Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:56 pm on 14 December 2021.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:56, 14 December 2021

Well, of course, the leader of the opposition is absolutely right in that. Our offer is the same as it is anywhere in the United Kingdom—it is to make sure that, by the end of this month, everybody’s had an offer. The offer will extend into the new year to the shortest possible extent. But that is not entirely in the hands of the Government, because there are two things in play here. There is the rate at which we can step up the supply of vaccination—and a huge amount is being done to make sure that we have vaccination centres open more hours, vaccination centres with more lanes, vaccination centres with walk-in capacity as well as appointment capacity, just to give some examples. But, as well as the supply side, there is the demand side—the extent to which people come forward to take up the appointments that they are offered. And if people don't come forward in the numbers we need to see, or if people ask for their appointments to be rearranged, then that will push that date further into the new year. So, if there's a single message that I would want to get across in today's session—I hope that many Senedd Members will help in this, in passing that message on as well—it is that there is nothing more important that any person can do than to keep that appointment that they will be offered. Because the more people who keep the appointment, the faster we will get through the numbers, and the fewer the number of days we will need in the new year to complete the programme.