4. Will the First Minister make a statement on the test, trace and protect strategy for coronavirus? OQ55520

I thank Carwyn Jones for that question, Llywydd. The performance of our test, trace, protect service is a credit to our health boards and local authorities and has secured strong support from people across Wales. Since 21 June, 98 per cent of positive cases and 94 per cent of their close contacts have been successfully contacted and advised.

I thank the First Minister for his answer. There have been some instances of people waiting for results, of course, where they've sought tests. Now, will the First Minister give an assurance that the Welsh Government is doing all that it can to make sure that, as it's done with test, trace and protect, it's working hard to ensure that results are made available in good time to those who need the results?

Again, I thank the Member for that supplementary question and agree with him, of course, about the importance of timely responses to tests that have been conducted. As I said in an answer to an earlier question, Llywydd, the difficulties that are being experienced in Wales at the moment are the result of the well-identified difficulties in the lighthouse lab system, a system that was working very successfully only three weeks ago and which we very much want to see being successful again as rapidly as that is possible. The UK Minister responsible says to us that within three weeks that system will be properly back on track and providing timely results to people in Wales and beyond.

In the meantime, our own laboratories continue, I think, to provide timely results: 91 per cent, for example, of hospital tests done at Public Health Wales labs are returned within 24 hours. And what we are trying to do with our own capacity is to use the most rapid results where those results are needed in that fashion. So, I think I may have said already, Llywydd—apologies if I did—that around 99 per cent of tests carried out in the community in Caerphilly are being returned within 24 hours. We need the lighthouse labs to be back operating as they were a short number of weeks ago in order to provide the same service to those parts of the system in Wales who depend upon those laboratories as well as our own.

First Minister, obviously any test and trace system requires confidence in the sharing of information. You've been asked twice this afternoon about the data breach that occurred in Public Health Wales—a substantial data breach. On the one question that was put to you, you were asked, 'When did the Government get alerted to the fact that this data had gone in to the public domain?' You failed to answer that question, so could you respond to my question, please, by providing an answer: when was the Welsh Government—not yourself, the Welsh Government—informed of this data breach and who in the Welsh Government was the first point of contact in the ministerial ranks to be alerted to the fact that 18,000 names had been put in the public domain?

Well, Llywydd, I gave an answer that was within my knowledge. I know when I was informed. I don't know the answer to those other questions, nor would I expect to know them just standing up here in the Chamber. We will discover those answers, of course, and I'm very happy to communicate them to the Member.

It's clear to me that something catastrophic has gone wrong with the testing system in the past fortnight, not just sluggishness in getting results back. Constituents of mine and people in other parts of Wales simply can't access the home test at all. They're having difficulties phoning 911. They can't get a slot in the local drive-through centre, which is far too far away for many people in any case. I agree entirely with independent SAGE scientist who have said for months that there's a real risk in the Welsh Government deciding to put its faith in a system that was run by the UK Government, and that what was needed was to develop a specifically Welsh testing system. Do you see now that putting your faith in the UK system was a mistake, and what we need now as a matter of urgency is to increase capacity here in Wales, capacity that you as a Government have control over?

I agree with the Member that the problems in the lighthouse labs are serious and it's important that the UK Government addresses those problems as quickly as possible. I do not agree at all with him when he said, as part of the independence that Plaid Cymru are forever suggesting, that the best way would be to be totally independent in this field and not to use the capacity that already existed throughout the whole of the United Kingdom. The Scottish Executive hasn't done that at all, and it didn't make any sense for us to do it either. And to be honest, here on the floor of the Senedd, people were saying to me, 'Why aren't you using the capacity that's already available in other systems?' And so we have used that capacity, and until three weeks ago, that system worked well. The challenge now is to do the work on a UK level to put the lighthouse labs back to where they were in August, and that's what we want to support.