8. Statement by the First Minister: Coronavirus — December Restrictions

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:19 pm on 1 December 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 5:19, 1 December 2020

Let me say to the Member that we publish TAC advice every week. We are, I think, the only part of the United Kingdom that puts all the advice we get in that way into the public domain as quickly as we are able to do that, and we will publish further advice that we receive from TAC again this week. Just to be completely clear with all Members, the people who we rely on to synthesise the advice, to look at all the different possible sources that we can draw on, and then put it to the Welsh Government, are our chief medical officer, our chief scientific adviser and the chief executive of the national health service here in Wales. The advice of all three to us as a Cabinet was that we had to act and we had to take these actions now, because in their view, as people who are experts in this matter, the position we face in Wales is so serious that unless we do take these actions—actions already taken in all three other nations of the United Kingdom—we would face a situation in which our NHS would be unable to go on doing what Members here very regularly urge me to make sure it can do, and that is that it can deal with coronavirus and it can go on providing all the other services that we want the NHS to do.

Let me just be clear with Members about that: that is what the NHS would not be able to do. If we don't take this action, that is the position we will end up in. You cannot escape from the responsibility of facing up to that advice. Certainly in Government, you cannot escape that responsibility, and I will not escape that responsibility as the First Minister here in Wales. And I say to Mr Price that these are very difficult decisions, and they may indeed be unpopular decisions, but if I have to make an unpopular decision because it is the right decision, then I will make the right decision and not just the one that makes me popular. And while I think it's been an enormous strength for us in Wales that we have had the support of people in Wales for the way in which we have stood together in the face of the coronavirus emergency—and I believe we will go on having that support because of the way that we take the decisions in the way that we do—the key thing for me is that we make the right decision and we make it on the basis of the advice that we get, and that we face up to our responsibilities here as politicians and that we make the decisions that prevent our NHS from being unavailable to people who desperately need it for other conditions—that we understand that when we are told that our actions can save the lives of between 1,000 and 1,700 of our fellow citizens, that is not something you can just set to one side in the pursuit of evidence; that's the evidence you have. That's the evidence we act on and that's the right decision that we are making for Wales.