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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:19 pm on 26 August 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:19, 26 August 2020

Llywydd, I don't think I can be made responsible for the Member's lack of understanding. As soon as it is safely possible to reopen parts of the football season and different leagues in Wales, we will do so. The Member has to surely understand that public health is more important than football and we will not allow—. I see the Member gesturing at me. I'm sorry that her lack of understanding has yet to be rectified.

When a premier football club resumes, it has all the resources that a premier club is able to draw on. It has all the regulated nature of the settings in which they operate; none of that is true in some of the parts of football to which she referred. There simply isn't the structure there that you can rely upon in that way to be confident that all that activity can be resumed in the way that does not put players, officials and the public at risk. That will always be the first thought of this Welsh Government. It may not be her first thought, but it is ours, and when it is safe to do so, then we will resume activity in that setting and we won't do it before that. When it is safe, we will have discussed it with the sector; of course we will have drawn up joint plans with them—it will not come as a surprise to them. Unlike a Government of her party elsewhere in the United Kingdom, the approach in Wales has always been to plan first and then to announce, not to make an announcement and then wonder how it's going to be possible to make that happen.