Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:04 pm on 6 October 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:04, 6 October 2020

Well, Llywydd, I used the term 'disgraceful' knowingly, thoughtfully, and it is a disgrace for this reason: that the letter that was published by Conservative Members of Parliament, and, as I say, Members of this Senedd as well, last week was an encouragement to people in north Wales not to abide by the law that is passed here in Wales. I do think that for lawmakers that is disgraceful, because it encouraged them to think that the restrictions that we have had to place on people in north Wales were unnecessary and unjustified. None of that was true, and it undermines the willingness of other people who want to make sure they are making their contribution from making that as well, and I think that that was a disgraceful thing to do and I'm very happy to stand by that description of it.  

Llywydd, the coronavirus crisis has been a dreadful experience for so many of our fellow citizens and continues to be so. But, from it all, we do need to find ways of thinking of things that we can take out of it and to help us to shape our future in a different way. The fact that we have all learnt to work differently, not to have to travel in large numbers to office locations when people can work just as satisfactorily and successfully from remote locations or even from home, is one, I think, of the positive lessons we can take from the last six months.

The Welsh Government wants to capture that positive experience and make it part of the way that we see Wales here in the future, and it will mean that businesses will have to respond to those changed patterns. It is not a matter of businesses being lost in the aggregate, because those businesses will relocate and be recreated in places in our towns, closer to where people live, where, using our remote working hubs, people will now be able to go and do those things that you can't do at home while spending part of the working week working from home as well. It will aid work-life balance, it will reinvigorate parts of our towns outside our large cities, it will have a beneficial impact on our environment. It is a legitimate and, I think, well-supported ambition for the way that we want to do things here in Wales.