1. Will the First Minister make a statement on the number of COVID-19 cases at the DVLA in Swansea? TQ533

It's a cause of concern that there have been over the 500 COVID cases recorded among DVLA staff since September. An incident management team was established at the beginning of October to support the health protection response. I've raised concerns on a number of occasions with UK Government on the number of cases and working practices at the DVLA.

Thank you, First Minister for that answer. Obviously, the current situation at the DVLA is inexcusable. The number of staff that have contracted COVID, as you've outlined, is a huge worry, reflecting the concerns expressed by workers at the site with regard to poor working practices and COVID safeguarding practices. Can I just quote from a recent e-mail received from a staff member? 'On my floor, there are still 100 staff on the floor, sharing kitchens, toilets, no windows to open on the whole floor. I imagine this is the same on the 15 other floors'—for those of you who know the DVLA building in Swansea.

I've written directly to the DVLA on three separate occasions since the start of the pandemic. The first time was back in March 2020, as these concerns were expressed to me then, also in October 2020, and earlier this month, with replies from the chief executive. So, I've written three times. Many people were and still do—who are employed by the DVLA—they were contacting me, stating they did not feel safe, as we've heard, with the measures that were in place and in terms of what management were asking of them. Unfortunately, therefore, it appears that the situation has not improved at all—[Inaudible.]—help us in Swansea trying to reduce the spread of the virus within our local communities. We need firm action to be taken on this, and I'd be grateful for further details, First Minister, in terms of how the Welsh Government plans to step up their actions—obviously, the DVLA is a non-devolved issue—working with the UK Government and Swansea council and looking at all possible legal avenues to ensure that the DVLA is a safe working environment.

So, could you outline what further action you could take, particularly around the legal enforcement of Welsh law in this matter? Are you looking at strengthening the law in this area or strengthening the sanctions? If any employer, private or public, cannot guarantee the safety of their employees at this time, then quite simply they should be shut down until appropriate measures are in place. Employees of the DVLA and residents of Swansea certainly want to see further action, and I would urge you to do all that you can to ensure that Welsh law, in this instance, is adhered to. Diolch yn fawr. 

Dr Lloyd raises a series of very important concerns relayed to him by members of the workforce. They chime exactly with the concerns that our colleague Mike Hedges has regularly conveyed to me over recent weeks. I pay tribute to Mike's work and the assiduous way in which he has pursued this matter. In answer to Dr Lloyd's questions, first of all, he will be aware, I'm sure, that the law has been strengthened during the current three-week cycle. We have placed into regulations a set of requirements that all workplaces must observe to reflect the additional risks caused by the new variant of COVID-19. I wrote twice to the Minister responsible for the DVLA in December and in January. I received assurances from her that Welsh law will be complied with at the DVLA, including the changes in requirements announced for employers in Wales on 15 January. In the meantime, the incident management team that operates in relation to the DVLA continues to meet and to provide both advice and to require action from that non-devolved authority. Members will be, I know, glad to hear that Public Health Wales's records show that, as of Friday of last week, there were only five DVLA staff from across its workforce isolating as a result of the virus.  

Mike Hedges has been raising this in our weekly meetings with the local health board for as long as I can remember, so I'm glad that we're having the opportunity to discuss it today. It's not the only big operation in South Wales West that's been dealing with big figures, though; we have had some difficult news from Tata and from Amazon as well, which have also seen a rise in cases. I've had correspondence very similar to Dai Lloyd with questions about what should be going on at the site, but I've also had correspondence saying that DVLA managers are overzealous in imposing and insisting upon enforcement. So, I think the picture is a bit mixed there, but nevertheless we are in a situation where the figures have been poor. First Minister, have you had any direct representation from workers at the DVLA, or indeed the other two businesses I've heard from? And have you considered any changes to the guidance as a result of those representations? I'm sure they'd be of interest to any big site operators in any part of Wales. Thank you.  

I do indeed get direct representation from workers in many settings across Wales. In the case of the DVLA, for example, by some strange route, a member of staff at the DVLA phoned me at home. Now, I was here in work and my wife ended up speaking to a lady, as my wife thought, in her fifties and living alone who was acutely distressed at what she believed to be the conditions under which she was required to work at the DVLA. And, of course, those concerns were relayed to me and followed up. So, yes, indeed, I do hear directly and, as Suzy Davies said, the DVLA is not the only workplace where workers have concerns. And it's as a result of that direct, ground-floor evidence, fed through to us, and discussed at the new national health and safety forum that we have here in Wales, attended by trade unions, employers and regulators, that we made the decision to strengthen the law here in Wales so that workers' voices are heard, individually and collectively, by the Welsh Government, and, where necessary, we act on their concerns.

As the First Minister is aware, I've been talking about the DVLA for a very long time, and I also spoke about it in a Senedd debate last month. I've also raised it with the health board regularly, as Suzy Davies pointed out. In the first lockdown, after the initial problems, most people at the DVLA worked from home. If you access the distributed system or main network, location is not important. Here are some extracts from three of the many e-mails I've received:

'DVLA are aware of health problems and also that I care for family with health problems.'

'I'm struggling being in the workplace, and I'm hyper-aware of the conditions and the volume of people surrounding me in the office.'

'I have asked to work from home, but unfortunately the DVLA have required me to attend the office.'

I thank the First Minister for the letters he's sent. And I think that, really, I find difficulty asking the First Minister to do any more, because I can't think of much more that he can do. But I think what I would say is that, in the first pandemic, working from home was the norm amongst people in the DVLA; since the second shutdown, it has not been the norm. And I would ask him again to write to Baroness Vere, telling her that you expect that, where people can work from home, they do—it's the law in Wales.

Well, Llywydd, may I thank Mike Hedges for that? And I'm very happy to write again to Baroness Vere, as a result of these concerns expressed on the floor of the Senedd. Llywydd, as I said, I wrote to the baroness, as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport, on 22 December. I got a reply dated 23 December. And I must say that, by the standards of correspondence I sometimes see from Whitehall, this was a detailed and engaged reply that did respond to the issues raised in my letter of the twenty-second. I wrote again on 12 January, because I still felt that that first reply left unanswered a series of issues that had been raised directly with us as a Government, including the proportion of staff expected physically to attend the workplace in relation to those working from home. The reply that I subsequently received did deal directly with the issue of the number of people working from home, together with issues of cleaning, ventilation, staff engagement, and a number of other issues that I had set out in my letter. My concern is that there is a gap between the advice that the Parliamentary Under Secretary receives from managers and others on the spot, compared to the evidence that is provided directly to Members here by people who work in the various offices of the DVLA. And I'm very happy to write to her again, relaying Members' concerns, and asking her once again to be sure that the advice that she relies on, or the—[Inaudible.]—that she provides to the Welsh Government, would stand up to examination by those working at the front line.

Thank you, First Minister. The second topical question is to be answered by the Minister for Housing and Local Government. I will hand the chair to Ann Jones in just a moment, but I first of all call on David Rees to ask his topical question. David Rees.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.