Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:58 pm on 29 September 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:58, 29 September 2020

Llywydd, that plan exists, and the Member is quite wrong to just spray around accusations that it doesn't exist when it very plainly does, and so very many people are working so hard to make sure that students in Wales are well looked after. He is quite wrong to say that the testing system is failing in Wales. We have over 100,000 students in Wales and about 100 of them have been tested as having a positive case of coronavirus. Of our TTP system, 93 per cent of close contacts continue to be contacted, 94 per cent of positive cases reached—85 per cent of those within 24 hours, 92 per cent within 48 hours. The system in Wales—and indeed the system in Scotland—is standing up to the testing time that we are going through. It's very much unlike what is happening elsewhere.

As far as the lighthouse labs are concerned, I was urged many times on the floor of the Senedd to make sure that Wales took full advantage of the capacity that it would provide to us. It was right that we should do that, and as I said, until a number of weeks ago, the system was serving Wales very well. We want to see that system restored. We want to see it back providing the volume of tests and the timeliness of tests that we know Wales needs. I urge UK Ministers to make sure that they do everything they can to put us in that position, and then we will be very glad indeed, again, to be part of that system, which is providing thousands of tests to Welsh people and is part of the infrastructure that we will all be relying upon as we go further into the autumn and winter.