Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome the opportunity to debate the roll-out of the COVID vaccine programme today. The vaccination programme is our top priority, and we're doing everything we can to vaccinate as many people as quickly and as safely as possible with the minimum amount of wastage. We should all reflect upon how far we've come in such a short space of time. The vaccines we're using were only approved in December, with Pfizer in early December and the most recent, Oxford-AstraZeneca, less than a month ago.

In Wales, we're now delivering the fastest growing vaccine programme within the UK, with the quickest rate over the last week of any UK nation, and we're doing so in line with the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, and we will not be throwing away the independent expert advice of the JCVI, Public Health Wales and the chief medical officer. That advice on priority groups is based on protecting and saving the maximum number of lives, and I will not depart from it. A huge amount of work was completed nationally and locally before any patients could be safely and legally vaccinated, including creating and then using vaccine-specific training, patient group directions and protocols, professional guidance and patient information resources. None of this can take place before vaccines are approved and the characteristics are known.

As of today, we have vaccinated at least 312,305 people in Wales. That's an increase of more than 22,700 on yesterday's figures. That's almost one in 10 of our population, and that is thanks to a Herculean effort by everyone involved. This is the biggest challenge we have faced as a nation in peacetime, and the planning, logistics and mobilisation of people involved has been an immense undertaking. And we do have a robust plan for delivery. The roll-out of the AstraZeneca vaccine and the involvement of primary care in administration has meant that we have been able to substantially increase the pace of vaccine delivery, especially over the last two weeks, and we are now vaccinating someone every five seconds, which is a startling figure and shows you something about the pace of our delivery here in Wales.

We hit two markers in our vaccine strategy last week in offering all front-line Welsh ambulance service staff their first dose of the vaccine. We also exceeded our end of January marker to have more than 250 GP practices deploying the vaccine. I announced on Monday we had at least 329 GP locations and over 300 practices involved in running vaccine clinics. Our approach encompasses all primary care professionals, including dentists, optometrists and pharmacists as well as GPs in the delivery of the vaccine programme. This includes a community pharmacy pilot, community vaccination centres and, from last weekend, clusters of GP practices running clinics in local communities. And those three GP cluster clinics that ran last weekend administered over 3,000 vaccines with the Pfizer vaccine, despite the snow. Many of those, of course, in the priority over-80s group. This is a significant step forward in terms of increasing our capacity to deliver the vaccine outside of mass-vaccination centres and closer to home, especially in those communities where access to these larger centres is difficult. Health boards will continue to work with GP practices across Wales to establish whether this can be rolled out more widely and to further build the capacity and speed at which the Pfizer vaccine can be deployed. And we are also making strong progress towards our final marker—that is, offering a vaccine to all care home residents and staff by the end of this month. We're currently vaccinating on average around 1,000 care home residents a day. Already over 11,000 care home residents at least, or nearly 70 per cent of this priority group at least, have already received their first dose, and more than three quarters of our care home staff have also received their first dose.

And on the original motion, whilst I recognise and respect the UK Government's role in securing these vital vaccines, and I do have a practical, grown-up working relationship with Whitehall Ministers, the subject of vaccine supply is always part of our discussions. We all recognise that we cannot succeed without it, and the provision of vaccines is, of course, a matter of fact. We started before other European countries because the independent regulator approved the vaccines for use. The vaccine supply chain itself is complex, and our plans adapt constantly to changes to delivery volumes and schedules, all of which have the potential to impact on achieving the milestones in our plan. Currently, health boards have a balance plan that is kept under constant review, in line with that changing information on the supply schedules. I'll be writing to the vaccines Minister for formal confirmation that we will be provided with sufficient vaccine in the short term to be able to vaccinate our mid-February milestone of cohorts one to four, to provide clarity and assurance that is needed to inform our expectations in the planning process, and I'll publish the letter and the response through correspondence with the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, so Members will have access to it.

On perceived red tape, health boards are already making the process of onboarding volunteers—[Inaudible.]—as streamlined as possible. There will, of course, be some parts of the process that are necessary to ensure patient safeguarding. There are already clear targets published in the vaccine plan, with daily information on the number of people vaccinated already being published and more detail being planned week on week. An army of people is involved in the deployment programme, including the military. A sustainable infrastructure has been our priority and it is now paying dividends. We already have 30 mass-vaccination centres and are using 70 acute and community hospital sites to roll out more centres as we progress through cohorts one to four. Health boards already vaccinate seven days a week and work extended hours. We're monitoring take-up of late and early appointments, and we'll continue to review as we move through the age cohorts to ensure that we reach as many people as quickly as possible.

And of course, Wales already has a Minister in charge of vaccines and that is me. It is ludicrous to suggest that the Welsh Government would ever turn down a supply of vaccines that are essential to protect our people. This never has been done nor would be done, and the suggestion is wholly without foundation. It is wearing and irresponsible to use this national Parliament as a platform for scaremongering fiction, and I'm disappointed to hear Conservatives helping to promote fake news and being prepared to vote for it.

I am committed to transparency in the roll-out programme. Last week, we began daily releases of data, showing—