far lower level of deaths and serious hospitalisations we now have, but there's still pretty severe restrictions that people and their well-being and the economy operate under. When people think about whether they're going to interact, the chance of getting the virus is generally very low, yet the cost of not having those interactions—socially as well as economically—can still be high, and I'm not clear how you're determining what is eased and what is not. And you talk about headroom, but that ambition of the lowest possible level doesn't give a quantitative standard against which you can make judgements.

We also still have a huge amount of detail and complexity and micromanagement of what people should or shouldn't do, and whether it's in law and whether it's in regulations, and a bit different in Wales than in England, and when you complain about people not following the precise instructions, many people find it very difficult to keep up with what they are. If they perceive the risk is very low, yet the cost to them of not doing something or not having an interaction—then many people will do that. Do you not understand that?

We had £59 million for the arts. You mentioned that that was passed on, yet only £53 million of that has been distributed in Wales. What are you doing with the other £6 million?

One area that I've had complaints in my constituency—the David Broome equestrian centre in Chepstow is saying that competitors across the border, they're fine, but because of the law and what you're doing in Wales, they can't have show-jumping events, and the 30 limit on anything outdoors, even if people aren't very connected, applies. Is there anything that you could do to assist them? My colleague David Rowlands wrote to you 10 days ago, but has not yet heard back.

Finally, I think people's confidence and assessment of risk matters at least as much as what the law or the precise guidance is. Can you be clear to people: do you want people to go back to work when they can, or are you still saying people must stay home when they can? We have only around a third of office workers back at work. That compares to about three quarters in most European countries. Aren't we going to see absolute economic devastation while that remains the case?