Questions now from the party leaders. Leader of the Conservatives, Paul Davies.

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, yesterday it came to light that Public Health Wales admitted a data breach that saw details of just over 18,000 people, who'd tested positive for COVID-19, posted on its website for almost a whole day. That figure included almost 2,000 people living in communal settings such as nursing homes and those living in supported housing, which went as far as to reveal their place of residence. First Minister, given that this is not the first time there has been a problem with public health data, it's deeply worrying that the health Minister didn't come forward with this immediately and with an explanation on what steps will now be taken to restore public confidence, because it's been suggested that the Government has known about this for weeks. So, First Minister, I hope you'll now take the opportunity today to apologise to the people affected by this latest data breach. Will you also take the opportunity to tell us how long the Welsh Government has known about this breach and what you're doing to restore public confidence in its data management?

Well, Llywydd, I learnt of this data breach yesterday, and I learnt of it as a result of Public Health Wales's statement, which, as Paul Davies has said, drew attention to the data breach. It is a serious matter when data regulations are not properly observed, and I think Public Health Wales was right to apologise to those people whose data was inadvertently put into the public domain in this way. Thankfully, as Paul Davies said, the breach lasted for less than a day and the initial inquiries suggest that no harm has been done as a result. But that is a matter of luck rather than anything else.

It's right, therefore, that Public Health Wales has instituted an inquiry into what went wrong, has informed the Information Commissioner, and we will look to both of those offices to make sure that the reasons that lie behind the data breach can be identified, and if there are any systems that need to be put right, that those steps are taken rapidly.

Well, I'm sure, First Minister, the people affected would appreciate an apology from you as First Minister, given that these circumstances have taken place. But, of course, this isn't the first personal data breach, following the incident where 13,000 shielding letters were sent to the wrong addresses earlier this year, not once, but of course twice. Let's also not forget that Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, under your direct control, First Minister, failed to report daily coronavirus death figures because it used a different reporting system to one set up for the Welsh NHS. Therefore, let's hope that this is the last time people's personal data is mishandled during this pandemic, as this could very well damage public confidence, particularly as people are being asked to hand over personal details for the track and trace system.

First Minister, there's also understandable concern at plans to reduce COVID-19 testing from weekly to fortnightly at care homes in north Wales. Can you therefore confirm that the Welsh Government will not reduce the weekly testing of care home residents in Wales? And can you tell us what discussions the Welsh Government is having with those in the Welsh care sector about its testing programme?

Well, Llywydd, it's important to correct a number of points in that. Let's be clear that Betsi Cadwaladr's use of a different reporting system did not involve any breaches of personal data. The two things are entirely different and they're not connected in the way that the Member attempted to connect them in his follow-up question, nor are care home residents tested. It's care home staff who are tested on a weekly or a fortnightly basis, not residents. So, let's be clear about that too. It is quite important in this to be accurate in the way that we put these questions and discuss them.

So, we are in discussions, of course, with all local health bodies about the rate at which we test staff, and where there are symptomatic residents that residents are tested as well. The positivity rate of staff tested in Welsh care homes over this summer was 0.12 per cent. It was absolutely fractional, and it's important to be proportionate, as I believe your health Secretary Matt Hancock has been preaching all morning, about the way we use the scarce resource that tests represent.

The difficulties that we face in care home testing in Wales are because we switched care home testing to the lighthouse laboratories provided by the UK Government. I'm sorry that some care homes are losing confidence in that system and suggesting that they wouldn't be prepared to take part in it. We will look to see whether we need to switch capacity back into the Welsh system in what I hope will be a short period while those lighthouse labs return to the very good service that they were providing in Wales, as elsewhere, only three weeks ago. But the temporary difficulties in care home testing, such as they are, are as a result of the difficulties that that system, that UK system, is experiencing, not because of difficulties in the Welsh testing system.

The point I was making, First Minister, is that it is important that you as a Government consult with the care home sector, because it's absolutely critical that the sector is being fully consulted on your testing policy, and I hope that you will reflect on your comments.

Now, one aspect of testing policy that could make a real difference in identifying possible threats is airport testing. Testing all people returning home from abroad will surely keep people safe. Now, the shadow Home Secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, called for a robust testing regime in airports as a way to minimise the need for the two-week isolation period upon return to the UK, and in a letter to the Home Secretary, he made it clear that ramped-up testing is an important part of trying to respond to the pandemic and safely reopen society. He also said,

'Given the huge challenges being faced by the travel sector and the scale of job losses, it makes sense to look at this area as part of a wider package of improvements to the testing regime.'

The shadow Home Secretary is right; I agree with him. Do you agree with him?

Well, Llywydd, we are in discussions with the airport in Cardiff to see if we can find a practical way in which airport testing itself could be carried out. There are some practical issues that have to be addressed in that, in terms of the length of time that people may have to wait at an airport, how long people would be prepared to wait at an airport—you can't require people to do these things; it's a matter of voluntary participation. Therefore, you have to spend a bit of time to make sure that, if you are able to provide tests at an airport, you can do it in a way that is effective, and those discussions with the airport authorities here in Cardiff are continuing.

Plaid Cymru leader, Adam Price.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. BMA Cymru Wales has warned that a second COVID peak is highly likely this winter, and is the No. 1 concern among the medical profession, as it is, I'm sure, for all of us. Could I urge the First Minister to give serious consideration to adopting elements of the 10-point winter plan that we published today, which is designed to avoid both a second wave and a second national lockdown? In particular, could I ask that the First Minister examines the case for introducing, whenever possible, the targeted approach adopted by some countries based around smart lockdowns focused on high infection spikes at a community or neighbourhood level, rather than lockdowns across a whole local authority area?

I thank Adam Price for that question, Llywydd, and I'm looking forward to having a chance to look properly at the 10-point plan. Any constructive contributions to ways in which we can better approach the winter are welcome. I know that he will have seen the winter protection plan that the Welsh Government has published today, and there's a lot of overlap between the ideas. So I'm very keen to look constructively at those ideas.

In many ways, the idea of a smart or targeted approach can be seen in the way in which our TTP system responded, for example, to the Rowan Foods outbreak in Wrexham, where we didn't need to have borough-wide restrictions on people's liberties: we were able to focus on the people who worked at that plant and their immediate contacts. The requirement to self-isolate, the advice that was given to that particular group in the population, could be, I think, fairly regarded as an example of a smart lockdown, as those people were in isolation for 14 days. The more we are able to target our interventions so that they respond to the nature of the problem we have in front of us, and don't restrict therefore the lives of people who are not directly caught up in that, the better I think we will command public confidence when those measures need to be taken.

The forecasting team at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine are reporting currently their estimate, as of 11 September, of the R figure for Wales as being 1.43, which would put Wales as having the highest rate of growth currently in the UK and a doubling time of just over six days. Do you recognise those estimates, First Minister? If not, what are the Welsh Government's latest estimates? Given the growing urgency of the situation and the difficulties that you referred to earlier in terms of the UK lighthouse lab system, is it possible to bring that new network of hot lab facilities being planned in Wales on-stream earlier than November? As capacity grows, can we look at testing asymptomatic contacts as many countries, including the United States, have now begun to do?

Llywydd, I thank Adam Price again for those questions. The technical advisory cell summary published, I think, today, suggests that the R level in Wales is above 1. I don't think we would sign up to a figure as precise as 1.43. The problem with the R figure for the whole of Wales is that it is inevitably affected by the south-east corner of Wales, where we have seen such spikes in the last week or so. There are whole parts of Wales, Llywydd, where numbers are still very effectively suppressed, and an R level of 1.43 would not be a reflection of the circulation of the virus in those parts of Wales. So, a single figure for Wales at the moment is particularly affected by what we have seen in Caerphilly, in RCT and more latterly in Newport. Nevertheless, the TAC summary does suggest that the rate has crept back above 1 in Wales, and it's why we took the measures that we did on Friday of last week, to respond on a Wales-wide basis to that emerging picture.

The £32 million investment that my colleague Vaughan Gething announced on 18 August, Llywydd, will mean 24-hour working in labs in Swansea, in Cardiff and in Rhyl in October, and hot lab capacity more widely in Wales—at the moment in November. If we can, of course, draw it forward, we will want to do that. The investment is both a matter of capital investment but also employing more staff in those laboratories. We had 3,000 applications for the 160 jobs that will be recruited, and interviews for those posts began yesterday. So the sooner we are able to get those people in post, the sooner we will be able to get that lab capacity in active operation here in Wales. And when we have more capacity in that way, we will be able to think again about who we test, when we test them, including—I'm not suggesting that we've made that decision at all, but it will allow us to consider the issue of asymptomatic testing in a different way. 

In six weeks' time, the UK Government's furlough scheme will end, and the looming cliff edge will leave thousands of workers facing the crippling uncertainty of unemployment. If a further rise in COVID cases means local lockdowns will have to be imposed in other areas over the coming months, and if the UK Government does not act, does the Welsh Government have a contingency plan to offer a local furlough, effectively, as well as financial support to businesses and local public services in the affected areas, as well as those unable to earn because they are self-isolating? I'm sure the First Minister would agree that it would be absolutely wrong to penalise people simply for being ill. 

I entirely agree with that point, Llywydd, and it's been made repeatedly by me, by Vaughan Gething, by the First Minister of Scotland in a call where I joined with her, and, indeed, the First Minister of Northern Ireland in calling on the UK Government not to bring the furlough scheme to a blunt end—to recalibrate it, to recast it and to add to it an ability to support the wages of those people who we are asking to self-isolate for 14 days. At the moment, there is a perverse incentive for those people who work on very low wages to go into work when you're not feeling well, because otherwise you have to rely on £95-worth of sick pay every week. A simple scheme in which the UK Government itself guaranteed the normal wage level of those people, or indeed did it in partnership with employers, would eliminate that perverse incentive. I think it would increase compliance with the rules that keep us all safe and would be a sensible investment by the UK Government, because you will be, in the way we often talk about in this Chamber, acting preventatively rather than having to pick up the costs that follow when that person does go into work, infects other people, leads to greater demand on public services and firms having to stop production, and so on. 

My colleague Ken Skates is at the moment working on the third phase of the economic resilience fund here in Wales. Part of that consideration is the help that we can give to firms who find themselves caught up in local lockdowns here in Wales in future. Will our budget stretch to the income maintenance of people who are affected by the end of the furlough scheme or who need to self-isolate? I'm afraid we're simply not resourced to do that. Income maintenance is not a devolved function to the Welsh Government. Funds don't flow to us from the UK Government to support that, and it's much harder to see how we would be able, in an affordable way, to devise a scheme of the sort that Adam Price rightly draws attention to but that is equally rightly the responsibility of the UK Government to put in place. 

Leader of the Brexit Party, Mark Reckless. 

First Minister, given the legal requirement to inform the Information Commissioner within 72 hours, and his guidance to inform those affected without undue delay, did you and/or Public Health Wales sit, I believe, for around two weeks on news of this major data leak?

Could I also ask you to clarify your version of the rule of six, which you insist must be different from England's? Why say that these six must be of the same extended household, formed of up to four households, not including children, but then that these four households, although forming an extended household, may not all meet at once if more than six?

Could I also remind you that you previously said that there was only a marginal public health case for non-medical face coverings? Your health Minister said that the Chief Medical Officer for Wales thinks that masks should be a matter of personal choice. What new evidence have you seen to remove that personal choice from people?

Llywydd, the rule of six I don't think is very difficult to follow. What we know is that coronavirus is being passed by people meeting inside each other's houses. That is what lies behind the transmission in Caerphilly. That is what lies behind the transmission in many parts of England. And in order to try to bring the position back under control, what we are proposing in Wales is that no more than six people should meet indoors at any one time; it limits the chain of transmission. It really is as simple as that. And when chains of transmission are driving up figures of people suffering from coronavirus in significant parts of Wales, and doing so quite alarmingly, then it is very important that the Government act to bring that back under control.

We have a more liberal regime here in Wales than elsewhere because four households are able to form a single extended household, and that itself provides an umbrella which helps to disrupt chains of transmission, but no more than six of those people should meet at any one time. We will allow primary school aged children to be part of that household beyond the six because of the evidence that those children don't suffer from coronavirus and don't transmit coronavirus in the way that adults do. It's a proportionate attempt to try not to interfere in people's freedoms more than the minimum necessary, but to do the minimum necessary in order to address the escalating numbers of coronavirus that we see in too many parts of Wales. 

As far as face coverings are concerned, in our local lockdown plan, again published in the middle of August, Llywydd, we said that if the circulation of the virus in Wales moved beyond a certain threshold, we would revisit our advice on face coverings. At the end of last week, the rate in Wales went to 20 per 100,000 of the population, and has remained above 20 ever since. Twenty is the figure we use to identify foreign countries where if you've been abroad and you have to return to the United Kingdom, you have to self-isolate. It seemed to me to be again a proportionate way of marking that unfortunate threshold that we should ask people in Wales to do that marginal thing, because when you get to circulation of the virus at that level, marginal bits of help that assist us all in keeping it under control and driving it down become worthwhile. 

In Sweden, there was no lockdown, as we've discussed before, First Minister, and there has to date been no significant resurgence in the virus; indeed, we've just lifted travel restrictions on Sweden. Yet in Spain, where there was a very severe lockdown, we're seeing a large resurgence of the virus. What then is the reasoning behind the Welsh Government's strategy of keeping people locked down throughout summer when people's immune systems are at that strongest, and when NHS capacity is at its greatest, only to delay increasing infections until we are going into winter? You've locked down my constituents in the Caerphilly council area, and even talked about the possibility of curfews and restrictions on alcohol sales as potential measures you may consider. Having taken people's summer away only for cases to rise again, do you accept that lockdown fatigue has taken hold and that you cannot keep people locked down forever? How much longer do you expect to drag out this pandemic in Wales through your restrictions? 

Well, Llywydd, the Member often appears to occupy a world that many of the rest of us don't occupy, but now he appears to have a different season in his clock as well. Wales was not locked down during the summer. Our tourism industry has resumed, our 'stay local' restrictions have been lifted, people have been able to meet in the outdoors, people have been able to meet indoors. It's absolutely nonsensical to say that the summer was lost here in Wales. What has really happened in Wales is that some people, a minority of people in Wales, have taken the summer as a sign that coronavirus was over, and the fact that they have been able to do so much more than they were previously has been read by them as a licence to do even more than was permitted, and we are seeing the results. We are seeing the results in the lives of people who are now suffering from this disease, and I'm afraid that we will see over the weeks to come the impact of that in people being admitted to hospital and calling on our intensive care unit beds again. So, very far from the Welsh Government denying people freedoms that they should have experienced, we have done our very best to restore freedoms whenever it has been safe to do so, and I am saddened by the fact that, at the moment, we are faced with a position where the Welsh experience of coronavirus, instead of improving, is worsening. We may all have to make those efforts again that we made earlier this year unless we are able to persuade all of those people—in the Member's constituency and otherwise—to act in a way that protects themselves, protects others and helps us all to keep Wales safe.