Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:19 pm on 13 October 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:19, 13 October 2020

Well, Llywydd, I'm afraid the leader of the opposition really is all over the place this afternoon: he hops from one remote contingency to another. There is no difference between the health Minister and myself. I said we would not publish data at a localised level that is not reliable and cannot help people to make informed and proper decisions; that is what the health Minister says, and that is what the Member needs to understand.

Let me deal with the travel issue, one on which he and his party are so much on the wrong side of the argument, refusing to take a simple measure that would help to keep Wales safe, and which is bitterly resented, by the way, in the part of Wales that he comes to the Senedd to represent. A part of Wales in which the current rate of coronavirus is below 30 per 100,000 of the population, but where his Government, in England, allows people from Liverpool, where there are 800 cases per 100,000, to travel from Liverpool to Tenby and to the west of Wales to stay. Now, that is unacceptable to people in that locality and it's unacceptable to me too.

I put these points to the Prime Minister again yesterday. Once again, he refused to do the simple and the right thing. I have written to him again today. I have set out the evidence for him, which is plain for anybody to see. The Member was very interested in data earlier in this session. I commend to him the data that I refer to in that letter, which will demonstrate why allowing people from high-circulation areas to move to low-circulation areas simply carries the virus with them. We prevent that from happening in Wales and the Prime Minister needs to prevent it as well. And he ought to be speaking up for the people of Wales, not for his own narrow party perspective.

As for the airport, we continue in discussions. When it is possible to have a system that does not lead to long, long delays, with people at the airport waiting for tests to be carried out—. He may think that that's easy to bring about. I can tell you, having read all of the information, that it's not. There are ways in which we can tackle that problem. We're very close to agreeing it. Once we do, we will make sure that people arriving in Cardiff Airport are able to be tested—and tested rapidly—so that where they are able to, they can resume their daily lives.