1. Will the First Minister make a statement on the impact of the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 4) (Wales) Regulations 2020 in Caerphilly? OQ55992

Llywydd, I thank the Member for that question. The intended impact of the regulations in Caerphilly is to arrest and reduce the prevalence of coronavirus from its current rising and elevated level of 447 people per 100,000 in the population, and to reverse the rise in positivity rates from its present level in Caerphilly of over 17 per cent. 

I'd like to pay tribute again to the people of Caerphilly, many of whom are keeping in touch with me about the issues that they are facing as a result of these very difficult times. And I'm so often in awe of the measures that people in Caerphilly are taking in order to control and contain the virus. Several constituents have been in touch with me with regard to relatives in care homes, many of whom are suffering from dementia. They are currently prevented from visiting those relatives because of Caerphilly County Borough Council policy. We've queried this with Caerphilly council, who've told us that measures are put in place to prepare care homes for resumption of indoor visits, but they are awaiting a letter from the Welsh Government confirming a change in guidance. Now, as I understand it, the Welsh Government guidance is clear and, therefore, I'm looking to the First Minister to help me with this and find a way through what seems to be a blockage of bureaucracy in order to assist people in visiting relatives in care homes. 

I'd also say, while mentioning that, that the pilot lateral flow device and pods to enable visiting are to be welcomed, and particularly where visitors can now use these facilities to visit relatives in care homes, balancing against that risk of COVID. But in this particular case, could the First Minister provide some support for me to get back to Caerphilly council and enable those visits to resume where safe and possible?

Llywydd, I thank Hefin David for that. He points to one of the acutest dilemmas in the whole coronavirus pandemic, and that is the need for relatives to be able to visit people in care homes and yet the extreme vulnerability of the care home population. So, the Welsh Government has provided regular guidance throughout the pandemic, both from the director of social services in the Welsh Government, Albert Heaney, and through the Minister, Julie Morgan. Our guidance, I think, is clear. We say to local authorities that it is important to avoid an unnecessarily restrictive blanket approach to visiting, that it needs to be calibrated in the individual circumstances faced by the local authority, but also faced by the care home itself. Obviously, nobody would wish to see visits to a care home if a care home itself is actively dealing with an outbreak of coronavirus amongst its population. But we're still in a position, Llywydd, where almost half care homes in Wales have not had a single case of coronavirus.

The lateral flow device experiment that is going on in Wales at the moment will help to allow more visits to take place. But I want to emphasise the fact that, here in Wales, all the other precautions that we would expect to see—the wearing of PPE, the maintaining of social distancing, the special measures that care homes have put in place—we still expect to see all of that happening even if someone has tested negative through a lateral flow device. And the 30 pods to which Hefin David referred, they are now provided. They'll be available for Christmas, and I know that my colleague Julie Morgan hopes to have something to say very soon on support for those providers who've been able to source their own visitor pods, again in an effort to allow visits to take place where that balance between the need for human contact with family members and the prevalence of the virus can be properly struck.

First Minister, we all recognise that cases are rising across south-east Wales and Wales, and the seriousness of that, and that public health and safety must come first. But do you recognise the anger and frustration of businesses across Wales that have made great efforts to ensure the safety of their customers only to be punished by these latest Government damaging restrictions? Brains spent £500,000 on personal protective equipment, ensuring its commitment to protect its customers. Will you agree to publish the data, in the interests of transparency, so people can see the evidence on which these decisions were made?

Well, Llywydd, I'm afraid the Conservative Party in Wales is in a disgraceful position in relation to this matter, and that disgrace was very well illustrated in the Member's question to me. In the face of the numbers that we see here in Wales, the grip of the coronavirus crisis in Wales, she consistently, as does her party, avoids their responsibility for facing up to that and wants instead to make ridiculous, ridiculous allegations about sectors of the economy being punished in Wales. That sector is receiving £340 million-worth of support from the Welsh Government, where her party in Westminster is providing £40 million for the whole of England. Here in Wales, we work with the sector, we do our very best to be able to help them to deal with the consequences of this emergency. But this is a public health emergency and it's time the Conservative Party in Wales really did recognise that.

The First Minister and his colleagues have had to make extremely difficult decisions during the pandemic, and all of us realise how serious the situation is now in Caerphilly and across the south-east. I've just listened to the exchange between you and Laura Anne Jones, First Minister. I think there is a disconnect between the severity of the situation and some public attitudes towards this, and I wonder that this might have been because of some breakdowns in communication. I feel that the restrictions that have just been talked about with the hospitality sector, which came in last Friday, could have been met with less resistance if there'd been a longer lead-in time, which would have allowed businesses time to plan in terms of both staffing and stock, because failure to allow that time led to businesses having to close at short notice and pour beer down the drain. I'm aware of one business, which is in Caerphilly county, that sent a message to Members saying that they'd taken the difficult decision to suspend some services until mid January because they had no confidence in the Government's ability to commit to a reliable schedule of releasing restraints by the promised deadline. So, could I ask, First Minister, what assurance could you provide to the hospitality sector that you'll give them as much time as possible to prepare in future, both in terms of lifting and imposing restrictions?

Well, Llywydd, I announced on a Friday that these changes would be coming into place on the following Friday. When a Government is provided with advice from its chief medical officer and others that action needs to be taken, and that the speed at which that action is taken will have a direct impact on the effectiveness of those measures, and the impact on people's lives, I think it is incumbent on Government to act as soon as reasonably can be on that evidence. And the longer you wait, the more lives are lost. So, it's a terribly difficult balancing act between giving businesses the time they need—and I recognise the points the Member made are absolutely fair in that regard—and allowing those businesses to prepare against the certain knowledge that every day without the restrictions is a day less to have an impact on the coronavirus pandemic that we face. Now, we provided a full week of advance notice. On the following Monday, we provided all the detail of what would be required. I don't deny for a minute that that is a short period of time for businesses to be able to react, but we did give them what I thought was the longest we could, consistent with the advice we received that action was needed, it was needed as soon as possible and that every day we delayed meant the coronavirus was going to get worse and the impact on our health service and on people's lives would be worse as well.