I'm grateful to contribute briefly to this today. I'm not a member of the committee, but I, like many Senedd Members, received many queries over that two-week firebreak, certainly during the first week of it, regarding the ban on supermarkets selling non-essential goods, so I speak from that point of view. I can certainly say, in response to Huw Irranca-Davies, that over that period I certainly wasn't a Member who used any sort of inflammatory language, and I certainly didn't talk about the position of the UK Government either, during that time. As a Member of this Senedd, I received more queries from constituents on this than anything else over the last several months, and I think we do need to recognise that, aside from the politics of this, which I think have been thrown around from both sides, actually, to a certain extent—I think, besides all that, there was an issue here that should be dealt with.

I'll be frank—I think that, at the start of this, this started out as a well-meaning attempt by the Welsh Government to create an even playing field and to make sure that small shops weren't suffering compared with supermarkets. Now, whether or not that happened in practice, I think a review will reveal that. I suspect that what actually happened is that the big beneficiaries of this process were the online consumers, the Amazons of this world and the like. That was my concern, and that was certainly the concern of constituents who contacted me.

Huw Irranca-Davies, you're right to say that, of course, this was a short period of time, and we're in the odd position now of discussing it in the lee, in the period following it. That said, of course, we may be looking at another lockdown, or firebreak as we call it here, in the new year; I hope that that isn't necessary, but we may be. So, I think what we need to do moving forward is to reassure our constituents that the steps that were taken during that firebreak—and many of them I support and think were going in the right direction—but to reassure our constituents that these measures are necessary. Yes, we are in an unusual position, yes, we do need to all pull together and make sure we combat the pandemic, but we also have to carry the public with us. I think the UK Government also are facing these challenges and struggles in carrying the public with them on the lockdown that they're engaged in, and, certainly in the future, if we have future lockdowns here, it's going to be difficult for us to fully reassure people that these measures are necessary. Let's all work together to make sure that that happens.

I'm glad that this has been discussed today, and I want to see a review to make sure that, in the future—. The term 'non-essential goods', for instance—I think that 'convenience goods' wasn't mentioned at all, and yet retailers understand what is meant by 'convenience goods'. I think that that was missing from the argument early on, so let's all work together to combat this pandemic.