Llywydd, Andrew R.T. Davies very fairly put the point to me yesterday about making a statement to the Senedd as soon as I was able to do so. I said in my answer to him then that I could not guarantee that all the necessary decisions would have been made in time to make such a statement while the Senedd was still in session yesterday. 

The decisions we are making all the time in the Welsh Government are fundamentally important decisions that have an impact on the lives of so many of our fellow citizens. Those decisions were still being made well into the evening yesterday. I don't make an apology for coming in front of the Senedd at 1.30 p.m. today, because that is the earliest moment at which I am able to report to you on decisions that were being made yesterday, and being made in consultation with our partners and with all the seriousness that Senedd Members would expect us to apply to these very difficult and challenging times. 

Having said that, I'm very happy to reply to the other points that Andrew R.T. Davies has made this afternoon. We review our regulations every three weeks. That's not the case in all other parts of the United Kingdom. That means we are able to act swiftly and flexibly to changing circumstances. While I am fearful that a number of the national measures we have had to put in place will last for some weeks or maybe even months, I don't want to put an artificial deadline on for how long they will last, because we will review them every three weeks and we will report every three weeks, both to the Welsh public and to the Senedd, on the extent to which they are still necessary. And if we were in the fortunate position of being able to lift those restrictions more quickly than six months, that is what I would wish to see, and that is the way we have approached this matter throughout the crisis and that's how I intend to continue to navigate through these difficult times.

On the shielding population, there was no discussion at the COBRA meeting yesterday—no fresh advice to any of the Governments of the UK about returning to shielding. Shielding is a course of action that brings harms as well as protections. We know that many of those people who we asked to self-isolate in that way suffered from isolation and from an impact on their mental health and well-being. I know that the Chief Medical Officer for Wales is considering writing again to all the people who continue to be on our shielding list in Wales, updating them on the current position, providing them with further advice. But a blanket return to the position we had earlier in the year is not under consideration at this point in any part of the United Kingdom as far as I am aware. We will keep that too under very careful review.

As for the 10 o'clock point, I was influenced in the discussions, which, as I say, went on well into the evening, by information I was receiving from the hospitality sector, particularly those restaurants that have worked hard to put a business model in place in Wales in which they are able to have two groups of people come into a restaurant in an evening: a first group at 7 o'clock in the evening, a break for necessary cleaning and coronavirus protections to take place, and then a further set of people who come to the restaurant at between 8.30 p.m. and 9 o'clock in the evening. We could have had an approach in Wales where, at 10 o'clock, all those people were required to leave and stand on the pavement. I think that would have caused real damage to that business model that people have worked so hard to put in place.

And every time we make these decisions, we are balancing the needs of people in business and in employment with the need to protect public health. I think the sector is very used to not allowing people to act irresponsibly in the few minutes leading up to a 10 o'clock closure. Our system will allow people to drink up, to eat up, to bring their evening to an orderly close and then make their way home. That is the way the vast majority of people who go out for an evening here in Wales behave already. I didn't want to make their lives more difficult while we continue to bear down on that minority of people in Wales who have, as the evening gets later, found themselves consuming alcohol to an extent that they can no longer remember where they have been or who they have met with, and who, in the process, cause a wholly disproportionate impact on others.

In our meeting last evening, of course we talked about whether a regional approach was now necessary in Wales. It was a very useful meeting; I was very grateful to all the agencies who took time to attend. As I said in my statement, Llywydd, the balance of opinion was that we've not yet reached that point, that there are still local measures in the hands of those local authorities that they are able to take alongside the new national measures that I outlined in my statement to Members. But the emphasis was also on the need for us to remain right on top of the figures, acting swiftly if we need to, and, if further action is required to protect public health, we will not hesitate to do so. 

Let me reinforce the important points that Andrew R.T. Davies made about the NHS remaining open for business. Such hard work has gone on in the NHS to create COVID-secure areas, to put new protections in place so that people who need treatment for other conditions can feel confident in coming forward for them, and that is very much the message from the NHS in Wales. If you need treatment, please be sure the NHS is still there for you in Wales. 

Finally, to Andrew R.T. Davies's point about students, he's absolutely right: at the age of 18, people going away to university, it is a great adventure in their lives. Sadly, this year, that adventure will be very different. We work really closely with all the higher education institutions here in Wales to make sure that those students coming from other parts of the United Kingdom and from overseas will still have as good an experience as we can possibly provide for them, whilst still needing them too to play their part in keeping themselves safe and not posing risks unnecessarily to other people in the localities that they will now be resident in, and will inevitably have anxieties of their own about what the future might hold.