Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Minister for European Transition (in respect of his European Transition responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 2:47 pm on 7 October 2020.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Jeremy Miles Jeremy Miles Labour 2:47, 7 October 2020

I thank Dai Lloyd for raising this very, very important question in the Chamber today. This is obviously a key priority for us as a Government. And as with previous stages of preparation, some of the solutions are UK-wide and some of them are bespoke to Wales. So, in relation to medicines first, as he raises in his question, all four Governments in the UK are engaged in continuity of supply discussions. Parts of that are around express freight services, and parts of it are around supply disruption response. But there are additional steps that we are taking in Wales to give us additional assurance in relation to that, and some of that, as his question suggests, is about learning from the experience of COVID-19.

In relation to medical supplies, whether that's medical devices or clinical consumables, for example—and this, by the way, relates both to the NHS and to parts of the social care sector, for reasons that he will understand—we are reviewing and replenishing the Welsh stock holdings of MDCC products. We are testing and refining the plans that we had in place at the end of last year in anticipation of leaving without any sort of deal at all. And we still, as his question implies, benefit very significantly from investment in the warehouse storage facility and IP5 near Newport, which continues to be able to help us in our preparation work.