Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:46 pm on 22 September 2020.
I thank the Member for that. I was very glad that there was a COBRA meeting today. I was glad to have a telephone call with the Prime Minister yesterday. The point I made to him then, and again in the COBRA meeting today, is that we need a regular and reliable pattern of engagement between the four nations of the United Kingdom. Ad hoc, last-minute, paperless meetings are not sufficient for us to be able to respond to the crisis as it is continuing to develop. I was reassured that the Prime Minister said in the COBRA meeting that they would now be properly reinstated. That will give us all an opportunity to discuss matters. Public transport was raised briefly, as Rhianon Passmore has suggested, during today's COBRA meeting. A regular, reliable rhythm of meetings, in which we all know when we will have opportunities to share information, to look at the latest analysis, to pool ideas and then to make decisions that are right for the different nations of the United Kingdom, I think is at the centre of the way that we can get through all of this in the best possible way together.