Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:52 pm on 28 September 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:52, 28 September 2021

I thank Adam Price for that. He's right, of course, Llywydd; we do share the advice that we get on the modelling and the advice we receive from the chief medical officer and others as we go into the final decision-making phase of the three-week review. I thank the leader of Plaid Cymru for the fact that, in my memory, there's never been one of those briefing sessions that hasn't been attended by his party, either by him or by another senior member of the party, and that does mean that opposition party leaders are as informed as we are about the background to the decisions we take.

The modelling shows, Llywydd, as Adam Price has said, that numbers of people falling ill with coronavirus in Wales are not due to peak until into the month of October. I look at those figures every day, and to me, they are still a matter of considerable anxiety, but our scientific advisers continue to say to us that that is what they would have expected—that this is still consistent with what the modelling would have led them to believe would be the case, and we can hope that during the month of October, we will see those numbers plateau, and hopefully begin to reduce.

My party took the view that, against the background of that modelling, it was not sensible to bring large numbers of people from all around Wales travelling together to a location where, inevitably, people spend lengthy periods of time in relatively crowded conditions indoors, and that the risk was one that was better avoided. I think it is for individuals and organisations then to weigh up the position for themselves. The position will be influenced by timing—whether they're planning an event at the point where numbers will be still rising, rather than hopefully when things have stabilised and began to decline, whether their event is indeed a large-scale event with many hundreds of people attending, whether it is indoors or outdoors, to what extent it can be susceptible to other mitigation measures such as ventilation. We will make and are making all that advice that we see available to others, and then I think there will be decisions that others will make, but, as I say, in the specific contexts that they themselves are facing.