Questions now from the party leaders. Conservative leader, Paul Davies.

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, in response to the Welsh Government's announcement that hospitality businesses will not be permitted to sell alcohol, and that they'll have to close their doors at 6 p.m., John Evans, landlord of the Black Boy pub in Caernarfon, has said that,

'It's not fair on those many pubs and restaurants who have followed the rules and done the right thing.

'The loss of revenue will be astronomical—we'll have to throw beer and other stock away.'

In Cardiff, the general manager of the Grange pub, Dai Dearden, has said the announcement was 'a hammer-blow'. And in Usk, Monmouthshire, Kelly Jolliffe, the owner of the Greyhound Inn, has said that she was 'gutted' about the regulations. So, First Minister, what is your message to these businesses, and plenty more across Wales, whose livelihoods are at risk because of your decision to partially close the hospitality sector here in Wales?

Well, my message to those businesses is that despite all the efforts that they have made—and I recognise the enormous efforts that so many businesses have made—we continue to face a public health emergency here in Wales. And that despite those efforts and everything else that has been done, the number of people infected with coronavirus in Wales is going up every day, and that is translating itself, inevitably, into more people occupying hospital beds in Wales, more people needing critical care and more people losing their lives. That is the inescapable context in which the decision is made.

And, having said that to people, that this is a public health emergency in which we have to act to protect lives that can be saved and which would otherwise be lost, I would say to them that we have mobilised the most generous package of support for that industry anywhere in the United Kingdom—£340 million that will be used to assist that industry through the very difficult weeks that lie ahead. I understand that the Prime Minister has announced £40 million today for the whole of England for the hospitality industry. There will be £340 million available here in Wales alone. And that is the other thing that I would say to those industries, that the help that they will get from the Welsh Government will be the best available anywhere in the United Kingdom.

Well, First Minister, the partial closure of Welsh hospitality is a devastating blow to the sector, and there'll be pubs and restaurants, in areas where transmission rates are low, who will rightly feel upset that their businesses are being put at risk, through no fault of their own, and in areas where there's no evidence that hospitality interaction is leading to an increase in transmission rates. The Welsh Government tell us that it was reaching out to the sector over the weekend, but it's clear that the views of the sector clearly haven't been taken on board and many businesses across the country will simply not survive the winter. Therefore, can you tell us who you and your Government met with over the weekend to discuss these proposals, and what discussions did you have about the partial closure of the sector? And how confident are you that this measure will reduce transmission figures and not result in people congregating in households and having house parties instead because they can't buy an alcoholic drink in a pub?

Well, Llywydd, people's lives are put at risk here in Wales through no fault of their own because of this virus. I've been listening very carefully to what the Member has said, and I'm sure, eventually, he will recognise that this is a public health emergency and that this is why these actions are being taken. I haven't heard him refer to that once in his questions so far.

Over this weekend, Ministers were in discussions with a whole range of different interest groups. We were talking with our local authority colleagues; we were talking with the trade unions; we were talking with the enforcement authorities; we were talking with the sector itself. There are no easy decisions here. There are no easy decisions of any sort at this moment. We looked very carefully at the tier 3 restrictions in England where businesses are closed completely; they don't open their doors at all. We looked carefully at the level 3 restrictions in Scotland. We looked at the SAGE review of both of those approaches, and the SAGE approach suggests that there is no public health difference between the two measures—both are successful. Because of that, we opted to follow the Scottish model, in which those businesses who choose to open will be able to go on trading up until 6 o'clock in the evening. And that was our decision, in discussion with the sector, to do what we could to balance the difficult balance between saving people's lives and having to attend to people's livelihoods. And the help we will offer to people whose businesses are affected will go beyond anything that has been on offer up until this point in Wales, and beyond anything that would be on offer to them anywhere else in the United Kingdom.

First Minister, you've just referred to SAGE, but SAGE said in September that a curfew on bars would have a marginal impact on reducing transmissions. You say there is evidence; well, if there is evidence, publish that evidence so that people can see the results of your proposals. And let's be clear: nowhere else in the UK are hospitality businesses facing these sorts of measures on a national basis. Here, in Wales, a pub will be open but won't be allowed to sell any alcohol whether it's in Cardiff or Conwy. Do you except these businesses to survive on pop and pork scratchings?

Now, First Minister, Carlsberg UK have said this, and I quote: 'Leaving pubs open, but only until 6.00 p.m. with no service of a responsibly enjoyed beer or glass of wine shows a complete lack of understanding or respect for this crucial part of our society and the sector.' And Alistair Darby of Brains has said that the new rules for pubs are a 'huge slap in the face' for the sector. Of course, the Welsh Government must now ensure that business support is made available urgently, and that it's accessible to those that need it.

Now, you'll have to forgive businesses across Wales if they're not entirely confident that they'll get the help that they need. The shambolic handling of the economic resilience fund phase 3 must not be allowed to be repeated. However, we've just heard from your economy Minister that businesses will not be able to apply for financial support until January. First Minister, that is simply not good enough. Do you seriously believe that businesses will survive this period, given that they will not be able to access support until January, and, therefore, will you now reconsider this catastrophic decision and ensure that businesses get the help they need now and not in four or five weeks' time?

Well, Llywydd, I listened again to what the leader of the opposition said. I offered him an opportunity to recognise the public health emergency, the lives that are at stake here, and for the third time this afternoon, he failed to do it. Now, it's all very well for him to sit there claiming that, of course, he believed it, but he could have said that, couldn't he? He could have said that. Instead, he acts as though this is a very easy set of decisions in which the balance that we have struck could have very easily been made in another way.

Let me just say this to him: just as we want to reduce coronavirus infections to save lives, so reducing them is the key to saving the economy.

'Think for a moment what would happen to our economy if we allowed infections to reach such a level that our NHS was overwhelmed. Would families seek out crowded bars and buzzing restaurants if they knew they could be infecting friends and relatives who could not be treated if they fell ill? Would we flock to the January sales if the doors to our hospitals were shut?'

Not my words, Llywydd, but Michael Gove's words at the weekend. Yes, Michael Gove's words. You would not recognise them, of course. But what Michael Gove was saying was exactly this: that unless you are prepared—[Interruption.] Unless you are prepared—. Don't point at me. No pointing.

Andrew R.T. Davies, this is the question from your party's leader, you don't need to be pointing fingers at—. I don't want fingers pointed, please, in this Chamber. First Minister to continue, please.

The balance we strike is always between saving people's lives and attending to their livelihoods, and that is the balance that we have struck in the package that we have announced over the weekend and then on Monday.

The Member asks about the help that has been provided to businesses here in Wales: 64,000 business rate grants have been awarded already—already—to businesses in Wales, worth £768 million. In the 175 lockdown business fund, only available between 23 October and 9 November—so, a matter of just weeks ago—already 31,000 grants have been awarded to businesses, worth nearly £100 million. Of course, we will do everything we can, working with our hard-pressed colleagues in local government, to get the help that we have announced into the hands of those who need it, as fast as we possibly can. Most people who work in the sector recognise the scale of the help that is being made available to them, the efforts that are being made to put that help where it is most needed, and the fact that, by acting in the way that we have, we are protecting both the health of people in Wales and the long-term prospects of those businesses.

Plaid Cymru leader, Adam Price.

Diolch, Llywydd. As the most recent technical advisory cell report states, the positive effects of the firebreak have largely been lost. We supported the firebreak on the condition that lockdown wasn't the default strategy. We warned that the restrictions coming out of the firebreak needed to be stricter. That mistake and the continuing failure to sort out the testing system have led to yesterday's regrettable announcement. Yet again, the hospitality sector is bearing the brunt. Many businesses will not survive, and there is an understandable public backlash. Can the First Minister give us the detail of the scientific advice and evidence that underpins the decision to close cafes, restaurants and bars at 6 p.m. and to ban alcohol sales completely, and can we ask that this be published in full today? And can you say, First Minister, as well as looking at the Scottish tier 3 model and the English tier 3 model, did you also model a uniquely Welsh solution to balancing saving lives and livelihoods in a different way to the decision that you came to?

Well, what we have is a unique model to Wales, Llywydd. It does not replicate either the English or the Scottish approach in full. We never intended to have a drag-and-drop approach from elsewhere, so you will see significant differences between the measures that we have here in Wales and those that are employed elsewhere. They are more generous in a number of ways. In the Scottish model, it is not possible for four people from four households to meet together in hospitality. So, the Member will find that there are very important differences, designed specifically to meet the circumstances we face here in Wales in that very difficult balancing exercise.

The science is already available to Members. It was published by SAGE on 11 and 19 November. It's referred to in our TAC reports already. It is the same science, Llywydd, that led the Scottish Government and his colleagues there to take the decisions that they took. It is the same science that was available to English Ministers when they introduced tier 3 measures in England. It is the same science that convinced our chief medical officer and the chief executive of the NHS in Wales to recommend this course of action to the Welsh Government. There is no absence of evidence; the evidence is the same evidence that has led Governments across the United Kingdom and, indeed, across Europe to take the actions we are having to take.

I'm a bit puzzled at the Member's reference to the testing system, because in the testing system here in Wales, since 21 June until 21 November, the whole of the period of our TTP regime, 98 per cent of index cases have been reached and 92 per cent of follow-up cases have been reached. Of those index cases, 87 per cent of those successfully reached in the last week were reached within 24 hours, 80 per cent of those contacts who were successfully reached were contacted within 24 hours, and last week, Llywydd, 91 per cent of tests requiring a rapid turnaround were completed within one day. Now, that says to me that the system we have here in Wales is a successful and succeeding system, and part of that is because of the additional investment that was agreed for that system during the firebreak period.

Public trust is being eroded, because people don't understand the logic of the decision as it's currently being communicated. How can four people from four different households having coffee together be safer than two people from the same household having a pint? Why is alcoholic mulled wine served in the open air in a Christmas market a danger? This lack of logic risks undermining adherence overall, and there's a danger then that more people will be going into each other's homes as a result.

Our alternative proposal would be to allow cafes, restaurants and bars to stay open until 8 p.m. with alcohol served until seven. This could follow stricter guidelines that included limiting the number of alcoholic drinks, with pre-booked table service only. The sale of alcohol could also be banned in off-licences and supermarkets after the 7 p.m. cut-off to discourage people from gathering in homes. Would you not agree, First Minister, that this would be a simpler, clearer, and more consistent compromise that gets the balance right between the COVID and non-COVID harms as the latter become ever more evident the longer the pandemic persists?

Well, Llywydd, I think it is helpful to have different approaches and different ideas rehearsed. I think, though, that all that would happen would be that one set of anomalies would be substituted by a different set of anomalies, because there is no getting away from the fact that, in the complex systems that we have to implement, there are always marginal things that can be pointed at and people can say, 'Why is this allowed when that's not allowed? Why can't I do this when the evidence for this is that it is safe?' Those anomalies are just unavoidable when you are trying to respond to the complexity of the position that we face today. The course of action that the Member has advocated, which, as I say, I think is a useful contribution to the debate and thinking about all of this, would simply lead us into a different set of compromises, a different set of anomalies. There is no getting away from the fact that, when you're trying to devise responses to the rapidly changing and very challenging set of circumstances we face, it isn't possible to have a logic that is watertight on every single occasion and in every single aspect. What we have to ask people to do is to take the package as a whole, and the package as a whole is designed here in Wales to put us back in a position where the numbers of cases of coronavirus can be coped with by our health service, that the health service can go on doing all the other things that we need it to, where lives will be saved. That is the prize that all of us have to keep in front of us. 

While the additional package of financial support announced yesterday is clearly welcome, it does not fully compensate the hospitality sector for the lost revenue over the festive season, and there are other sectors that are continually being locked out of sufficient support—the taxi drivers whose trade in December largely depends on taking people to and from bars and restaurants, and workers in the gig economy, reliant on seasonal work. For so many people, these restrictions as currently conceived are all stick and no carrot, and the support does not adequately compensate them for the loss of earnings. We've had the announcement with Debenhams today and the announcement by Brains; since the beginning of 2020, there has been a 41 per cent increase in unemployment in Wales compared to 18 per cent in England, meaning an estimated additional 20,000 people are looking for work. To protect jobs and in the interests of people's wider well-being, and to sustain public trust in the overall public health policy, can I urge the First Minister to reconsider yesterday's decision?

Well, I doubt very much that reconsidering yesterday's decision would add to public trust, but what I can say to the Member is that of course he is right to point to the devastating impact of coronavirus in so many people's lives. The package of help that we have announced is not focused exclusively on hospitality itself; £180 million of it will be provided to those 8,000 hospitality businesses and the 2,000 businesses that support them in the supply chain, but the remainder of the £340 million package is available to help a wider range of businesses that are affected by the decision, and that includes retail businesses, where they can demonstrate that there has been a direct impact on their trading capacity, but it also includes sole traders as well. There is an important strand in the package that will allow cleaners, for example, who clean hospitality places—they're not employed by the business, they are employed by themselves—to be able to get help from this package, as will taxi drivers, Llywydd. I met with a group of taxi drivers on Sunday, myself. I was asked earlier which groups we had talked with over the weekend. I made a mosque visit myself on Sunday, expressly to meet with a group of people in the taxi trade, and they've had a desperately difficult time during this period, but there is help available to them, partly through the Welsh Government and partly through the UK Government. And this package goes on helping people, not just in hospitality but those whose livelihoods surround it.