Emergency Question: COVID-19 Restrictions

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 1:41 pm on 16 December 2020.

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Photo of Adam Price Adam Price Plaid Cymru 1:41, 16 December 2020

We called yesterday for you, First Minister, to give urgent consideration to introducing tier 4 restrictions earlier than the twenty-eighth, if, as is clear, many areas in Wales are already at the level of severity that is set out in the document that you published. So, we welcome that. The obvious question is, given that many areas in Wales are already at that level of severity, why wait even until Christmas evening and the days following. Why not intervene earlier, particularly in those areas of the highest infection? In relation to some areas of Wales, for instance, in the north-west—I believe, there were no new cases in Ynys Môn yesterday—is there not a case still, given that you've conceded the principle of having a regionalised or localised approach as appropriate, why that regional approach shouldn't be also implemented earlier to reflect what does seem to be a different pattern in those parts of Wales? 

In relation to the Christmas relaxation, I welcome the new guidance from the Welsh Government, but isn't there a danger that if the guidance and the rules are not aligned, that could lead to mixed messaging and confusion? And I say that particularly given the very different message coming out of London and Westminster this afternoon, where the Prime Minister, in the last hour, has been on his feet saying that there was 'unanimous agreement' that the Christmas plans must still go ahead. And he's been characterising the leader of your party as the Christmas Grinch who would steal Christmas, and he's been the one defending it. He said some rather negative things about the Welsh Government's policy in relation to the firebreak as well at the same time. So, it seems to me that there is a danger, because of the mixed messaging, that people won't get the message that you're trying to get out that we're in a different situation in Wales, and, as a result of that, we can't relax the rules in the same way and, unless you change the rules, people might draw the wrong conclusion, First Minister. So, I'd like you particularly to address this point as to whether we need to change the rules in order to back up the clear guidance that you have now embraced. 

On a more general level, we've had a number of changes in Welsh Government policy in short order, haven't we, over the last six weeks? So, we had the firebreak. We believe we came out of the firebreak too abruptly. We said that at the time—that there should have been a kind of buffer phase of still higher restrictions. We went then to probably, actually, at the time, First Minister, one of the most liberal regimes in terms of rules anywhere in the UK for a period, then we moved into what some would have seen as a fairly rapid or draconian shift to higher restrictions. Now, we've had this announcement today. I think the Welsh Government has, relatively speaking—compared, certainly, to the UK Government—had high levels of approval, largely because of the consistency and the cautious, slow and steady approach that you've adopted for most of the pandemic. Do you think that that has been undone over the last few weeks? How can you rebuild that sense of a clear, consistent line so we don't have a chopping and changing approach, where we're going in and out of restrictions, and that is causing confusion and some degree of public fatigue, so that, where we're now moving, sadly, into a situation where we have to increase the level of restrictions again, we can see a clear and consistent path to driving the level of prevalence down and moving down the tiers, rather than having to move them up and down, as we've seen, unfortunately, over the last few weeks?