And therefore I will call on the Minister for Health and Social Services to move these motions. Eluned Morgan.

Motion NDM7690 Lesley Griffiths

To propose that the Senedd, in accordance with Standing Order 27.5:

1. Approves The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 6) Regulations 2021 laid in the Table Office on 26 March 2021.
 

Motion NDM7689 Lesley Griffiths

To propose that the Senedd, in accordance with Standing Order 27.5:

1. Approves The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 7) Regulations 2021 laid in the Table Office on 9 April 2021.

Motion NDM7691 Lesley Griffiths

To propose that the Senedd, in accordance with Standing Order 27.5:

1. Approves The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 8) Regulations 2021 laid in the Table Office on 23 April 2021.

Motion NDM7692 Lesley Griffiths

To propose that the Senedd, in accordance with Standing Order 27.5:

1. Approves The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 9) Regulations 2021 laid in the Table Office on 7 May 2021.

Motion NDM7693 Lesley Griffiths

To propose that the Senedd, in accordance with Standing Order 27.5:

1. Approves The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 10) Regulations 2021 laid in the Table Office on 14 May 2021.

Motions moved.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. I move the motions before us this afternoon. The coronavirus control plan was published on 14 December 2020. It notes four alert levels that correspond to risk levels, including the necessary measures at each alert level to control the spread of the virus. The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) Regulations 2020 came into force on 20 December last year. These put in place the legislative framework for the alert levels and placed Wales at alert level 4, the highest level of restrictions.

In March, a new plan to control coronavirus was drawn up, which was updated to take into account the vaccination programme and the Kent variant. This plan noted how we would move down through the alert levels cautiously, step by step, and would take cautious steps in relaxing restrictions.

The Welsh Government was consistently clear in how we were to release restrictions following lockdown and our top priority was always to enable children to return to face-to-face learning. The last Senedd approved previous amendments to the regulations that began the cautious, step-by-step move to alert level 3. Amendment regulations numbers 6, 7, 8, and 9, which are before us today, continued this incremental move to alert level 3 that was completed on 3 May. These have meant significant relaxations to the restrictions on people and businesses across Wales. These include removing the 'stay local' requirements, providing for all retailers and gyms to reopen, and making it possible for extended households to be formed between any two households.

The continued improvements in the public health situation mean we can currently move between the alert levels in single steps. The amendment No. 10 regulations moved Wales directly to alert level 2 from 17 May. This included allowing up to six people from different households to meet indoors in pubs, cafes and restaurants. Now, clearly there is a need to continue to closely monitor increasing reports in England of cases of the so-called Indian variant. The public health conditions, including the latest advice in relation to this worrying new variant, will determine whether we can move to alert level 1 after the next review of restrictions, due by 3 June. Now, any move to alert level 1 would primarily increase the size of gatherings permitted. This would include providing for the rule of six, to enable more indoor mixing in each other's homes.

All amending regulations to the coronavirus restrictions have been subject to the made-affirmative procedure for reasons of urgency. The No. 9 amendment regulations were made whilst the Senedd was dissolved for the elections, and they were laid as soon as possible after the formation of the new Senedd. Now, we're very aware that the restrictions in place have often been very challenging for families and businesses, and I'm really grateful to the people of Wales for all their hard work, which means that currently we have the lowest rates of coronavirus in the whole of the United Kingdom. Coupled to this, our vaccination programme continues to make remarkable progress. These conditions have enabled us to ease restrictions in a cautious manner. Now, the Welsh Government will continue to carefully review these regulations, guided by scientific and medical advice, to ensure that we keep Wales safe. Diolch, Llywydd.

Can I first of all thank the Minister for her introduction to the regulations today, and can I congratulate the Minister very sincerely on her new appointment also? We in Welsh Conservatives will support the regulations this afternoon, as, in my opinion, and in Welsh Conservatives' opinion, it's the right approach in terms of easing the restrictions on the economy and opening up society again.

I would like to make a few points that, hopefully, Minister, you can take into account at your next review point as well. Those would be—. First of all, it's in regards to business support, and I hope I can take the heat out of some of the exchanges earlier today, first of all by saying I think that businesses are hugely grateful for the support from the UK Government and the Welsh Government during the pandemic, and I think they're hugely grateful for that support. I think the latest round of restrictions—sorry, the latest round of business support—in terms of the eligibility checker that was released last Monday, has caused a lot of businesses concern. They simply—. Some of the criteria are too rigid. Now, I understand we have to have those criteria—this is public money being spent—but I would just question the balance in that regard, and I hope that this can be considered by you and your colleagues in terms of the next review point.

It's also important to remember as well that many businesses are still not able to reopen, even given the current easing of restrictions. I'm thinking of particularly the hospitality sector, many restaurants, pubs and cafes, just because they can't offer that social distance element and they can't open outdoors. So, I'm particularly thinking about them, and they haven't even been able to recuperate their losses from last year. So, I think these are important considerations to take at the next review date.

Also, if I could raise a point as well about swimming pools that's been raised by me and others, Minister, and I think it may have been raised with you as well. Although the restrictions have been eased, many swimming pools are simply not able to open because of the restrictions—social-distancing restrictions don't allow that to happen; it's not cost-effective for them to open. Now, I appreciate Welsh Government has brought forward some funding in that regard, but I would perhaps ask her to relook at that funding and the restrictions as well to see if more swimming pools can be opened, because my fear would be that, if that doesn't change, then some of these swimming pools will never reopen again, and of course we all know the repercussions of that in terms of Welsh Government's and indeed my own thoughts in terms of the importance of swimming pools as we go forward as well, and people being able to access those swimming pools.

Minister, I'm quite pleased to hear what you said in terms of the next review date in terms of indoor household mixing. I think this is very much welcome. You yourself, Minister, pointed out that we've got lower rates of infection here in Wales and the vaccination programme is going well. So that does allow us, I think, the opportunity, and allows you the opportunity as the Welsh Government, to relook at indoor household mixing. You've alluded to that, which I'm really pleased about and I very much welcome that. And very much I think the public think about that you can go to a restaurant, six people can meet—it's six different households—yet you can't meet in somebody's home. I think there are questions around that, and I think for me as well there are many people who are simply not able to go out to a restaurant and meet friends or family, and therefore they're not meeting those people, unlike others who can do that, and I think there are mental health issues in terms of people being able to meet. We know in other parts of the country people can hug and meet as well, so I'm hoping, Minister, in your next review date, that we'll hear more in terms of household indoor mixing. But, of course, I also appreciate the indoor variant—sorry, the Indian variant—as well, and this will impact on your considerations as well. So, I'm hoping, Minister, in your closing remarks, you might be able to talk a bit about the opening of household mixing, and also your considerations in that regard in terms of the Indian variant as well.

And finally, I wonder what progress has been made on the vaccination passports via the NHS app, as outlined by the First Minister a couple of weeks ago. I hope in your closing remarks you might be able to touch on that as well. Diolch, Llywydd. 

May I take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister on her appointment? I look forward to working closely with her to try to influence as best I can the major decisions that remain to be made, of course, as the pandemic continues. It has been interesting to hear some of the comments made by Dominic Cummings today, who stated that the UK Government had made disastrous mistakes in dealing with the pandemic. It's important to remember that the Welsh Government had committed to working on a four-nations level on many of those decisions, so it's important to remember that there are still lessons to be learnt in order to make the best decisions.

Turning straight away to the regulations in front of us, we support them all but there are several comments that do need to be made, I think. Amendments 6 and 7 take us back to the end of March, beginning of April—8 and 9 take us forward a few weeks, but it's important that we note that these are amendments that were announced during an election period, with the changes coming into force as late as three days before the election. I don't need to spend much time discussing the significance of that—nobody from any political party could deny the potential for announcements of that kind to influence democratic processes. But it's important to mention this, because, if we were somehow to find ourselves in a similar situation again, we need to ensure that we learn all kinds of lessons from our experiences of the past year, and that includes democratic lessons as well as more practical lessons on how to deal with a pandemic. 

Amendment 10—this is more contemporary. Even then, we're talking about regulations that are almost a fortnight old, and I'll make an appeal here, early on in this new parliamentary term, for the Government, in collaboration with the Business Committee, to seek every way to try to (1) make announcements in the Senedd so that we can discuss them immediately, and (2) to accelerate the timetable for discussing changes and amendments to the regulations that are so important. How many times have we discussed regulations that have already come to an end before they came before the Senedd to be approved to be introduced in the first instance? 

Now, there are a number of other points that I want to make. I'm going to put them in a letter to you as well, Minister, to have a fuller response, but given it's taken many months for the Government to respond to some enquiries—almost a year for one enquiry that I've made—I want to go through them just to put them on the record today so that you hear them from me directly. In terms of where we are in general, we are all very pleased that we are in a positive position in terms of the number of cases and that the vaccination process is moving ahead well. I'm very indebted to everyone who is part of that process, of course. I do ask you to seek every way of lifting more restrictions as soon as possible, but of course only when it's safe to do so, and we know that we need to be watchful in terms of the growth in the variant from India.

So, I want to know, in that context, what kinds of steps will be taken to respond to any sudden growth and to try to prevent a third wave. Will there be intensive vaccination programmes, local restrictions, travel restrictions to and from areas of high incidence, for example? And also, with the clear evidence that the virus is spread in an airborne way, I would like to know what steps are being taken to respond to that evidence, including the provision of FFP3 masks for healthcare workers who are in contact with COVID patients, and also I'd like a report specifically on the potential of introducing ultra-violet UVC light, which could be so useful in settings such as schools, for example, to disinfect.

There are a number of other points and I will put them, as I say, in a letter to you. We need to know, for example, what steps will be taken to allow things such as parkruns to happen in due course—sporting events that are so beneficial for body and mind. I will make a last-minute appeal here for you to allow supporters to watch Caernarfon against Newtown on Saturday. These things can be done safely. Please do everything that you can in that regard. There will be letters from Heledd Fychan and Luke Fletcher on economic matters on top of the health matters that I want to raise, but in my brief I want to know much more from the Government about the steps to get to grips with long COVID, which is such a concern for people. It's a long list of questions. 

To conclude, I note that this is of course the first time for me to be able to raise some of these issues in the new Senedd since before dissolution, but as I say, I don't expect full answers now. They will come in written form very soon, hopefully. But it's a measure, isn't it, of the work that is ahead of you as a new Minister—I wish you well—and it's also a measure of the work that is ahead of all of us as a Senedd to hold you and the Government to account.

I would be grateful for clarification on the regulations, Minister, possibly in writing in due course. Issues have been raised with me by Newport Harriers with regard to youth athletics and whether youth development league meetings are permissible within the regulations, and also whether parents are able to spectate at those meetings. It is an outdoor stadium that Newport Harriers use, and I'd be grateful for clarification as quickly as possible—as I say, perhaps in writing—on those matters.

I'd also like to support Rhun ap Iorwerth in terms of parkruns. They are great public health events and they certainly have those benefits for people in terms of their physical and mental health and well-being, and they are due to recommence, as I understand it, in early June in England. It would be good to have an idea from Welsh Government as to when they are likely to be able to restart here in Wales. Diolch yn fawr.

Minister, I'd like to congratulate you and welcome you to your post. I know you and I worked very closely when I was a member of Powys County Council, and I look forward to working closely with you now.

Minister, I and my party welcome the continued relaxation of the COVID regulations here in Wales. With COVID-19 numbers at a record low, all nations of the United Kingdom have moved away from lockdowns and towards a reopening of our economy as we recover from the coronavirus pandemic. The people of Wales, and in my constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire, have made huge sacrifices to ensure the damage of COVID was limited as much as possible to protect our communities and the most vulnerable people in our society. They spent months in lockdown, not seeing loved ones, and unable to live the lives they'd worked so hard to build. Thankfully, because of the UK Government's vaccination programme successfully being rolled out across all four nations, we are seeing people's liberties being restored, and I must commend the Welsh NHS and my own Powys Teaching Health Board for the great roll-out of the vaccination programme, which has enabled us to be in the position we are now. However, Governments of all colours must be very careful before trying to take these freedoms from the people of this country again.

I was pleased to hear my fellow MS Russell George raising the points earlier about the reopening of the hospitality sector. It's vital that our businesses are now given the freedom they need to trade successfully. Overzealous regulations will impede these businesses from being able to achieve the sales and trade they need in order to create wealth and pay taxes that we vitally need to fund our public services and our NHS.

An area of great concern for me—and many at present—is the state of the nation's mental health. Many people have suffered from isolation over the past year, with lockdowns playing a significant role in the deterioration of people's physical and mental health, and most of those people have been left to suffer in silence with no support, or big delays in backlogs in the support for those people who've had the courage to ask for help. Suicide rates in Wales were rising even before the pandemic and they've continued to do so. Men make up 75 per cent of suicide victims in Wales. Although I am sure that the Welsh Government took significant time to consider the potential rise in suicide before they brought in their COVID regulations last year, I wonder if the Minister could outline how she and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Well-being intend to tackle this huge problem in Wales. Your Government has promised to increase support for those suffering with mental-health-related illnesses, but surely the Welsh Government would have considered the impact on people's mental health before they brought in COVID regulations early last year, and would have been told this by the medical and scientific advisers, that there would be a huge spike if lockdowns were to continue to be imposed. So, can you tell me, Minister, what additional support has currently been given to support those suffering with mental ill health?

And finally, Minister, in your closing remarks, perhaps you can outline how you and your Government will ensure that, if we were ever to bring back any new regulations, people's mental health would be a top priority, as any decisions on future lockdowns and firebreaks could make the current mental health crisis in Wales worse. Diolch, Llywydd.

Could I concur with the points that have just been made about mental health? Undoubtedly, many of the organisations within my own constituency have slowly come out of this and are slowly coming back to meet together, albeit, I have to say, with caution, because some of them, particularly those that have vulnerable members themselves, do not want to come back to face-to-face in a rush, they want to do it very, very safely. But I'm sure we will indeed see the repercussions of that and I would welcome the Government's response on that. 

But I have one particular question and it is to do with live performance. I thank the Minister's officials and advisers for engaging with me over the last fortnight extensively, ad nauseam, probably every other day, to try and get clarity on a very straightforward point, and it is whether live performances are at all allowed at this moment in time in licensed or non-licensed venues. If people are carrying a pint of beer or wine in a licensed venue, albeit that there is a guitarist sitting in the corner, strumming away quietly, below the level of raising the voices of everybody—. I have to say, I was out last Saturday night in a pub, the local pub, a very good pub, having a pint, and behind me there was a group that was far louder than any rock band, I would suggest. [Laughter.] But we really need clarity. At this moment in time, is live performance allowed in licensed venues in any shape or form? And if not, at what point will it be? Is it alert level 1, for example? That clarity would really help. Even though they want to perform now, if they're told it's not now but it will be if and when we can move to alert level 1, that will be a clear signal to them that things can return at some point, if we keep going with the progress we've made.

And finally, Llywydd, can I just commend the approach that has been taken here in Wales? I can tell the Minister that, despite niggles, despite complaints—understandably, sometimes—the majority of my constituents and businesses want us to proceed in that way that is steady, cautious, deliberate and based on evidence, so that we do not have to regress to where we were before, so that we can continue to stay open and the thaw will continue until we are back to as near normality as we possibly can be.

Minister, one of the biggest tragedies of the pandemic has been the impact that it has had upon those living in our care homes. They have been separated from their families, unable to hold their grandchildren, denied physical contact with loved ones. This has been particularly hard for those suffering from dementia, often unable to understand why their families have abandoned them. The loneliness and isolation not only hit care home residents hard, but were also keenly felt by their families.

Minister, we now have nearly all care home residents and staff fully vaccinated, and the wider adult population are starting to receive their second doses. It won't be long before the population will be protected from serious illness and death as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. With that in mind, when can we remove the two-person limit on care home visits? When can care homes residents play with their grandchildren or hug their loved ones? Our constituents in the Vale of Clwyd need answers to these questions, as do we.

I understand that, in the beginning, these regulations needed to be passed quickly. However, this is no longer the case. This institution is here not to rubber stamp the Welsh Government's decisions; we are here to scrutinise. I hope that you can address these matters ahead of the next review, and give hope to those in long-term care. Diolch yn fawr iawn.  

The Minister to reply to the debate.

Thank you very much, and thank you for those comments. If I could start by responding to Russell George.

Congratulations on your new role as shadow health Minister. I understand that we will be speaking to each other often in future, so I look forward to that. On business support, certainly I think that we should be very proud of the fact that we have managed to get over £1.9 billion into business accounts over the past 12 months. So, a lot of this has been delivered by local authorities—about £1 billion of that money.

We are very aware that the restrictions are still impacting on many businesses. So, despite the fact that, for example, hospitality is open, of course they still have to adhere to the rules that we have set out very clearly in guidance. Of course, we have been working with businesses to look at what that package of measures should look like. So, even though they are open, there should still be a degree of support for them. So, that is an ongoing dialogue, and you heard the First Minister say today that the first thing that he did on being re-elected was to release that additional funding, £200 million of which has been earmarked specifically for business support, and £16 million of that has already now started to be released.

On swimming pools, of course they have been able to reopen already. I think that this is really important in terms of health and mental health. But, of course, different local authorities are dealing with these things in different ways. So, we have given them the power to reopen and, of course, we will be encouraging them to make sure that people can use that facility.

There is, of course, a reason why we are taking things slowly in terms of indoor mixing. We know that the virus spreads more easily inside. It may sound odd that you can mix in a pub easier than you can mix in a home, but they are very different, because one is a controlled environment and the other isn't. We all know that we let our guard down once we are in somebody else's home. So, there's a reason for that. But, of course, we will be looking at this in the next review.

Then, on the vaccination passport, of course we've been working with the UK Government to see if we can use the app that they are developing. There are some technical issues that we are still trying to smooth out, as are Scotland and Northern Ireland. We're hoping that this will be smoothed out by the end of June. In the meantime, of course, we've made it absolutely clear that we don't want people to travel, if possible—certainly abroad. That is our position as a Welsh Government. But, we do recognise that it may be essential for some people to travel. That's why, on Monday, I issued a statement that included a phone number that people can phone to get a temporary paper passport, effectively, to demonstrate that they have had the vaccine.

Thank you very much, Rhun, and I look forward to working with you as we progress in terms of the pandemic, but also post-pandemic. We will have a great deal of work to do in terms of catching up. 

I would want to commit to ensure that we do make announcements in the Senedd, wherever possible. I'm very eager to be transparent. I think we make better policy when we are transparent. I hope now, as we emerge from the election—clearly it was difficult during that period. But we also need to consider, during this period, that there will be times when we will still need to move very quickly indeed. And, of course, we will have to remove restrictions when they're not necessary, and do so quickly too. So, the situation works both ways.

There will be a third wave, Rhun; we are very aware that there will be a third wave. The question is how large that wave will be. And in terms of the new variant, we've done a great deal of work in terms of preparing for it. We're aware that it's likely that we'll see increased incidence here in Wales, and that's why we've put measures in place to enable local groups to carry out this surge testing and surge vaccination, where necessary. We're still at quite a low level at the moment—57 cases here in Wales at the moment—but of course I would be happy to respond to many more of the comments you made in detail. 

John Griffiths, diolch yn fawr. We're very keen to get young people in particular back to outdoor activities. There is guidance already in terms of organised activities, in terms of how parents can safely watch children. I'm very keen that we as a Cabinet look at the issue of parkruns. Of course, that will be something that we will be taking into account in terms of the 21-day review. We, of course, have had these small outdoor pilots; we need to review those pilots. That's the purpose of a pilot—to see what was the consequence. If they come out in the place that we hope they come out, obviously we would like to see what we can do to release further those restrictions.

James Evans, croeso i'r Senedd. I would like to join with you to thank the teams who've done an absolutely remarkable job across Wales in terms of the vaccination programme. I think this is a demonstration of teamwork: it's the Welsh Government with the local authorities, with the health boards, with the military support, and, of course, many, many volunteers, and it really is testament to their great work that we are in the situation we're in today.

We're very keen, of course, to make sure that businesses can open as soon as possible. And it's not just for the businesses' sake; actually, you went on to talk about mental health. As the former Minister in that role, there's a relationship between these things. If people can't open their businesses, they are going to become anxious. You know, there's an economic consequence to them. So, there are lots of harms we need to consider here. It's not just a medical issue here; it's not just a health issue. There are lots and lots of other harms, and, of course, we consider those harms every time we make these decisions in terms of what we're going to release and how we're going to release.

Just in terms of what we have put in place, already you will have seen in the Labour manifesto that we have made a commitment to make sure that we are seeing more mental health support, which, let's not forget, has been ring-fenced—£780 million pounds of money ring-fenced specifically for mental health support. But we want more of that money to go to tier 0, tier 1 support—that is very early intervention. Let's get them the support quickly. That is what we are very anxious to do, but also to understand that 80 per cent of mental health issues start when people are children and young people, and we need more of the money to go to there. So, we're giving instructions now to the health boards for them to understand that that is the way we would like things to move in future. And we have given, of course, £40 million additional funding to address this issue. So, the issue of mental health is very much atop of Labour's manifesto.

Of course, Huw, on live performances, I know you've been engaging in this, which is great, and it's very much one of the points that is on my agenda. So, we're taking that very seriously, Huw. I heard some live music very recently in St David's cathedral, so it is possible. We need to look at what are the reasons and what the conditions are. I know we're doing a lot of work. We're Welsh, for goodness' sake; we love singing. We all want to hear singing again, so we've got to make sure that we are able to do that in a safe way. So, we just need to make sure we've dotted all the i's and crossed the t's to make sure that, when we get back to singing, we can do it with gusto and enthusiasm, as we like to as a Welsh nation.

And just finally, on the care homes issue, we have, I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear, updated our guidance on Monday in relation to care homes, which now means that you don't have to have two people who had to be registered before to go into care homes. Anyone can now go into care homes. That restriction has been lifted. Of course, they have to comply with guidance, but the fact that we've got 98 per cent of people in our care homes who've now had the first vaccine, and 92 per cent who've had both vaccines, means that there is a level of protection there that wasn't there at the beginning of the pandemic. So, we are comfortable with that, we now have to make sure that the care homes themselves are comfortable with that situation.

So, thank you very much, and I hope people will support these new ideas. Thank you.

The proposal is to agree the motion under item 6. Does any Member object? No. Therefore, the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

The proposal is to agree the motion under item 7. Does any Member object? No. The motion is therefore agreed.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

The proposal is to agree the motion under item 8. Does any Member object? No. The motion is agreed.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

The proposal is to agree the motion under item 9. Does any Member object? No. The motion is therefore agreed.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

The proposal is to agree the motion under item 10. Does any Member object? No. The motion is agreed.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

That completes the item on coronavirus regulations.