Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 3:18 pm on 16 December 2020.
Thank you for that question, Mark Isherwood. Obviously, we face one of the most dire situations in terms of the pandemic that we have faced so far. The numbers are truly horrifying, and going up in every area of Wales bar Ynys Môn. I have, only today, met with all of the local authority leaders and chief executives, and they are as one in thinking that we should do something about these figures before our health service is unable to cope. So, although my heart goes out to anyone who is trying to move in these circumstances, and of course we've got to balance harms against economic harms to the industry and so on, in the end we are in the middle of a global pandemic, and Wales's figures are nothing to be sanguine about. So, I'm afraid that we must put the public health first. I will, however, be working with the industry to try and keep as much of it open as possible. For obvious reasons, we would not want people to be viewing houses where somebody is in residence and so on, but I'm sure we will be able to work with the industry to make sure that at least some parts of the market stay open.