Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:54 pm on 18 January 2022.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:54, 18 January 2022

Well, Llywydd, I set out on Friday last week a timetable stretching to the middle of next month for decision making, provided that the public health situation in Wales would mean that it would be safe to lift further protections. That timetable is well known to people. It will result, on Friday of this week, I hope, in returning to alert level 0 for activities outdoors; on 28 January, returning to alert level 0 for activities and events indoors; and then a three-week review by 10 February of remaining measures. Now, we will take the advice of the chief medical officer, Sir Frank Atherton, and others along that pathway, and as soon as it is safe to do so, from a public health perspective, then we will make the changes to reflect an improved situation. But there are a lot of ifs in that answer, Llywydd. The biggest one of all is the extent to which we can go on seeing the improvements that we have seen in the impact of the omicron and other variants of coronavirus in Wales, in our society, in our hospitals and in our public services. I think people in Wales understand that they have a Government that makes decisions in a way that responds to evidence, not to political pressure, that makes decisions in a way that is capable of being rationally communicated to them, and the support that we have gained from people in Wales over the whole of the pandemic rests on the way in which, carefully, cautiously and in line with the science, we have helped to keep Wales safe. And that's exactly how we will continue.