Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:26 pm on 19 January 2022.
No, I do take that these things are a fine judgment, as I outlined earlier, and it is difficult—they are difficult decisions, balancing the harms. But it was clear from the figures, Huw, that the hospitalisations were down and the figures were coming that way. If you looked at the evidence of what's happening in London with the same variant, and in South Africa, there was a clear trend of what was probably going to happen, which, actually, is now what we're seeing has happened.
The hospitality sector has been under siege constantly from this Welsh Government, with a lack of support and the reintroduction of this rule of six. An estimated 86,000 jobs have been lost from the cultural night-time industry, and these new measures had an average cost to businesses of £45,000 over the festive period.
Research in December from the University College London demonstrated that people were twice as likely to catch COVID while shopping compared to being in a pub or cinema. Restrictions cannot be introduced just for the sake of it, and in light of the omicron variant being far milder, alongside the advancement of the roll-out of the booster programme, I do have to question the rationale behind the Welsh Government's decisions, especially in the continued absence of evidence.
While I am pleased that the Welsh Government has listened to the Welsh Conservatives, as Russell said earlier, and has heeded our calls to ease restrictions, we are still having to wait weeks for these changes, all because Mark Drakeford wants to save face and not call any u-turn. No consideration has been given at all to mental health and well-being, and to our Welsh economy. It is time we look to the future and start rebuilding our lives and the Welsh economy. We need a detailed road map to recovery now, not the constant insecurity that this Welsh Government has delivered throughout the pandemic.
We need to plan to learn to live with COVID, we need to keep children in schools and support them to get back on track. We need to scrap COVID passports, and we need to support our NHS and staff on clearing the backlog of waiting lists. The recovery in Wales is going to take time, and I appreciate that, but the Welsh Government needs to realise that it is time to live with COVID and focus on securing our economic future. If there is evidence stating that we need certain restrictions, fine, but this Welsh Government are clearly wrong with these latest restrictions.
It is good to see things changing finally. I really hope that we will hear more tomorrow on masks in classrooms and more restrictions being lifted sooner. Quite simply, it's time to try to start providing reassurances rather than more threats of job-crushing restrictions. We need to learn to live with COVID. This was an important debate to have today still, even though, in a way, it's outdated. It would be good to be able to debate restrictions and vote on them before they happen in the future. Thank you.