Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:04 pm on 13 July 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:04, 13 July 2021

Well, here is the only clarity I can provide, Llywydd. The advice of the Welsh Government has not changed for many, many weeks. Our advice to people in Wales is that this is the year to stay in Wales and to take your holiday with everything that Wales to offer. The decision to travel abroad will bring additional risks with it—risks to you as an individual, and risks to others on your return. Those risks can be avoided; they're not risks that you have to run. Therefore, in the context of a global pandemic and a third wave of coronavirus, how much better to avoid those risks and to holiday here in Wales?

The reason we cannot make that a law in Wales is that it would simply be unenforceable. There is just no way you could make such a law stick, because three quarters of people who travel abroad from Wales do so from airports across our border, where there will be no such inhibition. And I don't imagine—I've never seen a proposal from Plaid Cymru—that we would prevent people from Wales from travelling across the border into England, and as soon as you allow that to happen, then people would be able to travel and people would. So, I don't find—. I wish we were in a different position to the one that we are in, but, given that that is the position we are in, the advice we can give is as clear as we can make it: there are risks involved, they don't need to be run, there are alternatives, and fantastic alternatives available to you.