2. Will the First Minister produce a road map for the return of amateur team sports in Wales? OQ55907

Llywydd, the Welsh Government has published guidance for a phased return of sporting activities. National governing bodies in Wales, such as the Football Association of Wales and the Welsh Rugby Union, provide specific guidance and action plans for their sports and have oversight of those organised activities.

I'm speaking as someone who spends a lot of his Saturdays, normally, watching football and rugby—mainly local teams. Can I just talk about the two most popular winter team sports—football and rugby? When do the Welsh Government believe they can realistically expect to be able to commence competitive fixtures? And I realise that football will be able to start before rugby, because rugby has much more physical contact.

Llywydd, I know that we all look forward—and I know Mike Hedges does, in all the things that he does locally to support teams in the Swansea area—to the day when those teams will be able to resume. We have established a national sports group, through Sports Wales, bringing the Welsh Government, the governing bodies and others together, to consider requests from the national governing bodies to allow competitive leagues to resume. The group will meet again tomorrow to consider the first batch of applications. The FAW has asked the tier 2 of the Cymru leagues—that's north and south—should return to competition first. So, we do have a mechanism now in Wales to unlock sports, when it is safe to do so. And that final clause is the most important one of all, Llywydd—that it is the state of coronavirus, it is the state of a public health emergency, that has to be the lens through which we view all the applications that there are for the reopening of amateur sport. But we have a mechanism now to make sure that those requests are properly and roundly considered.

First Minister, I was pleased to hear you just say that you're looking at ways to—I think this was the expression you used—'unlock sports' during this time of the pandemic. As we know, during lockdowns and firebreaks, physical activity and sport are all important. So, in response to Mike Hedges's initial question, and if I could follow up in two ways, first of all, what are you doing to make sure that younger people, in particular, are able to engage in sports at this time? They've been particularly hard hit, and we know that younger people are affected by mental health issues in the same way that older people are too. And secondly, I had at a recent meeting at Chepstow racecourse, in my constituency, and they were very concerned about when racecourses are going to be allowed to operate, at least in some limited fashion, in the future. So, I wonder if you could answer those two strands. Thank you. 

Well, thank you, Llywydd, and I thank Nick Ramsay for that. Sport for children under the age of 18 has a more liberal set of rules and it's more possible for that to happen, and we've done our best to try and maximise the opportunity for youth sport to be continued, even in the most difficult periods of coronavirus.

As to racecourse reopening, there were earlier in the year, as I know Nick Ramsay will know, a small number of pilot reopenings of racecourses in England, and we will work with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, at the UK Government level, in any programme of pilots that may now resume in England. We looked carefully to see whether there was any virtue in having a Welsh pilot in the horse-racing field, but the conclusion was we probably wouldn't learn anything very different that we could not learn from the pilots that were being conducted elsewhere. So, we will continue to work closely with DCMS. There are some new pilots that are proposed and, if they find a pathway to the safe reopening of more parts of sporting life to crowds turning up who enjoy horse-racing and other sports, then we will want to be part of that, where it is safe for us to do so.