1. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of the level of support for its coronavirus restrictions? OQ56070

Llywydd, tests of public opinion continue to indicate strong majority support for the actions being taken by the Welsh Government to keep Wales safe. 

Well, First Minister, the YouGov poll published this morning showed support falling from 66 per cent to 45 per cent, with 47 per cent now opposed. And I just wonder whether you might find more support for your policy if you worked with the opposition rather than calling them disgraceful, and welcomed a royal visit to thank key workers rather than calling them divisive. Instead you, and I quote from your statement:

'set out how and when Wales will move between alert levels with all-Wales measures. We must do the same in Swansea as in Anglesey so long as it's different from England.'

First Minister, wouldn't we be better with a united UK approach?

Llywydd, as far as I'm aware, neither Swansea nor Anglesey are in England. I've looked at the poll to which the Member refers. Voters in Wales were asked whether they preferred the approach taken by the Welsh Government or the approach taken by the English Government. Fifty-three per cent of people said they preferred the approach taken in Wales, 15 per cent preferred the approach that the Member continuously advocates here. 

First Minister, one of the big calls that has been made in recent weeks is obviously the changing restrictions over the Christmas period by the four nations of the United Kingdom. The situation here in Wales has moved on since that call was made, and I respect the climate in which that call was made by your good self as the First Minister. What do you think the public's reaction is to, and perception of, those changes that will happen over Christmas, given the circumstances that the Welsh Government obviously outline Wales is facing at the moment, both in its health service, the national health service here in Wales, but also the community transmission rates?

I thank Andrew R.T. Davies for that question, Llywydd. He will know that the four-nation agreement over Christmas was hammered out in detail over four different meetings between the four nations. It was a hard-won agreement; I will not lightly put it aside. I have a meeting later today with the First Minister of Scotland, First and Deputy First Ministers of Northern Ireland, and Michael Gove, as the Minister in charge of the Cabinet Office, and no doubt this issue will be discussed again there. The choice is a grim one, Llywydd, isn't it? I have read in my own e-mail account over the last couple of days heartrending pleas from people not to reverse what we have agreed for Christmas—people who live entirely alone and who have made their arrangements to be with people for the first time in many months, and who say to me that this is the only thing that they have been able to look forward to in recent weeks. And yet we know that if people do not use the modest amount of additional freedom available to them over the Christmas period responsibly, then we will see an impact of that on our already hugely hard-pressed health service.

So, I think the choice is an incredibly difficult one. At the moment, we have a four-nation agreement. I will discuss that later today. We will look at the figures again together. I still think that the arguments for having a rule-based approach to Christmas, modestly increased amounts of freedom for people, but where they know where the rules lie, is preferable to a free-for-all in which we have a situation where people simply aren't willing to go along with what is proposed and therefore make the rules up for themselves. So, as I said, Llywydd, in whichever way the Governments of the United Kingdom resolve this issue, it will be a very, very finely balanced set of judgments between different sorts of harms that are caused, whichever course of action you embark on. 

First Minister, I see on the 1 o'clock news today that Michael Gove is going to be writing to you shortly, to see whether there's going to be any development of the four-nation approach to Christmas. At the same time, we see across the UK and across Europe, and indeed in other parts of the world, significant actions being taken by Governments there, who are affected in exactly the same way as we are now, with increasing infection rates, but also the increasing public anxiety that actually exists. I'm wondering, First Minister, what you might be saying to Michael Gove in terms of how we might co-operate, but also what lessons are there that we can learn from what is happening in the rest of the world at the moment, where they're facing an almost identical, very similar situation to ourselves.

Well, the lesson, Llywydd, that I draw from the rest of the world is exactly the point that Mick Antoniw made, that Governments across Europe and more widely are having to take action in the face of the resurgence of this virus during winter conditions, with a virulence that was not predicted in the modelling that was carried out in many parts of the world. And, of course, we watched very carefully what happened yesterday in Germany, in Holland, in Italy. And I will be discussing with Michael Gove, directly, later today whether the four-nation agreement that we struck continues to have marginally more advantages than disadvantages, or whether there is a different balance that we ought to strike. In either direction, Llywydd, harm is done. Harm is done whether people get together over Christmas in a way that isn't responsible and doesn't observe all the advice we have given to people, or, if we seek to prevent people from meeting over Christmas, a different sort of harm will be done—to people's sense of mental health, to people's sense of how they can survive through this incredibly difficult year together. It is not at all a choice between one course of action that has clearly all the advantages and none of the disadvantages, and another course of action where all the disadvantages are to be found. In any direction, it is a very careful and difficult balance, with pluses and minuses on both sides of the ledger.