7. What discussions has the First Minister held with UK Government counterparts about measures to reduce COVID-19 infection rates? OQ57487

Llywydd, I meet regularly with UK Government Ministers and leaders of the other devolved Governments to discuss the response to COVID-19. When they take place, I attend heads of Government COBRA meetings, and I've written today to the Prime Minister, challenging his Government's approach to international travel and its impact on infection rates.

Diolch, First Minister. As rehearsed already, the string of stories coming out of Westminster this past week about parties in No. 10 Downing Street, of an apparent culture in the heart of the UK Government that seems to have been intent on ignoring COVID laws and guidance—. Those stories will have had an indelible impact on public compliance, public support and morale. People will feel cheated—cheated out of moments they might have had if they, too, had chosen to act with such apparent irresponsibility. Because 2020 and 2021 were marked by extreme sacrifice and suffering by so many people, and that stark contrast between what the rest of us went through—the grief and the loss—juxtaposed with parties and frivolity, will be sticking in the craw. I recognise, First Minister, perhaps that the UK Government will be focusing at present on 'Operation Save Big Dog', on the red meat they're throwing about, and surely that will mean that there's a lack of focus in the inter-governmental discussions on COVID infection reduction. So, given how much his own alleged actions will have undermined public trust during a pandemic, First Minister, do you think that Boris Johnson should resign?

Well, Llywydd, I'm sure that Delyth Jewell is right about the anger that is felt by people. We will all have read those really heartrending stories of people who, on the day that parties were being organised in Downing Street, when discos were being organised in the basement, were dealing with the most awful events in their own lives. And it isn't just as Delyth Jewell said, that it has an impact on public confidence—of course it does—but there's raw anger out there at the way in which those people, regarding themselves as somehow above the law that everybody else was being asked to abide by, acted at the very heart of Government. Sir Keir Starmer, on behalf of my party, has set out authoritatively our view on the future of the Prime Minister, and I don't need to add to that. My fear, the thing that worries me, is not the fate of an individual, but the fact that we are having to deal with a Government that is simply incapable of taking the decisions that are necessary to protect populations in the COVID context, and is now embarked on the long series of measures that Adam Price set out, which are not about the future of the country—it's about saving the skin of an individual, and that, I think, is deeply, deeply distasteful.