Questions now from the party leaders. Plaid Cymru leader, Adam Price.

Diolch, Llywydd. On Monday, First Minister, it was reported that there were 596 new positive COVID cases identified in Wales following a lab test—the highest figure, I believe, since the pandemic began and SAGE has said that cases overall in Wales are likely to be increasing on a daily basis by between 1 per cent and 5 per cent a day.

Over the past fortnight, I've raised with you the absurdity of people in lockdown areas of England being able to travel to Wales to areas where community transmission is low. The UK Prime Minister's dismissal of the prospect of such travel restrictions should not have come as much of a surprise, perhaps, given the general contempt with which his Government repeatedly demonstrates towards Wales. We've called for action consistently on this issue since the summer. Can you say whether and when you intend to take action yourselves independently as a Government, and, in addition to looking at introducing quarantine as a solution, is consideration being given to making non-essential travel into Wales from a lockdown area illegal and subject to enforcement by the police?

Well, Llywydd, I thank Adam Price for that. I share his sense of disappointment at the Prime Minister's apparent conclusion—and I say 'apparent' because although he gave an interview in which he opined on this matter, he is yet to reply to my letter to him of Monday last week, and I think that is deeply disrespectful, not to me but to the Senedd and to people here in Wales. I do expect to see a reply to that letter and I expect to see a rationale set out in that letter that explains why the Prime Minister appears to have come to his conclusion.

What I asked for in my letter was not a border solution, it was a solution that would have prevented people living in hotspot areas in England from travelling to other places where the virus was not in the same place, whether that was in England, Scotland or in Wales. That's the solution that we have in Wales: people who live in high coronavirus areas in Wales aren't able to travel to England to take the virus with them. And I still think that that is the right answer and I pressed that again with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in a meeting held with him yesterday.

In the meantime, Llywydd, we have to prepare against the day when the Prime Minister continues to refuse to take this straightforwardly sensible course of action, and there are a range of ways in which we could act. Quarantine is one of them, Members will remember the five-mile rule we had in Wales, or the five-mile guidance, at least, we had in Wales earlier in the summer, and the possibility that Adam Price has set out is another possibility that we could use within our own powers. I think that is the second-best way to do it. I've put the best way to the Prime Minister. I expect to get a proper answer from him. If he refuses to do that, then, of course, we will think about what we can do, and we are actively exploring what we can do, with the powers we hold ourselves.

The Scottish Government, First Minister, has confirmed that it will be imposing far tighter restrictions in the coming days. You yourself have received advice from the technical advisory cell saying that the earlier additional measures are introduced, the more effective they will be. The kind of additional measures that we could be talking about in our context could be, for example, closing pubs indoors completely in areas of high infection, as Paris has done for two weeks starting from today, backed, of course, by suitable and sufficient industry support packages. What active consideration are you giving to the possibility of introducing a brief period of tighter restriction—a so-called 'circuit breaker', as it's become known?

Well, Llywydd, of course we do give consideration to that, and I had an opportunity to discuss that too yesterday with the First Minister of Scotland. Llywydd, we aren't discussing two sets of measures. The figures that I have seen, the most recent ones, which will probably be in the public domain later in the day, show that the local measures we have taken in parts of south Wales are having some success. So, I am working with officials to see whether it may be possible, provided that successes is sustained, to be able to lift some of the restrictions that we have placed on people in that part of Wales, provided the measures we are taking so far demonstrate an ability to do so. At the same time, we have to prepare, in the way that Adam Price has suggested, for the fact that things could get worse, not better, over this winter. There are a series of measures set out in the plan we published in August for health protection area restrictions. We have not used them all by any means, and if we did need to draw on them further, then we would have to do so—whether we would have to do so for a brief period of time I think is, in my view, slightly optimistic. What we are learning from the measures that we've already put place is that it does take a matter of weeks for those to be able to turn the tide of coronavirus around. But we work on both possibilities—both being able to lift restrictions where the data demonstrates it is safe to do so and on further measures we may have to take if that turns out not to be the case.

I agree with the First Minister that a short-term set of policies is no substitute, really, for a long-term strategy. But the technical advisory cell's report, which has just been published, actually, within the hour, is very sobering reading. The R rate that it quotes now for Wales is between 1.3 and 1.6, and that contrasts with early September when it was said to be between 0.5 and 1. It says the incidence in Wales now is growing—the infection incidence is growing overall. It goes on to say:

'Unless measures bring R back below 1, it is possible that infection incidence and hospital admissions may exceed scenario planning'.

And it's previously said that if the current measures don't bring R below 1, then further restrictions will be needed to control the epidemic in Wales. At what point do you think we are now? Are we going in the right direction or the wrong direction, First Minister? And would you accept as a general point that every Government facing a second wave is having to choose between going early and hard in tightening restrictions, or later and lighter, and probably longer, because those measures would be less effective? There are no risk-free options, in a sense, to any Government, but isn't the greatest risk of all dither and delay?

Well, Llywydd, I thank Adam Price, other than for the final part of his sentence, because I thought up until then, he was making a very important contribution to this discussion. I think the Welsh Government's approach has been early and hard, so our thresholds for action are lower than across our border. Our threshold is 50 cases per 100,000 before we take action. It is 75 across our border. Our positivity rate thresholds are lower than they are in the United Kingdom. And he will be aware that the Welsh Government was very much criticised last week by Conservative Members of Parliament, and I think, disgracefully, Conservative Members of the Senedd, when we took action in north Wales, because we hadn't yet reached those 50 thresholds, although it was absolutely obvious to anybody who studied the figures that north Wales was on its way to that threshold—and sadly, today, is well past it.

So, we have taken early action, and action that is hard for people. I really do understand that people faced with these local restrictions are being asked to make a contribution that bites into their daily lives. But we've done that because we think, as I think Adam Price said, that if we take action early, then those actions are likely to have to last for a shorter period of time before we can restore freedoms to people. The early indications from south Wales are that we're having some success in doing just that. And while the TAC report is very sobering in what it says, and ought to be a real warning to anybody who thinks that somehow the Welsh Government is acting precipitately or imposing restrictions where they are not needed, that TAC report would surely be important for them to read. But balanced—. And there in the TAC report as well is the evidence that the actions we are taking are making a difference, and that is, as Adam Price said, the very difficult balancing act that faces any Government attempting to respond, proportionally but seriously, to the latest flare-up in figures.

Leader of the Welsh Conservatives, Paul Davies.

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, it's been reported today that the list of people waiting for routine surgery in Wales is nearly six times longer than a year ago, and one orthopaedic surgeon has warned waiting times for things like knee and hip replacements could be three years. Is he right, First Minister?

Well, the Member is right to point to the fact that coronavirus is having and has had a very serious impact on the ability of the health service to carry out activities that, at any other time, would have been central to the work of the national health service. That, I'm afraid, is inevitable, it's inescapable. And while the heath service is working very hard to create the conditions in which as much activity as possible can be safely carried out while the coronavirus crisis continues, there's no escaping the fact that there will be longer waits for some procedures in Wales than we have seen for some time. 

Well, quite clearly, First Minister, the Welsh Government therefore needs to redouble its efforts, because a number of professional organisations have expressed real concern about the resumption of services over the last few months. Over the summer, the Royal College of Surgeons warned that delays to surgery will already have resulted in an increased need for complex surgery; the British Heart Foundation warned that as services remain unavailable, the urgency of these procedures is increasing, creating a significant cohort of patients who need urgent treatment; and the British Medical Association Cymru have said that they are concerned at the prospect of managing routine care alongside a second peak. First Minister, these delays will continue to stretch the capacity of the NHS, and these organisations have been warning about this for some time. Now, the Royal College of Surgeons has called on the Welsh Government to ramp up the development of so-called green zones or COVID-light areas in hospitals. Therefore, can you tell us what action the Welsh Government took in response to these warnings to help expedite treatment for those people waiting across Wales? And can you also tell us what work the Welsh Government is doing to accelerate the development of green zones in Welsh hospitals? 

Well, Llywydd, the Member would find the answer to his questions in the quarterly plans that the NHS in Wales is required to publish. Plans for quarters 3 and 4 were published only recently; they demonstrate the actions that are being taken by health boards right across Wales to accelerate a return to the sort of activity that the health service would have been carrying out this time last year, before the coronavirus crisis hit. And that does include the creation of more green zones—it's not always possible in Wales to create whole hospitals as green zones. It's inevitable, given our geography and disposition of services that, in some places, hospitals will have to be divided into zones that deal with coronavirus patients and green zones that are COVID-free. But that work is going on, and our colleagues in the health service, who have had such a torrid time over the last six months, are working as hard as they can in order to be able, both to deal with the rising number of coronavirus patients who are coming into our hospitals—I quoted that figure earlier to Mark Isherwood: over 200 more beds occupied by coronavirus cases today than two weeks ago—. The health service is having to cope with all of that, and it is, at the same time and with the same staff, doing its very best to make inroads into the delays that have inevitably occurred in more routine treatments for other patients.

First Minister, I can't emphasise enough that behind the Welsh Government's figures are real people desperately waiting for treatments and surgeries. Even in areas that are not in lockdown measures, like Pembrokeshire, there are examples of extortionately long waits for treatment; for example, last week, I highlighted an 81-week wait for dental treatment for an 11-year-old autistic child in my constituency. I've also been contacted by a couple desperate to resume their fertility treatments and waiting for news on when their family-planning journey can resume. People right across Wales, from north to south, are still waiting for treatments and surgeries on a range of matters. Those people need your help, First Minister, and the Welsh Government must now come forward with a strategy as a matter of urgency.

Therefore, will you commit to publishing a specific strategy for tackling Wales's rising waiting times? Will you also confirm that the next Welsh Government budget will provide sufficient resources to health boards across Wales to ensure that these waiting times do not continue to rise? What assurances can you offer to people across Wales who are waiting for treatment that they will be able to access NHS treatments and services, and that work is actually under way to accelerate the resumption of planned surgeries right across Wales?

Well, Llywydd, the Member has asked me three questions this afternoon. Each one of them has simply been a rehearsal of the difficulties that are well known and that I'm happy to acknowledge. He has not offered a single—not a single—suggestion as to how those problems might be addressed. And those problems are common right across the United Kingdom. Where his party is in charge, in March of this year there were 3,000 people waiting more than 52 weeks; by the end of July, it was 83,000 people. If there were easy answers to these very real dilemmas, they would be available here in Wales, just as they would be available elsewhere. There are no easy answers, and the Member's contributions this afternoon have not offered a single—not a single—idea as to how these real difficulties might better be addressed.

When it comes to saying to me, 'Will I guarantee that next year's budget will provide money?', let me remind him that we don't know what the Welsh Government's budget next year is going to be. Once again, his Government, having promised a budget in the early autumn, have decided that they can't manage to do that. We will not know until the end of November what money we have here in Wales for any of our public services. In that situation, how does he expect—how could he possibly expect—guarantees of how our money might be deployed when we don't know how much money we will have for any public purpose? His complaints would be better directed to those who could put that right.

Leader of the Brexit Party, Mark Reckless.

First Minister, could I caution you against describing people as disgraceful just because they—in this case, Conservative Members in north Wales—take a different view on coronavirus restrictions to that you have and ask questions about it?

Your Government has a stated long-term ambition for 30 per cent homeworking in Wales, even post pandemic. You say you'd achieve this by driving changes to Wales's working culture. First Minister, your deputy transport Minister says that we have an opportunity to push homeworking—others might call it exploiting the pandemic to push his own prior political agenda. What will the impact of this be on our city centres and the shops and offices there, particularly on independent businesses that can no longer serve commuters? Won't your target for homeworking be the final nail in the coffin for many of them? And why do you think Welsh Government can plan our society from the centre, as if you were all-seeing and all-knowing? Why is 30 per cent the right number?

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.

So, for those independent businesses serving commuters, 'Tough.'

First Minister, when UK Government suggests it might pay for the M4 relief road, a project you promised but then said you couldn't afford, you and your colleagues react as if it's an assault on devolution, but you show little sign yourself of respecting the devolution settlement. You seek to enforce a border with England by preventing people who can travel legally within England from travelling to Wales. You have a Minister for foreign relations. You say, 'Devolve justice', which your backbenchers tell us could mean pardoning people convicted of attacking the police. You accepted devolution of income-tax raising powers without the referendum that was promised. You've even said that your support for the union is not unconditional, which the Plaid Cymru leader describes as 'indy-curious'. Now you follow him on border control between England and Wales. Might you next year take another step on that slippery slope to independence by voting for Adam Price to be our First Minister, or do you rule that out?

Llywydd, I remind the Member, as I've had to many times, that it was he who voted not to hold a referendum on income tax powers for the Senedd, not me. He was then a Conservative Member of Parliament. It was the Conservative Party that changed its mind about a referendum, and no doubt he went along with it at the time. It's rich of him to try to complain about it now or to suggest that somebody else is responsible. 

Llywydd, I will not be voting for a candidate of any other party other than the Labour Party to be First Minister here in Wales, and I look forward to convincing as many of our fellow citizens as possible to take the same journey.