Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:51 pm on 15 September 2020.
I thank the Member, and, of course, we do set out some of the challenges he sets out at the start, in terms of taking local action in preference to national action, in our coronavirus control plan and, as the First Minister has reminded Members today, our test, trace, protect service works, effectively, as a smart lockdown. If people are honest and upfront about their contacts, we'll get to people quickly, because our contact tracing service isn't just highly effective in reaching contacts overall, but actually gets to people very quickly, in the information that we published in the last week. That allows people to follow that advice on self-isolation and avoid wider community measures, and I think that's really valuable and important for all of us.
The challenges on lighthouse lab testing are undeniably disappointing, and it's not just me saying that—every health Minister in the UK who will be asked questions about this will have the same issues to say and, as I say, Matt Hancock today in the House of Commons has acknowledged it will take a matter of weeks for those issues to be resolved. But it is in all of our interests for those issues to be resolved, because, until a few weeks ago, it was actually a pretty good performance of lighthouse labs, and that's not a point of criticism; that's what was happening. What we need to do, though, is to be able to see how we're going to be able to switch our resources in Wales to deal with the challenge we have for that next few weeks, because the challenge that the lighthouse labs are facing comes at a considerably difficult period of time. Schools have gone back, universities will have gone back within three weeks, and so we know we're likely to see more pressure on the system, and I recognise the deep frustration of not just the Members' constituents, but across the country, if they can't get ready access to a test in the way we were used to getting through the summer. So, rest assured, it isn't just the contact I've had on the Friday or the Saturday morning with other health Ministers; it's a regular feature of concern. That's why I wrote jointly, with the Scottish health Minister, to Matt Hancock yesterday, seeking to understand more about the challenges, so we can actually make sure we're deploying our own resources as we need to to provide the sort of testing system that all of us want to see for all of our communities.