4. The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2021

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:41 pm on 9 March 2021.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:41, 9 March 2021

Thank you, once again, to the legislation and justice committee for their scrutiny of the regulations. Once again, the regular reviews they undertake do help us to make sure that the legislation fulfils its purpose and is appropriately drafted, and they have, from time to time, picked up what I think are small, but important, differences in the regulations, which we have then corrected, once they have reviewed them. That is always helpful. 

On Rhun ap Iorwerth's point, I'm grateful for the support for these regulations. On your broader point about possible future regulations, you will have heard both myself and the First Minister refer to the possibility of a 'stay local' period before there is a wider move in travel. And there is nothing perfect about that, but we recognise that, in moving from one stage to another, an intermediate 'stay local' stage may well be useful. And this is about people being sensible with any rules or guidance. And if we're going to provide guidance on it, it is just that, not a hard and fast rule, and we ask people to be sensible about how they exercise that. And I recognise that, if I lived in the middle of Powys, what 'stay local' might mean could be very different to living here in Penarth or in the Cardiff part of my constituency. And so we ask people to exercise the level of common sense and support that has seen us to this point now. What I would not want to see is for people to take an approach to any potential easing that takes us well beyond where we need to be, because I want to see a safe and phased progress out of our current restrictions that does not mean we need to put the brakes on again. 

People need to be cognisant of, if they are going to travel, to make sure they're still observing the other restrictions that will still be there and in place, and in particular the challenges for all of us about making sure we keep our distance from people, good hand hygiene and not mixing indoors in particular. That's still the most dangerous and risky form of contact and, as I've said, the Kent variant does mean that this is a much more transmissible variant than the one that we have currently dealt with, and so that's why the extra caution is needed. It's for all of us, though, to play our part so we can have different choices to make in the future, and different choices that I certainly hope we can all agree we would not want to have to reverse back from.

So, thank you for your general comments and support, and I look forward to hoping that Members will now agree the regulations before us.