5. Will the First Minister make a statement on the effectiveness of NHS Wales's Test, Trace, Protect service? OQ56440

Test, trace, protect is an essential mechanism to detect, control and protect people from the spread of the virus. The public service partnership approach that we have taken in Wales has safeguarded public funds, used them with probity and integrity, and has efficiently delivered a highly effective system for Wales.  

First Minister, thank you for that answer. The reason I raise this question is because, shockingly, it was reported last week, and I quote, that 'there is no evidence to show that the UK Conservative Government’s multibillion-pound test and trace programme to combat COVID-19 in England contributed to a reduction in coronavirus infection levels.' But worse still, First Minister, the Chair of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said that the enormous amount spent on this scheme leaves the impression that the public purse has been used like a cash point, totalling £37 billion over two years. This is in stark contrast to NHS Wales's test, trace and protect service, which as of the end of February I understand had reached 99.6 per cent of positive cases who were eligible, together with 95 per cent of their close contacts. Would you agree with me, First Minister, that it is definitely better to invest taxpayers' hard-earned money into tried-and-tested public services that have a strong track record of delivery, and that the £37 billion wasted by the UK Government frankly makes their offer of a below-inflation 1 per cent pay rise to nurses even more darn insulting?   

Huw Irranca-Davies is right; the £37 billion figure is eye-watering—£6 billion pounds handed out in contracts by direct award, with no competition for those contracts at all. We have made provision in our budget for next year to run our highly successful TTP system up until the end of September, and we've needed to put £60 million aside in order to do that. That's £60 million, the cost here in Wales, not the eye-watering sums criticised in that Public Accounts Committee report across the border. We've done it, as the Member knows, because we have relied upon the public service—no £1,100-a-day consultants here in Wales, no companies running the service in order to extract a private profit. We've relied on public service and public servants, and it's they who have delivered the outstandingly successful system we have. I agree with him; I go back to the answer I gave earlier about the way in which we can see the Conservative Government at Westminster manoeuvring to make sure that the consequences of this pandemic are heaped onto the shoulders of those least able to bear them. And when we say that it is our public service and public servants who have got us through this crisis, in the way that our TTP system demonstrates, those people are to have no increase at all next year. That's their reward from the UK Government. This Government, and a Labour Government at the UK level too, would have a very, very different set of priorities, and I believe that those priorities are shared by people here in Wales.

The Llywydd took the Chair.

Nice try to the previous speaker for a general 'doing the evil Tory Government in Westminster down'. First Minister, I did hear your response about private versus public, but of course we all know it was privately employed Kate Bingham who actually very, very successfully protected the United Kingdom, including Wales, on the vaccines, by buying, investing and supporting all of those amazing scientists. So, let's hear it for the private sector as well. When you talk about having a highly effective test, trace and protect system for Wales, that's exactly what I want, but let's be clear: the World Health Organization says that a successful contact tracing system is marked by being able to trace 80 per cent of contacts within three days. Your test, trace and protect system reaches 90 per cent of contacts—well done—but within nine days after that initial contact. There is a lot of spreading within that nine-day window, significantly more than the world health authority's recommendation that it should be three days. So, can you please tell us what actions you will be taking to try to cut that lag from nine days to the WHO's recommended three days, in order to ensure that here in Wales we have the most effective test, trace and protect system?

I don't recognise the nine-day figure at all. The Member will be very pleased to know, given her concerns, that 90 per cent of close contacts last week were reached within 24 hours, and that 93 per cent of index cases were reached within 24 hours. So, where the nine days comes from, I do not know, but last week those were the figures that were reported. That's a good deal better than the three days that the WHO has identified, and I think demonstrates once again the success of the system we have here in Wales.