I am pleased that the Government has accepted recommendation 8, namely that they should assess carefully the likely demand for tests in the future and ensure that there is enough capacity to test in the future so that anyone who needs a test can access one quickly and easily. But the truth is that there is a failure to meet current demand, let alone the demand over the winter. We need to differentiate between capacity and how much testing is happening in practice. The First Minister talked about 15,000 capacity, whereas actually very often it was only 2,000 or 3,000 tests that were being done.

I know that the problems of having tests have come to the surface as schools have opened, and capacity has been short when it was needed. I would have expected there to have been more preparation for that and more robustness in planning or building for the start of the school term. And despite the pledges that things will be better in a few weeks in terms of the lighthouse labs, it doesn't give much confidence in terms of winter robustness, as the second wave continues to grow.

I'm pleased that the Welsh Government has accepted recommendation 7 in terms of developing a clear plan for regular and repeated testing of health and social care staff, including asymptomatic staff. I have been calling for that consistently, and there are still too many people on the front line who are nervous. I hear stories about community nurses, for example, who don't get offered tests and are very concerned about passing the virus on to patients. We need to expand the scope of asymptomatic testing at home, for example. 

Another issue is the financial implications on local government during this pandemic. I do welcome the recognition that the Government needs to confirm as a priority the support package for local authorities to support the work of employing tracing professionals, as they've been doing. And that's recommendation 24. That's something I raised with the finance Minister in July. There were volunteers in local authorities and workers who had been pulled from other departments into the tracing teams, and I think that it is obvious that, even though the number of tracing staff has grown, as we heard in the committee this morning, there will be further support needed by our councils on this front. 

Further work that local government has been leading on is helping people to shield. And you've seen a great number of references in the report in terms of supporting people who have been shielding and ensuring that people are being fed, and so forth. And on that point, I was disappointed with the response I had to a letter from me asking for support for local authorities to be able to plan for providing food and so forth for vulnerable people during the second wave. There was a great partnership in Anglesey, being led by the council, with Menter Môn and local businesses, and Dylan's restaurant, and so forth, ensuring that food packages were being distributed. And Dylan's were very eager to see that preparations were in place to be able to respond quickly to a second wave. The response was very quick in Anglesey the first time, but of course we need to learn as we go. We have the background information now, and we need to ensure that there is better preparation, and I didn't hear that in that letter. So, I'd like to have an assurance that planning work is being done. 

And finally, I echo the recommendation in terms of adequate PPE during this pandemic. We've heard the word 'thanks' being said time after time to health workers and care workers but, of course, what they need is information now and in the future that the resources will be there to allow them to do their work properly.