Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:23 pm on 15 September 2020.
Llywydd, I think the question completely fails to understand the context in which such decisions are made. They are not made at a leisurely pace. They're not made with an opportunity to put every dot and comma in its place before they are announced. You are dealing with a public health emergency. You are dealing with a situation in which a day's delay can put more people's lives at risk. And I say to the Member that her constituents and those who I know have contacted the Member for Caerphilly, Hefin David, are a good deal more understanding than she appears to be of the fact that the Welsh Government took action immediately we were asked to do so by those public authorities, and, within 24 hours, every bit of guidance that was necessary to help people to deal with the changed circumstances was available to them. Now, we wish to get that guidance to people as fast as we possibly can, but the sequence of events cannot be to provide guidance and then to announce when you're faced with an emergency, and you are faced with advice from people on the ground that action needs to be taken as fast as possible in order to protect people's lives—you take the actions first and then as fast as you can you provide the guidance to go alongside it. That is what we did in Caerphilly, and that is what of course we will aim to do should any similar situations arise in any other parts of Wales. And the people of Caerphilly, who have co-operated fantastically with the restrictions that have been put in place since, I think show a great deal more sense than the Member gives them credit for.