I call the Minister for Health and Social Services, Vaughan Gething.

Motion NDM7412 Rebecca Evans

To propose that the Senedd, in accordance with Standing Order 27.5:

1. Approves The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 2) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 12) Regulations 2020 laid in the Table Office on 24 September 2020.

Motion NDM7409 Rebecca Evans

To propose that the Senedd, in accordance with Standing Order 27.5:

1. Approves The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 2) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 13) (Llanelli etc.) Regulations 2020 laid in the Table Office on 25 September 2020.

Motion NDM7411 Rebecca Evans

To propose that the Senedd, in accordance with Standing Order 27.5:

1. Approves The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 2) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 14) (Cardiff and Swansea) Regulations 2020 laid in the Table Office on 25 September 2020.

Motion NDM7410 Rebecca Evans

To propose that the Senedd, in accordance with Standing Order 27.5:

1. Approves The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 2) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 15) (Neath Port Talbot, Torfaen and Vale of Glamorgan) Regulations 2020 laid in the Table Office on 28 September 2020.

Motions moved.

Thank you, acting Presiding Officer. I formally move the four sets of regulations before us today, and ask Members of the Senedd to support them. These regulations were again introduced under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, through emergency procedures to support our ongoing action to tackle the unfinished coronavirus pandemic. The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 2) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 12) Regulations 2020—I'll now refer to them as the amendment and then the number regulations, so as not to have a mouth full—amend the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 2) (Wales) Regulations 2020, which are the principal regulations. The principal regulations were amended with effect from 22 September this year to introduce requirements on most licensed premises in local health protection areas to close by 11 p.m. and not to open before 6 a.m. Those provisions have now been replaced with new requirements covering all of Wales, which have the effect that premises with a licence to sell alcohol for consumption on the premises must stop selling by 10 p.m. and close by 10.20 p.m. and not reopen until 6 a.m. Such premises are required to provide seated service only, and premises with an off-sales licence for alcohol must cease the sale of alcohol by 10 p.m. In addition, these regulations extend the requirement to wear face coverings to now include customers in indoor hospitality unless they are at a table and eating or drinking, and staff when in the public area of the premises. The regulations were made and came into force on 24 September.

The health protection amendment No. 13 regulations were made on 25 September, and came into force on 26 September. The principal regulations were amended with effect from 8 September 2020 to introduce restrictions in respect of the Caerphilly local health protection area. The No. 13 amendment regulations extend restrictions to a further local health protection area comprising 13 electoral wards in the Llanelli area of Carmarthenshire, and they provide that no household within that area may be treated as forming part of an extended household, and prohibiting the formation of an extended household. Persons living in that area are prohibited from leaving or remaining away from that area without reasonable excuse, and residents of that area are required to work from home unless it is not reasonably practical for them to do so. People outside that area are prohibited from entering the area without reasonable excuse. We currently have a common pattern for local restrictions in Wales, and Members will be familiar with what I've outlined.

The regulations also amend regulation 12 of the principal regulations, that is, the obligation to take all reasonable measures to minimise the risk of exposure to or the spread of coronavirus. As I said, from 24 September, all licensed premises are prohibited from selling alcohol after 10 p.m. and must close no later than 10.20 p.m. These provisions are now extended so as to ensure that premises that, although not licensed, permit customers to consume their own alcohol, are subject to the same requirements as premises that are authorised for the sale or supply of alcohol.

The No. 14 amendment regulations were made on 25 September and came into force on 27 September. The regulations introduce similar local restrictions for the city and county of Cardiff and the city and county of Swansea.

Finally, the No. 15 amendment regulations were made and came into force on 28 September. These introduced similar local restrictions for Neath Port Talbot, Torfaen and the Vale of Glamorgan county areas as local health protection areas that are subject to specific restrictions and requirements. In keeping with the coronavirus control plan, we've set out our approach to monitoring cases and controlling localised outbreaks. The restrictions we have introduced are based on the principles of caution, proportionality and subsidiarity.

The Welsh Government continues to take a careful and evidence-based approach to dealing with coronavirus, including through the formal requirement to review the need for relevant restrictions and their proportionality every 21 days. Each of the regulations relating to local health protection areas is subject to review two weeks after their introduction, and every week thereafter if the restrictions remain in place for longer than that. Llywydd—or rather acting Llywydd—we all have a role to play in keeping Wales safe. These regulations are necessary to our continued efforts to tackle this unfinished pandemic. I ask Members of the Senedd to support them today.

Thank you. I call the Chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee, Mick Antoniw.

Thank you, acting Llywydd. Members will know, of course, that the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 2) (Wales) Regulations 2020 are the principal regulations on coronavirus in Wales. The No. 12 amending regulations—I do not intend to repeat the narrative that the Minister has given, the accurate account of what those regulations specifically refer to. I'll go straight to our report on the No. 12 regulations, which identified three merits points. The first noted the Welsh Government's justification for any potential interference with human rights, and the second that there had been no public consultation on these regulations, and our third reporting point highlights two important matters relating to the principal regulations as a whole. First, we highlight that keeping up to speed with all the changes is becoming increasingly difficult and confusing for members of the public. Secondly, we highlight possible inconsistency within the principal regulations that require clarifications.

I now refer to the No. 13, No. 14 and No. 15 amending regulations. Again, these have been outlined by the Minister as to their contents and the restrictions that they bring into force. Our reports on these regulations—that is, on the No. 13, No. 14 and No. 15 regulations—do not raise any new issues regarding the application of restrictions to communities in Wales, but we do draw the reports to the Members' attention to assist today's debate.

And there's one further matter that I would like to draw Members' attention to, and that is this: in the future, the committee intends to consider the extent to which the explanatory memoranda include evidence about why certain areas are placed in lockdown and the reasons for that urgency. Thank you, acting Llywydd. 

Sadly, this is now a weekly occurrence that we, obviously, have to deal with these regulations, although I do welcome that the regulations are coming in a more timely manner, albeit they are still lagging on, obviously, the introduction of them, and I very much welcome a real-time debate and discussion on many of these regulations, rather than us discussing them some two weeks after they've been brought into action in some areas.

No politician at all, from any colour party, or independent, even, in this Chamber wants to do anything that puts a citizen of Wales at a disadvantage or causes them harm, and I think everyone subscribes to making sure that we are doing everything in the best interests to protect the people of Wales from the virus and the effects of the virus on people's health.

But there are concerns we Welsh Conservatives have with some of these regulations. If I go through them: regulation 12, about curfew restrictions and in particular the settings of social activities—we fully subscribe to the table-service only and wearing of masks within such a setting, but where we do have difficulties is we have not been able to see the evidence that says that the curfew at 10 o'clock—or 10.20 p.m. in the Welsh context—actually has a material effect in suppressing the spread of the virus and not stopping people taking their social activities into a house setting, which I know is an illegal activity, but we heard in First Minister's questions today from one of our colleagues that it is going on in Wales and people are continuing that social setting within house parties or street parties. And so we'll be abstaining on that regulation, because, as I said, we fully support the table-only rule within the social setting of a pub or such a like venue, but we do have reservations as to whether the effectiveness of the curfew is actually helping and not hindering making sure that social activity is in a regulated environment, such as a pub or similar sort of setting.

On amendment 13, which deals with the restrictions that were laid in Llanelli, we very much support these regulations on the basis that this is very much what we've been calling for. Where the local evidence clearly shows that there is a need, rather than a county-wide or region-wide enforcement of restrictions, it is done on as localised a basis as possible. And we welcome the Government using that information, but we would wish them to share that information more widely and actually use that localised data when they bring forward other restrictions.

Restriction No. 8 and restriction No. 9 on the order paper, items 14 and 15, which relate to Cardiff and Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Torfaen and the Vale of Glamorgan—we will be voting against these restrictions on the basis that we do not believe that the Welsh Government actually deployed the same criteria as they used in setting the restrictions for the Llanelli town setting, as opposed to the county of Carmarthenshire, and we would very much welcome the Minister giving us confidence that, as he goes forward, he will start to use this localised data in a more targeted way, so that we don't have county-wide lockdowns or regional lockdowns.

And I would just seek some clarification from the Minister: when you look at the figures that are out today, we are talking about the Vale of Glamorgan—. I declare an interest as a resident of the Vale of Glamorgan and also a councillor for the local authority there, but people have been talking—obviously, we welcome the progress in Caerphilly; well, if you look at the target figures today, the Vale of Glamorgan is in a better position than Caerphilly, and I'd like to understand when the Vale of Glamorgan, for example, will be up for review, so that, hopefully, some of these restrictions can be lifted. If that is the journey that the Welsh Government is going on in the Caerphilly county borough area, then, surely, on the numbers, the Vale of Glamorgan warrants such measures as well.

And I just want to end on this note, if I may: I do think it was unfortunate for the First Minister to take Conservative colleagues to task, whether they were Members of the Senedd or whether they were Members of Parliament, when they are genuinely having constituents either running businesses or just residents of the area—. Looking at the numbers, if you look at Conwy, for example, that had county-wide restrictions inflicted on it—placed on it, should I say—the other day, on the last reporting day, 8.5 per 100,000; on the seven-day rolling average, 64 per 100,000; and in the last reporting week, the twenty-eighth to the fourth, 60.6 per 100,000 cases. Gwynedd, just across the border, where no restrictions exist at all—on the last reporting day, 16.9 cases per 100,000; seven-day average, 73.1; and the last reporting week, 72.3.

Now, I'm not wishing to place restrictions on any area that doesn't need those restrictions, but, when you're a representative of a community, whether you're a member of this institution or Westminster or a councillor, then you are not doing your job if you're not conveying the views of those constituents. And when people are seeing their livelihoods going down the Swanee because of certain restrictions that have been placed on those businesses from functioning in an environment that they have created that is safe, then they're not unreasonable in asking their representatives to convey those views to the Government here or the Government in Westminster or the local authority, and I would seek clarity from the Minister on how he and his officials are interpreting the data when one county, as I've just identified, is in restriction, and then the county next door, with a higher infection rate, is not under restriction.

It's a bit unfortunate—I was trying to listen to the previous speaker and it was being interrupted all the time. But, nonetheless, my reason for speaking here is to thank the Minister for the update, and to reiterate that the success of the public restriction hinges on the public's trust in both each other and those who are making those decisions. And that's why I think that the behaviour of Dominic Cummings and Margaret Ferrier MP is so dangerous, and also at the same time demoralising for those people. But the fall in case numbers in Caerphilly, which has been mentioned, and Newport, does show that the vast majority of the Welsh public do understand and do get the reasons for these restrictions. And I believe that there is a fall in case numbers also in Carmarthenshire. So, of course it's essential, then, that we repay the trust that people have put into that system. You have said that the local restrictions are being kept under constant review. Could the health board or Public Health Wales publish real-time data in Llanelli and other areas, so that residents can monitor progress and understand what criteria have to be met before the restrictions might be lifted? But, on behalf of the area that I represent, and everything that I have heard from that community, there is overwhelming support for the Government's action, and I just want to place that on record. Thank you.

There's a series of regulations before us again today. We will be supporting the No. 12 amendment, which is agendum 6, because we generally agree with the benefit that accrues from closing licensed premises earlier, although we feel that we could go further. We will also be supporting the No. 13 amendments, namely Llanelli, where the Government demonstrated that they were able to operate on a hyperlocal level.

We're still considering our position on amendments 14 and 15, depending on what the Minister tells us this afternoon. The reason for that, in accordance with what the Chair of the legislation committee said, is that I do believe that it's crucially important, if truth be told, for the legislation committee, and through that the Senedd, to see the data that clearly demonstrates why action at a local authority area level is required. Now, that may be true, the data may be entirely convincing, but, in order to support regulations, we need to see that data, and I was pleased to hear Mick Antoniw making that very point. The restrictions imposed are significant and substantial—not as substantial as at the time of lockdown in April and May, but they are still significant, and we need to be sure that people aren't suffering more than is necessary in terms of their well-being, and also economically. So, we need that data in order to decide whether the restrictions are proportionate. And, in the case of amendment 13, namely Llanelli, the Government proved that they could do that, but that wasn't the case with amendment 14 and amendment 15. And, of course, the restrictions introduced in north Wales will be before us in a week's time, I would hope.

The other element that causes a great deal of concern is the anomaly where there is a restriction on people from restricted areas in Wales going to other areas, but no such restriction on people from high-risk areas in England travelling to those very same areas. That anomaly makes these regulations, in turn, appear to some as being unfair and disproportionate, and treating the people of Wales in an unfair manner. In reality, it's the inconsistency that's unfair, so when will the Welsh Government act in order to deal with that inconsistency and to ensure that the same restrictions are applied to people from outwith Wales as are applied to citizens in Wales?

I only have one question, but simply to say, coming from an area that has been within these localised measures for some time, both with Rhondda Cynon Taf and Bridgend, my role, and that of others within the area, has been very much to explain to people why the measures are necessary and to encourage them to abide by them, difficult as that is for businesses and individuals. It was disconcerting to see a letter from north Wales colleagues that seemed truly Johnsonian in its approach, which came close to encouraging people to break those rules and regulations. I'd encourage Andrew R.T. Davies to reflect on that.

My question is very straightforward, though: Minister, I have many people who are caught in the conundrum of having booked travel. Some of them have got caring responsibilities; they've postponed travel but they've rebooked it and they planned to go away, some of them from Cardiff Airport. But, those flights and those travel operators—some of them are not offering refunds, or if they're offering to reschedule flights and accommodation, they're doing it at an exorbitant cost. Do we now have any clarity so that we can say to these travel operators and these flight operators, 'You should play fair by these customers; refund them, offer them long-term rearrangements or do not charge them the earth to reschedule flights'?

Well, Minister, you certainly know how to stir up opposition, don't you? I remember the first set of main coronavirus regulations, voting against those. I think there were just three or four of us then. Last week, there were seven or eight in opposition, and this week you have the main opposition saying that they will be voting against the substantial all-county south Wales lockdowns that you're imposing. Even Plaid are saying that they will consider their position before deciding whether to support you.

I just wonder whether you might reflect on whether this has anything to do with how the Welsh Government has managed these regulations. I, as you know, consider that they are disproportionate and counterproductive, but they're also capricious, they're also arbitrary and you have also been defensive and closed in the way that you have put them forward.

Why on earth can't we have the ward level information that is requested so ably by Andrew R.T. Davies? Public Health Wales have published it down to an individual level on their website for nearly 24 hours. Why can't you put that ward data out there and actually engage with the debate? It's because you're not that you're now seeing this level of opposition, and I've spoken before about COVID lockdown fatigue. There's going to be more of it, because it's no longer being done on a cross-party basis; it is being imposed by the Welsh Labour Government against widespread opposition.

Can I ask you, specifically, about the 10 p.m. lockdowns? Whether it's 10 p.m. or 10.20 p.m., surely it is counterproductive to make everyone leave at once. How does that help reduce spread? What about those hospitality businesses that invested so much in getting COVID secure and ready to reopen, and then you do that to them?

Specifically, and finally, I'd like to ask about the council lockdowns; this apparent rule that in Wales you're not allowed to cross a council border: not going out of the region, the wide region in south Wales with infections, but not to go out of your particular council area; not to stop you going within the council area. Minister, again, I see you go to your office in Cathays Park but you won't come here. What is the purpose of this and what is your ask to the UK Government in terms of what they're doing in England?

You talk about respecting devolution, but are you telling them that they have to do for English county areas exactly as you're doing in Wales, because we say, 'You're not allowed to leave the county area', therefore that's what they must say for local lockdowns in England? What gives you the authority to do that? Or, are you saying they have to add on, 'You can go out of your local area, but you mustn't cross the border into Wales'? Or, are you in Wales proposing border control where you put restrictions on people from England, who can move freely within England, to tell them they cannot move to Wales? Has devolution come to this?

I'm very grateful for the opportunity to speak. I wasn't planning to today, but I'm absolutely fed up of the claptrap and cobblers that's being peddled by the First Minister in this Chamber today, and indeed other Members of the Labour Party regarding the statement that was made by Members of Parliament and Members of this Senedd on the Conservative benches. 

In no way whatsoever—let me make it clear to everybody today—in no way whatsoever did any member of the Conservative Party encourage people to break the law and to disregard those coronavirus restrictions. It makes me very angry to listen to people suggesting that that was the case. What we were raising were legitimate concerns on behalf of the people who we represent who are not persuaded by the proportionality of the response of the Welsh Government in terms of the local restrictions that it has now imposed upon a huge swathe of people in north Wales, including those in my own constituency.

And I request that the First Minister comes to this Chamber and apologises at some point in the future for putting that hare running about a misleading comment that he has thrown arbitrarily onto the floor of this Chamber this afternoon and which I ask and urge him to take back and do the decent thing, because it was an absolute fabrication to suggest that we had encouraged people to break the law.

And the Minister to reply to the debate.

Thank you, acting Presiding Officer. I'll run through the comments as they've been made in the debate. I note the comments that the Chair of the committee, Mick Antoniw, made. We do provide frequently asked questions and guidance to try to assist people with the requirements of the regulations and how to help people to follow the new rules.

And, of course, the requirements are because of the continued spread of the coronavirus and all the harm that it will cause and is already causing. Yesterday, I set out that hospital admissions have more than doubled over the last week or so. I'm afraid that I expect to see the death total increase as well. The action we are taking is to avoid very real harm being caused across the whole country, and the frequently asked questions are to help people to follow those rules to keep themselves, their families and their communities safe.

I'd welcome engagement with the committee around information in the explanatory memorandum. It's supposed to be helpful. If there's a way to have that conversation with the committee then I'd be very happy to do so. I also welcome the fact that the committee has, from time to time, helped us with consistency in legislative provisions. That's part of the point of the scrutiny. We're making these regulations in a rapid manner because of the fast-changing picture with coronavirus, and I think there's value in having the committee undertaking its scrutiny function before the legislature is then able to exercise its function in determining whether these regulations can continue or not. But, that's a choice for how the legislature wishes to operate its business.

I'll deal with Joyce Watson, Rhun ap Iorwerth and then Huw Irranca before I turn to the group of comments from Andrew R.T. Davies, Darren Millar and Mark Reckless. I think Joyce Watson is right: the regulations we have do rely on public trust and support and faith that we are doing this for the right reasons, that there is a proper basis for doing so. That's partly about the evidence we have in hard data, it's also about the wider community intelligence we have over the spread and the re-emergence with a vengeance of coronavirus. I think she's right, in all of the opinion poll evidence we see, there is broad public support for the approach the Welsh Government is taking to keep Wales safe.

On introducing restrictions, there is a 14-day period to then review them, then at least every seven days we have to review them again, and that means there is a regular period to review the position within each area with local restrictions in place and for us to consider the path out of those. And I am keen to see areas move out of restrictions. It is not an easy or a glib thing to introduce restrictions on how people live their lives at all.

In terms of the health board data and the intelligence on the spread that's being undertaken, and this is a point raised by other speakers, I am keen that we do provide a regular amount of information about what takes place on a more localised level. I want to be able to do that in a way that doesn't potentially highlight individuals. In some areas, the prevalence will be so low that highlighting an individual case could potentially identify that person. But I think that that is something that we should be able to resolve and I'm keen to do so. I think it would help to deal with some of the concerns that other Members have raised.

On Rhun ap Iorwerth's point about the data underpinning the action that we took, in particular in relation to Cardiff, Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Torfaen and the Vale of Glamorgan, we had data at that point in time and a very clear case made to us by each local authority and by each relevant health board that, in those areas, they were confident that, because of the data they saw on the rising number of cases and the community intelligence they had from TTP, they were going to be in a position where they were going to go above the formal data point for intervention. And the point was put in this way: there were sparks that they could all see and they wanted to be able to act before there was a real forest fire. And so, that was the analogy that was put to us in very clear terms by public health teams as well as by each of those leaders and chief executives.

More than that, though, at that point in time, we had more of a challenge with lighthouse lab data. So, we knew that the figures we were seeing were a little in—well, they even further lagged the data that we'd normally have. And actually, we went through this on more than one occasion with those local authorities and we could see that, with the data building up and the positivity rate that we had, actually, we were definitely going to get to a point where we would breach the 50 marker. And there's then the point about why would we wait if we had that level of confidence and a very clearly united view from our public health teams, our national public health agency and the local authority leadership involved as well, including—and I think this is important—the professional officer leadership, not just the elected member leadership.

And in the figures published today, Cardiff has a rate of 107.9 per 100,000; Swansea 111.7; Neath Port Talbot 81.6; Torfaen 54.3; and the Vale of Glamorgan 43.4. The Vale has seen a decline and that's good news. We want to see that decline further and then we could potentially be in a position to lift those restrictions, but that had gone above 50 after we had taken these measures. I think it does show that if the Senedd doesn't pass these regulations today, we would then be releasing restrictions in areas where we know that there is high prevalence already, and I think that would be a mistake. We all have a shared responsibility—us in the legislature and members of the public too and those who are members of the Government—but I think the case is made by the subsequent move. And the same applies for north Wales as well. We're not debating the north Wales regulations today, of course, but in all those north Wales authorities that we put into local restrictions, all of them are well beyond the 50 marker, and I think it was the right thing to do to act when we did.

On the process, we've already described it previously; we also have the chief medical officer and the technical advisory cell co-chairs taking part. And we have that advice from each of the incident management teams that draw together local partners. We also have the relevant police force for the area as well.

On travel restrictions, the First Minister has already set out the position we're in today. We want to see the formal response to the letter, but we are prepared to act to use the powers that we do have in terms of public health protection. The measures on travel restrictions are both to contain the virus in an area of higher prevalence and also to protect lower prevalence areas. Now, we're not interested in saying that this is about England or the English; it's actually about any area where there's a high-prevalence issue, and that's what we're looking to address and to deal with. I think it would actually be in all of our interests to have a more common approach to doing that right across the UK. The Scottish Government take a broadly similar approach and I think it would be helpful to have that joint approach, but if we can't persuade the Government for England to act in the same way, then we'll use our powers, but we'll act on our responsibilities to do so under public health legislation.

Huw Irranca-Davies asked about the travel industry and we have a very clear view that we are deeply disappointed in the way that some parts of the travel industry have behaved. These are legal restrictions on what people can do, and if people go on holiday from one of these restricted areas and fly out of Cardiff Airport, Birmingham, Bristol or any other, then they'll be breaking the law, and that is not a position that travel companies should put people in—to choose between losing a substantial amount of money or to break the law and take the risk. I also think it's not good for the travel industry themselves. If someone were to leave a high-incidence area in Wales to go on a flight and potentially to be the cause of a spreading event on that plane or in a resort, I do not think that the travel industry would be having a good day in explaining why it had acted in such a way where it effectively encouraged people to break the law.

I'll deal now with the more assertive points of people who are disagreeing and not in favour of the regulations. On north Wales, we'll debate those regulations next week, but as I say, all four of the north Wales authorities in areas of additional restrictions are well beyond 50. Gwynedd is in a different position to some of those authorities, because the Gwynedd rate has risen, but we are confident from the additional data we have from test, trace and protect that it is associated with a rise in a specific group of student halls of residence. Now, the numbers of cases are relatively modest, actually, in the overall picture, but in a county like Gwynedd, with the population it has, it does send the rate well beyond 70 on today's figures. But it's because we're confident about where the spread is—that it hasn't gone into community transmission within Bangor—that we don't need to take these broader measures. So, we do set a high bar on whether we should intervene in people's liberties. That's the approach we've taken. It helps to inform the approach that we've taken in Llanelli, where there's broad support for it. So, if the data allows us to take that approach, we will do, and it is a regular consideration for the measures that we put in place.

On the opportunities for a real-time debate, well, there's a choice for the legislature here. These are made under procedures that are in place; they're procedures that are open, providing for made-affirmative legislation, but the legislature must agree them for them to remain in force. And, of course, within the UK Parliament, they don't have the same procedure; there's more scrutiny here than across the border, and I think that is a good thing. It's a choice for the legislature in running its business whether it wants to have the committee report as part of its consideration, because if they chose not to do so, then we could, of course, be debating these regulations at an earlier point in time. We're very open to enabling Members to exercise your function as legislators, at the earliest opportunity, to scrutinise what's being done.

On the 10 o'clock curfew, again, it's a similar curfew to the one that's been introduced in England. We have a bit more latitude for, if you like, the 'finishing up your drink' time, and part of the rationale for that is that there's an issue about consistency in the message. When England indicated they were going to go for a 10 o'clock approach, we had to choose whether we stuck with an 11 o'clock approach or not; we chose not to. It aids the consistency of the message and aids compliance. There is an issue and we're genuinely concerned about whether we're displacing activity or not. That helps to underpin the rationale for keeping licensed premises open, actually, for some of the time. But every single public health team has indicated to us, with the restrictions, that they think there's a secondary spread within licensed premises and there needs to be a formal restriction on the amount of time that people can be in licensed premises for. Because alcohol releases inhibitions, and we've seen particular challenges about people in terms of spreading events drinking long into the evening and potentially not being able to remember all of their contacts as well. So, it's underpinned by local intelligence and it's underpinned by an approach across the United Kingdom. And, actually, it comes from measures taken by the Conservative-led UK Government in having the 10 o'clock measure in place first.

I am disappointed that Conservative Members are going to vote against the restrictions in place for Cardiff, Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Torfaen and the Vale of Glamorgan. I think that is a very serious step to take when everyone can see today that the figures are so high in those areas that they do present a risk to citizens in those local authority areas and citizens in other parts of the country. I'd ask again the Conservative Members to reconsider the approach they take, because all of us have a responsibility, including as legislators. I don't shy away from people asking difficult questions, but I do ask people to exercise their responsibilities, because each of us has one in helping to keep the country safe from this highly infectious and highly harmful virus. I do not want to return to this place and have to read out the increasing death figures that we all recall from April and May. I'd ask people to consider again and I ask Members of the Senedd to support the regulations before us today.

Thank you, Minister. The proposal is to agree the motion under item 6. Does any Member object? [Objection.] I will defer voting under this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.

The proposal is to agree the motion under item 7. Does any Member object? [Objection.] I'll defer voting under this item until voting time. 

Voting deferred until voting time.

The proposal is to agree the motion under item 8. Does any Member object? [Objection.] I hear an objection, so I will defer that item also. 

Voting deferred until voting time.

The proposal is to agree the motion under item 9. Does any Member object? [Objection.] I again defer voting under that item until voting time. 

Voting deferred until voting time.

We will now suspend proceedings to allow for a change-over in the Chamber.

Plenary was suspended at 17:50.

The Senedd reconvened at 17:56, with Suzy Davies in the Chair.

Welcome back.