Questions now from the party leaders. The Welsh Conservatives' leader, Paul Davies. 

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, later this week you will give the Welsh Government's latest review of COVID-19 in Wales. Of course, during this current review period, the Welsh Government has pushed ahead with further measures in the form of COVID passes to many entertainment settings, and concerns have rightly been raised about the legal and ethical impacts of COVID passes. And the fact remains that there is no evidence to show that vaccine passports limit the spread of the virus or, indeed, increase uptake of the vaccine. This week, there are genuine fears that the Welsh Government will extend COVID passes out to hospitality settings too. First Minister, vaccine passports are not a route out of restrictions; they are, indeed, restrictions. Therefore, First Minister, as vaccine take-up continues to increase and COVID cases continue to go down, will you today confirm that you will not roll out these COVID passes to hospitality settings? And what criteria now have to be met to scrap the COVID passes that you've recently introduced?

Well, Llywydd, the Member has got it completely wrong. COVID passes are there to help to keep Wales open. They are there to follow the advice that we have from SAGE that Governments should take those low-intensity early measures that you can put in place to try to deal with the spread of coronavirus, which has been far, far too high in Wales, and simple measures that, cumulatively, can make a real difference. That is why they've been introduced in Wales—very successfully introduced in Wales. I remember all the shroud waving from his benches about how we wouldn't be able to do it, about how difficult it would be and what a mess there'd be when we did it—none of that is true. None of that is true, and the Member ought to know better than to suggest it. It is done very successfully, very smoothly and done by people who work hard to protect the Welsh public. It will help to keep businesses open. That's what it's designed to do, and I make no apologies for it whatsoever. It was the right thing to do, and I'm very glad that we have used that additional tool in the armoury to help to keep Wales safe and keep Wales open.

Three weeks ago, when the Cabinet was making its decisions, we had just reached a peak of 730 cases per 100,000 in Wales—the highest figure on any day in the whole of the pandemic period. You wouldn't think from his question that Wales was facing that sort of emergency, but that's the position we were in. Thankfully, because of the efforts that people in Wales have made, because of the extra things that we have put in place, those numbers have now reduced, and as the numbers reduce, then the need to take extra measures beyond those in place now reduces as well. But in the last two days, Llywydd, those numbers have turned up again. They are up significantly in Scotland in the last week; they are up very significantly in countries very close to the United Kingdom. So, nobody should think that we are somehow out of the woods on this yet. The Cabinet will look very carefully at the numbers. We are thankfully in a better position than we were three weeks ago, and that will form the context for the decisions that we will announce at the end of this week.

First Minister, you know as well as I do that there's simply no scientific evidence to show that COVID passes are effective. The chief medical officer himself has said that the actual direct impact of COVID passes is probably quite small, so there is no scientific evidence to suggest that COVID passes are actually working.

Now, another way of helping to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is through testing, and so it was really disappointing last week to hear the deputy chief medical officer say he does not think that twice-weekly lateral flow testing of NHS staff is particularly important in the whole scheme of things. First Minister, it's crucial that NHS staff are routinely tested so that we can curb any hospital-acquired infections and provide people with confidence that, when they enter a health setting, they will treated by staff who have been regularly checked. It's absolutely critical that the Welsh Government urgently addresses this problem and starts seriously considering its approach to infection control in hospital settings, so we can better protect patients in the Welsh NHS. Of course, testing more generally remains an important part of the COVID puzzle. Through regular testing, we can understand where cases are and ensure local services are able to respond, and more effectively cope with demand on intensive care units. So, First Minister, how is the Welsh Government tackling hospital-acquired infections in Wales? Do you agree with the comments of the deputy chief medical officer, and can you tell us what the Welsh Government is doing to promote and encourage NHS staff to take regular lateral flow tests? And given the importance of testing the wider public to mitigate the risk of passing the virus on to others, what are you doing to strengthen the testing system in Wales to ensure that it is as effective as possible?

Well, Llywydd, the Member wanted to suggest that we weren't taking the advice of the chief medical officer on one score—he's wrong there, by the way: we do follow the chief medical officer's advice, and he supports our position on the COVID pass—but then he wants me to ignore the advice of the deputy chief medical officer when it comes to the testing regime. We will follow the best advice that we can have, we will continue to protect our health workers and our social care workers. I'm very encouraged by the take-up of the booster vaccine in both of those sectors, and we will continue to have a testing regime in both of those locations that is consistent with the best advice that we get.

On the broader point that the Member asks about testing, well, I agree with him there, of course, that testing is a very important part of our armoury in dealing with coronavirus. We encourage people to be tested whenever they have symptoms or they've been in touch with somebody who has been confirmed as a coronavirus case, and, of course, our COVID pass regime allows somebody to demonstrate that they have taken the measures they need to to keep themselves and others safe by taking a test within a short period of attending at a particularly high-risk venue. So, we will continue to do that. I will say this to the Member, that the biggest anxiety that I have about testing in Wales are the signs that we're getting from the UK Government and from the Treasury that they intend to withdraw funding from the testing regime across the United Kingdom, and that their plan for the post-winter period is to reduce testing to a residual part of the protection rather than the central part of the protection that it is at the moment across the United Kingdom, and certainly here in Wales.

Well, First Minister, the reason that routine testing of NHS staff is so important, and, of course, regular testing in the community, is because people have lost loved ones to COVID-19. In Wales, one in four COVID deaths are from hospital-acquired infections, and so comments like that of the deputy chief medical officer have been understandably met with anger by those who have lost loved ones. Now, First Minister, it's yet another reason why we need to have a Wales-wide COVID inquiry, an inquiry that transcends party politics and gives people the answers that they need. The Member of the UK Parliament for Islwyn, Chris Evans, is absolutely right to highlight that devolution of powers cannot mean the evasion of accountability by the Welsh Government, and I urge all Members of this Chamber from every party to put politics to one side and support a Wales-wide COVID inquiry. So, First Minister, in the spirit of genuine co-operation across political lines and given you have members from your own party now calling for one, will you and your Government now reconsider your position and support a Wales-wide specific COVID inquiry to ensure that the people of Wales get the answers that they deserve in relation to the Government's handling of COVID-19 here in Wales?

Llywydd,  there is a depth of cynicism in that question that I think is genuinely concerning. The Member makes partisan political points while pretending that he does nothing of the sort. The attacks on the Welsh Government on this matter from his party are nakedly political in nature. I wrote to the Prime Minister again last week, Llywydd, setting out the prospectus that the Welsh Government expects to be delivered through the UK-wide inquiry that the Prime Minister has promised. I will meet the Secretary of State responsible for that this week. I will meet the families again at the start of December. It is still my view that the best way in which they will get the answers that they are looking for and deserve to pursue is in an inquiry that places the experience here in Wales under the microscope, but does it within the context within which those decisions were made. That is the only way, I believe, that they will get the sorts of answers that they are looking for. I say again, as I've said before, Llywydd, that if we don't get the assurances we need from the UK Government, then we would have to think again. But everything that I have been told by the Prime Minister directly and by the Ministers who work on his behalf is that they share our view that the inquiry should be shaped in a way that delivers the sort of investigation of decisions that were made here in Wales but does it in a way that allows those decisions to be understood in the wider context within which they were always taken.

The leader of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price.

Prif Weinidog, I should like to raise with you the appalling consequences that the Westminster Government's pursuit of a hard Brexit is beginning to wreak on our living standards here in Wales and across these islands, and ask what your Government, in collaboration with the other devolved administrations, could do to persuade this lamentable London Government to change course. In its economic and fiscal outlook last month, the Office for Budget Responsibility concluded that, as a result of a hard Brexit, trade between the UK and the EU will be 15 per cent lower than had we stayed in the EU. That's twice the estimated long-run costs of COVID. It amounts to £80 billion a year, more than four times the Welsh Government's annual budget. Indeed, evidence before the House of Lords European Affairs Committee this week has pointed out that it's actually a 25 per cent reduction in trade since 2015. Inevitably, this will impact on Wales more than most other parts of the UK, given the relatively higher dependence of our economy on manufacturing and agriculture, and therefore trade with the EU. What is the Welsh Government's strategic approach to addressing this mounting long-term problem?

I want to thank the leader of Plaid Cymru for that question. I think the point he made is worth repeating, Llywydd, isn't it, that the OBR, the Government's own advisers, in the run-up to the budget two weeks ago, concluded that the impact of Brexit in shrinking the UK economy would be twice the size of the global pandemic. And while the global pandemic is something from which we can recover, the Brexit impact is baked in to the agreement that the Prime Minister reached—an agreement without, as we would have wished to see, an economic relationship with the European Union with access to the single market, a customs union, to support it. And the result is that people in Wales will be permanently—permanently—poorer as a result of the deal that the Prime Minister struck. And we see it, as the leader of Plaid Cymru said, across the range of the Welsh economy. We see it in the care home sector, where we're no longer able to recruit people who did such valuable work here in Wales. We see it in the HGV driver shortage, which is a UK-wide phenomenon and where the paltry measures that the UK Government introduced are having a negligible effect on that set of difficulties. We have a manufacturing industry in Wales unable to operate at full strength because of supply chain bottlenecks, because trade no longer flows without barriers with our nearest and most important neighbours.

Llywydd, we approach it as a Welsh Government in two specific ways. There are the particular problems that are caused at Welsh ports, in Holyhead and in Pembrokeshire, with trade depressed and new difficulties in its path. And there we try to persuade the UK Government to do the things that would allow the land bridge, the most effective way of transporting goods between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and the UK and on to Europe, to make that function again as it did before their deal was struck. And then, more widely, we work with others, we work with our colleagues in Scotland and in Northern Ireland, to try to put pressure on the UK Government to approach relationships with our most important trading partners on the basis of mutual respect, on the basis that, if there are difficulties in agreements that need to be sorted out, you come around the table, you see the position from the other person's point of view as well as your own, and then you reach a formula that brings about improvement. What you don't do is to approach it as this UK Government does, where everything is an argument, where everything is a chance to fall out, where everything, as it seems to me, is a chance to make a difficult situation even worse.  

Prif Weinidog, you mentioned Holyhead there and, of course, the Northern Ireland dimension of the UK Government's intransigence in pursuing the hardest of hard Brexits is calculated to make things much, much worse. The Westminster Government is now threatening, as we know, to suspend parts of the Northern Ireland deal that protect the EU's single market, article 16 of the trade and co-operation agreement. Indeed, even last night, Boris Johnson was saying that such a suspension would be legitimate, reasonable and appropriate, when of course it is none of these things at all; it is the very opposite. If that were to happen then, in response, the EU would undoubtedly retaliate by suspending or repudiating part or whole of the post Brexit trade deal that Britain has with the EU. That would make our trading losses in Wales even worse, quite apart from the complete breakdown of trust that would occur between Britain and the EU. What additional mitigating actions are the Welsh Government planning if the UK Government does indeed pursue this course, which appears increasingly likely?

Well, Llywydd, first of all, let us hope that they don't pursue such a course, because, as Adam Price has said, it would simply be to make a difficult situation even more damaging—economically, in terms of trade, but also in terms of the situation on the island of Ireland.

Llywydd, later this week, Wales will host the next meeting of the British-Irish Council. It will bring the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste here to Wales. It'll bring the First Minister of Scotland and Ministers from Northern Ireland as well as the other participants. I really hope that that meeting will not take place against the background of unilateral action by the UK Government on article 16, because that is a forum where, historically, people have worked very hard to make sure that the right things are done, the relationships are improved not damaged. And there'll be opportunities there, because the Prime Minister doesn't choose to attend the British-Irish Council anymore, but Michael Gove will be there, and there will be opportunities for discussions on these difficult issues to take place there and avoid the breakdown of trust that Adam Price referred to.

As the chair of the British-Irish Council this week, then Wales has been working hard already and will continue to work hard at the council to make sure that we use that opportunity in the most constructive way possible, recognising the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland and the damage that would be done were article 16 to be triggered.

In a BBC interview just over a week ago, your counterpart in Westminster, Sir Keir Starmer, said he wants to make Brexit work. First Minister, can I ask you what you understand by that phrase or how you interpret it? Will you be advising him that, in the best interests of Wales, as well as the UK, it should mean, at the very least, rejoining the EU's customs union and single market?

Well, Llywydd, I think Sir Keir Starmer, who led for Labour during those long months of the exit negotiations, will have been pointing to a distinction that the UK Government was so reluctant to recognise. The United Kingdom has left the European Union. That battle is over. There was an opportunity to strike a new economic relationship—no longer part of the political union, no longer part of the social union, but an economic relationship—which would have been absolutely acceptable to Mrs Thatcher, who negotiated most of it, and which would have preserved the ability of businesses here in Wales to go on trading and to go on developing markets that they had invested so much in over the 40 years. That was an argument that Sir Keir Starmer made regularly and routinely during all of those negotiations. I heard him myself. I had the opportunity to be in meetings with him where he made that point to UK Ministers—that you could leave the European Union in the political sense, in the way the referendum had determined, but that did not mean that you had to damage your economic interests in the process. Rebuilding an economic set of arrangements that allows trade to flow, that allows businesses to thrive, seems to me to be the most modest ambition that anybody looking at the current state of play would want to pursue.