Item 8 this afternoon is the Welsh Conservatives debate on a Wales COVID-19 inquiry special purpose committee, and I call on Russell George to move the motion.

Motion NDM8150 Darren Millar, Siân Gwenllian

To propose that the Senedd, in accordance with Standing Order 16.5:

1. Establishes a Wales COVID-19 inquiry special purpose committee.

2. Agrees that the remit of the committee is:

a) to identify where the UK COVID-19 inquiry is not able to fully scrutinise the response of the Welsh Government and Welsh public bodies to the COVID-19 pandemic;

b) to undertake an inquiry into the areas identified;

3. Agrees that the committee will be dissolved no later than December 2024 following a Plenary debate on its final report.

Motion moved.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I move the motion this afternoon, tabled in the name of my colleague, Darren Millar. Our motion today proposes that this Senedd establishes a Wales COVID-19 inquiry special purpose committee and agrees that the remit of the committee would be to (a) identify where the UK COVID-19 inquiry is not able to fully scrutinise the response of the Welsh Government and Welsh public bodies to the COVID pandemic, and (b) to undertake an inquiry into the areas identified. And I would like to try and avoid conflating two issues today. There is the subject of our motion—the special purpose committee—and also, secondly, the view that Welsh Government should have allowed a Wales-wide specific inquiry. And whilst I don't want to conflate the two, I think it's important that we set some context as to why we, as Welsh Conservatives, have tabled this motion today. The Government has continually denied the request for a Wales-wide inquiry, and they have done so in the knowledge that half the Members of this Chamber believe that there should be a Wales-wide specific inquiry. So do many health bodies and professionals across Wales as well and, most importantly, of course, the Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru group, representing many of the people who have died in Wales from COVID-19.

Now, I have no doubt that the UK COVID inquiry will do their job at scrutinising the UK Government and its actions, but now we've seen the blueprint, we know that the inquiry cannot fully scrutinise the Welsh Government. We know this because, just this month, Baroness Hallet, who is leading the UK inquiry, has stressed the inquiry would not be covering every issue in Wales. That's what she said—the inquiry would not be covering every issue in Wales. And speaking at the inquiry press conference, she went on to say that,

'we will try to ensure that we cover all the most significant and important issues' but,

'we can't cover every issue, we cannot cover, or call every witness, we are going to have to focus on the most significant and the most important decisions.'

And we also know, a month into the lockdown, the First Minister said,

'We will do the right thing for Wales at the time that it is right for Wales and we won’t be doing that by looking over our shoulders at what others are doing.'

The Llywydd took the Chair.

The Welsh Government has made its own decisions, and at times very different decisions, and it's entitled, of course, to do that, but I would hope the First Minister would accept there should be scrutiny and accountability for those decisions that were made. And we know that the UK inquiry is not able to do that. So, I hope the First Minister will be able to set out why, if he does remain so confident, there is no requirement for further scrutiny and accountability of the Welsh Government's actions.

Llywydd, I want to just be clear on the need for this committee to begin its work sooner rather than later. It is essential that the special purpose committee, as proposed in our motion, works not only with the UK COVID inquiry, but also the various teams that have been set up across Government and the public bodies to provide the inquiry with the information, and I fear that vital knowledge that is being built up in these teams will be lost if the committee were to wait to commence their work. And it appears clear to me that the committee's work in identifying the potential gaps in the inquiry could easily take place alongside the UK's timeline, examining in real time the areas that won't be covered. However, the committee will also be able to use the modules outlined in the inquiry to explore early potential missing areas and can begin to start to collect relevant data and information, and of course the committee will be able to operate, being fluid and agile in its work.

I want to just read out a statement in my opening comments here, Llywydd. It's a statement that was provided by the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru group, ahead of the debate today. These are their words:

'We welcome this action by opposition parties. The Welsh Government has had every opportunity to hold a Wales specific Covid inquiry but has chosen not to. The First Minister assured us that Wales being in the UK Inquiry was the right thing despite devolved-decision making. However the UK Inquiry cannot cover the issues in Wales in detail and in the way that he said he wanted. All we have ever wanted is what went wrong for our loved ones to be acknowledged and for lessons to be learned. Our concerns about the UK Inquiry are coming true and the First Minister has not challenged this. Ultimately we deserve a Wales specific judge-led inquiry. Sadly we’ve been denied this in Wales, therefore this committee will at least help ensure some detailed scrutiny of Wales that the UK Inquiry will not cover.'

So, I hope that that statement from the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru group—. I hope the First Minister, in responding to this debate today, will be able to comment on their statement as well, as well as some of my other opening remarks. Thanks, Llywydd.

I speak on behalf of Plaid Cymru as co-tabler of the motion. All of us in this Chamber represent people affected by this terrible pandemic: people who have lost loved ones, people who want to know that when this happens again—hopefully not in our lifetimes—that Wales can be prepared, as prepared as possible, and as well armed as we possibly could be to make the right decisions next time.

It was obvious we would need an inquiry. We called for one. Welsh Government agreed. But it turns out we were talking about two very different inquiries. For us, it always had to be a Wales-specific inquiry, running side by side with the UK one—why not? There were indeed decisions that were Whitehall based that affected all of us, and areas of shared responsibility too, but so many decisions were rightly taken wholly in Wales by Welsh Ministers, who were held to account here in this Senedd. Budgets were set in Wales. People were treated by dedicated staff in the Welsh NHS. Thousands died across the health and care sectors in Wales. We could only scrutinise those actions properly with a Wales-specific inquiry.

But the Labour Government chose to opt out of that forensic level of scrutiny, choosing instead to leave it all in the hands of whatever inquiry Boris Johnson, at the time, decided to establish. And that, I have no doubt, did a disservice to the people of Wales, the COVID bereaved, and all of us wanting to ensure that lessons are learnt. In March this year—I quote from the Welsh Government's website—the First Minister said that 'concerted representations' had been made

'to the Prime Minister to ensure the experiences of people in Wales will be properly and thoroughly reflected in the inquiry'.

In April, he said:

'I'm pleased to see that there are already strong signs that the inquiry...will be committed to ensuring that the inquiry is conducted in a way that is accessible to people in Wales, and provides them with the answers that they want.'

But it's the chair, Baroness Hallett herself, that gave us the reality. When asked at the start of the inquiry about the level of scrutiny that could be given to issues relating to Wales, she spelt out clearly that she cannot cover every issue. But we have to try to.

Now, whilst I'm still of the view that we need a Welsh inquiry, today's motion offers a pragmatic alternative. Some have suggested that a committee of this Senedd could hold a full Welsh inquiry—I have some concerns about capacity for that—but this motion does spell out what could be done. If the UK inquiry cannot possibly cover all issues, let us do the gap analysis, if you like; identify what isn't being given the scrutiny it needs, and then focus on seeking answers around those issues. What possible objection could Government and Labour Members have to that? They tell us they agree with the need for answers, that we need to learn lessons. Well, here's a way, cross-party, using the parliamentary tools at our disposal as a Senedd.

We know what some of the gaps are. We can already get to work. Some elements relating to Wales aren't even in the scope of the UK inquiry. The Welsh Government didn't even challenge the fact that there was no Welsh element to the preliminary hearing on module 1 on pandemic preparedness. Looking at the timetable, it's clear there won't be time—

Talking about time, you are going to have to draw your comments to a conclusion here. The allocated time in tabling this debate, by the Conservatives and yourselves, is 30 minutes, and therefore—[Interruption.] You have restricted yourselves in the amount of time you have allocated to this debate, and you are restricted yourself as well, Rhun. So, bring your comments to a conclusion.

Quite simply, decisions taken in Wales need to be scrutinised in Wales, and we ask everybody to support this motion today as a means of ensuring that. Thank you.

Although the UK Government announced an independent public inquiry into its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK in May 2021 and, three months later, the Scottish First Minister announced the creation of a Scotland-focused investigation into the impact of Scottish Government decisions on how the pandemic was handled, the Welsh Government has repeatedly denied our requests for an independent public inquiry into the handling of the pandemic in Wales. As one constituent told me,

'I lost my father to COVID-19 in November 2021. He was released from hospital into my care around four hours before passing away at home. I've been astounded that the Welsh Government have refused their own inquiry into the handling of the pandemic.'

After breaking his femur in November 2020, another constituent, Mr John Evans, was ambulanced to Wrexham Maelor Hospital, where he caught COVID after being placed in a ward next to a patient who was continually coughing. He died in June this year, following damage caused by long COVID to his brain stem, spinal column, heart and lungs and the original injury of thigh and leg. As his widow, Mrs Kathleen Evans stated, 

'There needs to be an inquiry in Wales as to why, why, why so many people died in Welsh hospitals—people like John, who followed Mr Drakeford's and the Welsh Government's guidance and were failed despite doing everything correctly.'

The cross-party group on hospice and palliative care will shortly launch the report on our inquiry into experiences of palliative and end-of-life care in the community during the COVID-19 pandemic. We received evidence showing, for example, that healthcare professionals in Wales were more likely to experience medication and staff shortages relative to other areas of the UK. 

On 28 April 2020, the UK Government announced that COVID testing would be extended to all care home staff and residents in England. In Wales, the First Minister said he saw no value in providing tests to everybody in care homes at that time. That was a pivotal moment for Mr and Mrs Hough, who ran Gwastad Hall nursing care home in Flintshire. It was not until 16 May 2020 that the Welsh Government brought in blanket testing for staff and care home residents. Five days later, Mr Hough killed himself. Twelve of their residents had died in those first few months of the pandemic. I subsequently asked the First Minister how he justified his continued rejection of the call by care home professionals for a Wales-specific public inquiry.

Our call today for the establishment of a Wales COVID-19 inquiry special purposes committee therefore presents an opportunity for the Welsh Government to show that they are not afraid of accountability to people in Wales.

I remember in March 2020 sitting in the leader's office at Flintshire County Council, working out how we could send everyone to work from home and keep front-line services running. We were stunned and it was frightening for our workforce. Initially, I spent time collecting PPE of any type from playgroups, schools, businesses and volunteers who had been printing 3D face masks. Flintshire care homes and domiciliary care staff were desperate for any form of PPE. Orders they'd placed for PPE were being unfulfilled, and I was told that Public Health England were diverting all PPE to their collection points and that they would then be distributed to Wales. I contacted Airbus, because I knew a flight of PPE was coming in, and I was then told it was all going to UK Government to then be distributed and we had to wait.

Track and trace in Wales was done through local government, who were the experts, and used to tackling outbreaks of viruses and diseases. It was delivered at a fraction of the cost of England's, which was done through private companies, costing billions, with very poor success levels. I think there was a 90 per cent success rate in Wales through local authorities, whereas in England, it was 65 per cent on average. There was excellent partnership working between the Welsh Government and local authority leaders and chief executives, with weekly engagement.

The UK Treasury wasted £8.7 billion of public money on PPE it couldn't use; almost as much as the entire annual spend of NHS Wales. A further £4.3 billion of money was fraudulently stolen from COVID-19 support schemes and was casually written off. Much of the unsuitable and unusable PPE was supplied by companies that were fast-tracked by Tory MPs and Ministers to obtain contracts for which they were unsuited to deliver, and some of these companies saw profits grow by billions. I'm saying this because this money could have now been used to pay for nurses' wages, for the recruitment of social care workers, to fill the black hole caused by rising energy and inflation costs. [Interruption.] It does matter, because it matters now to what we're able to provide for people that are sick now.

By having a UK-wide inquiry, it will be more rounded. The UK Government will have the powers and resources to be able to mobilise all the necessary information—[Interruption.] I only have three minutes—and powers needed to interrogate it. The Welsh Government is disclosing hundreds of thousands of documents to the inquiry and I want to know why certain cohorts were more impacted: BAME communities, people who lived in deprived areas. My daughter caught COVID when she was 12 weeks pregnant and then developed a heart condition that made her collapse. I wanted to know whether that's because she was pregnant or because of COVID; we still don't know. However, once the UK inquiry report is published, the Senedd should then be able to analyse it and further consideration should be given to setting up a Senedd committee to conduct its own inquiry in those areas that need further scrutiny. Diolch.

Dear me. Talk about out of touch.

We've heard time and time again in this Chamber about the need to expand the Senedd to promote scrutiny of the Welsh Government, but when it comes to promoting scrutiny now, the Welsh Government simply deflects and says they have moved on. But the people of Wales, the grieving loved ones of the COVID victims, the children who missed out on their valuable education, and those who had employment and financial worries have not moved on.

The Welsh Government's refusal to hold an inquiry shows that scrutiny is not its priority, but an expansion of its own power over the people of Wales. Freedoms were lost during COVID and sacrifices were made, and it falls on the Government to allow its actions and why it made the decisions it did be known to the Welsh people. The First Minister can't have it both ways, by having full responsibility over COVID regulations in Wales and then hiding under the UK-wide inquiry. He must stop hiding and take some responsibility and show some true leadership.

The Conservatives, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats often disagree in this Chamber over the most pressing issues facing Wales today, but our coming together on this matter shows that it goes beyond party politics and ideology, and it's about doing the right thing by the people of Wales. So, I urge Labour Members to look beyond party politics, or history will look on this place with contempt of deflection of allowing elected Members to understand the Welsh Government's decision-making process. Thank you.

This issue really does bring up so many emotions, doesn't it, really? Many of us know people who've been affected, many of us have met people who've been directly affected, and it's really important that we remember that for many of those families who are still living with the loss and the pain, this is still really there. And I'm not saying this proposal or an inquiry in London will actually get rid of that, because it won't, but it will—and we know and we've heard—help people to move on slightly.

Now in Wales, we did things differently. We did some good things. Carolyn's talked about some good things, and I do praise the First Minister for many of the decisions that were made here in Wales, and, really, it marked us out as a nation, making decisions that were for the good of the people. So, whilst I'm supporting this motion, I disagree with some of the sentiments here. I don't believe you are hiding from anything at all, First Minister; you are here and you're going to speak to this. But I would appeal to you to think again.

That's what happened to me. At the beginning of this discussion, back around a year ago, I actually opposed a Welsh-specific inquiry, and then I met with Anna-Louise Marsh-Rees who lost her father and has set up Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru. She persuaded me that she and her group actually wanted a Welsh-specific inquiry, and I changed my mind. So, I appeal to you this evening, and to my Labour colleagues, to think again and change your minds. Thank you. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

I would like just to emphasise at the start, though we are co-submitting, I think we are coming at this from different perspectives, and, for me, I do support what Rhun ap Iorwerth said about an independent inquiry in Wales. I think Scotland does show the way in terms of what we need to be able to scrutinise, because the impact of COVID is still felt in all of our lives now. Yes, it is about justice for those that lost loved ones, but it's also about the challenges for the workforce, the fact that we now see the NHS on its knees, that we see the mental health impact on young people continued now, all because of COVID. What Scotland is doing is looking at every element and learning lessons—learning lessons so that, when we will be in this situation again, because we know that pandemics are going to be more frequent with the impact of climate change, we are in a position to be able to deal as best we can.

None of us envied the First Minister's role. Certainly, I was not in this Chamber when COVID struck, and I remember watching the news and thinking how difficult it must be for Welsh Government. This isn't about apportioning blame. Inquiries are also about learning about what we got right and ensuring that those lessons are also part of this, because some decisions were the correct ones and made a difference and meant that some people are still alive today, and they wouldn't have been if those decisions had not been taken. But how do we learn the lessons without an inquiry?

I would ask: if we are not willing to have an independent inquiry relating to COVID-19 and the biggest challenges any Government in this Senedd has faced since our establishment, then in what circumstances will we ever see an independent inquiry by this Welsh Government? Certainly, for me, it is the fact that South Wales Central saw the highest proportion of deaths, and we know that that continued impact of ill health is still very much felt.

It is from the words—. The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru are not coming from a party political viewpoint; these are their lived experiences. They have shared harrowing stories with each of us, and none of them—none of them—are trying to embarrass the Government. They just want to know: could anything have changed things for my relative? Could anything have been different? For Catherine, who shared with me on Twitter:

'My father died in a care home...saying goodbye to him thru a window with him stretching his arms to me to help him will haunt me forever', for the sake of my loved one who died as a result of catching COVID in hospital and all others who've similarly lost loved ones, the learning must be taken by a Wales-only COVID inquiry to try and ensure that learning is taken and similar situations don't arise again. We need scrutiny here in Wales for decisions taken in Wales. We need an independent inquiry. This is a compromise, but it's very much needed.

I call on the First Minister, Mark Drakeford.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. The pandemic touched the lives of everyone in Wales, but none more so than those many families who lost a loved one to this awful virus. It is absolutely necessary, for the reasons set out by Jane Dodds and others, that the questions that those families have are properly scrutinised and answered. But the way in which that is best done—indeed, the only way in which that can be fully be done—I continue to believe is through a UK COVID-19 inquiry.

That is the body that will be able to scrutinise those decisions made by the Welsh Government and other Welsh bodies, which drew on the relationships between decisions made in Wales and Whitehall, the scientific advice that was received, not just in Wales, but at a UK level, the often complex funding streams that shaped the decisions that were made, procurement decisions, guidance decisions, that plethora of issues that crossed the border between Wales and the United Kingdom every single day and which only a UK-wide inquiry will be able to scrutinise, and on which only a UK inquiry will be able to provide answers to the questions that people, including those families, very properly need and deserve to have answered.

And the reason why the UK inquiry is able to have that forensic look at the decisions that were made in Wales is because of the way we worked with the UK Government to make sure that the terms of reference of that inquiry will provide—[Interruption.] No, I’m not taking any interventions. The reason why the UK inquiry is able to do the work in the way that it will be able to do is because of the agreement we made with the UK Government so that, as the Prime Minister of the time, Boris Johnson, said, it would guarantee that the UK inquiry would have a significant Welsh dimension to everything that it did. And I think the way in which the UK inquiry is going about its work already demonstrates that commitment: the way in which it works through the medium of the Welsh as well as the English language; the first place Baroness Hallett visited was to come here to Wales, and she herself has met with members of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group here in Wales.

And the work of that inquiry has already started. We in the Welsh Government are already in receipt of a series of complex requests for information and for statements, all of which we will provide, and we are already in the process of selecting and sharing the relevant material from the nearly 10 million documents that we have identified as in the possession of the Welsh Government alone that relate to the two years of the pandemic. Our responses and statements will help the inquiry to make the enquiries that it is committed to making about the way in which the pandemic was dealt with here in Wales.

Llywydd, let me address today’s motion directly. It suggests that a Senedd committee should consider aspects of the COVID experience in Wales that might not receive sufficient attention by the Hallett inquiry, and let me be clear that, if that concern materialises, then the motion’s central proposal, a special purpose committee, is one that the Government can and will support. What I had hoped to do was to lay an amendment this afternoon that would have allowed the Senedd to focus on how and when it would be possible to identify any unanswered questions or areas of incomplete scrutiny so that the work of a special purpose committee could be focused on that, on those gaps. Now, I’ll think carefully about the points I’ve heard made in today’s debate, Llywydd, but the most straightforward approach would be to receive the Hallett report, then to see if and when and where any gaps have emerged, and then to allow a special purpose committee to discharge the remit suggested, which is to fill in any gaps should the UK inquiry not be able to answer them for Wales.

Now, unfortunately, we’ve not been able to make that way of proceeding debated this afternoon, and, for those reasons, the Government side will have to vote against the current motion. However, we will do so in order to bring forward our own motion for debate in Government time. That motion will accept the case for a special purpose committee on the basis that I have set out this afternoon, and will allow the Senedd to give our proposals its full consideration. 

I call now on Andrew R.T. Davies to respond. 

Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I'd like to thank everyone who's contributed to the debate this afternoon. A debate was tabled not because we lack faith in the UK inquiry—we do not—and that has been echoed by many speakers today, that the UK inquiry is an important vehicle for us to understand how decisions were taken, to test those decisions and to come to a conclusion on the outcomes of those decisions.

And on that point, I agree with the First Minister that the UK inquiry is an important vehicle that the Welsh Government and, indeed, others within Wales need to engage with. But, as the Scottish Government has highlighted, it is possible to run a Scottish-specific inquiry in parallel with the UK-wide inquiry to get to the nub of this here, which is things were done differently in Wales, as they were done in Scotland.

We do need, as speaker after speaker emphasised, a separate inquiry route, and, in this case, the motion seeks permission for the Welsh Parliament to form that special purpose vehicle. Surely, that's what we should be doing as parliamentarians: looking at the most momentous decisions, as other speakers have touched on, that have ever been taken by a Welsh Government and Welsh civic society. 

This isn't about deflecting from the UK Government and some of the decisions they've taken, as the Member for North Wales on the Labour benches highlighted; the UK Government do need to be held to account, and ultimately look at decisions that were good and bad, quite rightly so. But, as we've heard from the chair of the UK-wide inquiry, there are areas of the inquiry that they will not be able to look at as closely as they would like on Welsh decision making.

When you look at the structures in Wales here, local government is quite different from local government in England. We have unitary authorities across the whole of Wales. They were important partners in delivering some of the Welsh Government's decisions and support measures that were put in place in social care, for example, and in education. The health service is structured quite differently in Wales, because of decisions that the Welsh Government have taken, to how it is structured in England. 

Those are unique positions that are taken here in Wales that we need a Welsh decision to look at, and that decision needs to be taken here this evening, ultimately to give empowerment to a committee to be formed by the Welsh Parliament. If we as parliamentarians cannot form a committee to look at these issues and report in a timely manner before the 2026 election, then what is the point of having a Welsh Parliament? That surely is the fundamental question here. If this is voted down and the Government use their Government votes to vote that down—. 

And I implore the Labour backbench to consider that. As parliamentarians, you are being asked to vote down the ability to have a committee that would be in the control of Parliament, not a political party, in the control of Parliament—[Interruption.]—in the control of Parliament, not to defer—. [Interruption.] I've run out of time, sorry, Alun. I'll happily take the intervention, but—[Inaudible.]

If you take the intervention, I'll allow you more time. 

I'll take the intervention. 

There we are. You've heard the First Minister reply to the debate this afternoon, and I felt he made a very generous proposal in terms of working as a Parliament together on these matters. Would it not now be in the interests of this Parliament for opposition parties to discuss with the First Minister some of the proposals that he's made today, rather than to push this issue this afternoon? And Presiding Officer, I think Members on all sides of the Chamber would also want to know why the Government has been unable to table business. 

I will happily work with the Government to facilitate this. My issue with the offer that the First Minister made was that he doesn't want to see that committee start its work until the UK inquiry has completed all its streams of work. That is some considerable time in the future, and I believe that this Parliament that sits here today—which has memory, corporate memory, of those decisions and the ramifications of those decisions—needs to be able to undertake its parliamentary work. As Russell George emphasised, a lot of those decisions are fresh in people's memories. That information is readily available, and the passage of time might muddy the waters in getting to the conclusions that we want to see on the good and the bad.

And that is my issue with the proposal that the First Minister has put before Parliament today, that it's to make it wait until the UK inquiry has finished its work in its entirety. So, I go back to the Labour backbench in hoping that someone on the Labour backbench might consider the proposals on the order paper. I'm sceptical that will happen, but I can always try. God loves a trier, and, as a Conservative, you can't accuse me of not trying. But, ultimately, we are a Parliament. It is our job to scrutinise what the Government does on the most fundamental questions of the day. The ramifications of the decisions that were taken on COVID-19 surely is the fundamental question that will dominate thinking going forward for parliamentarians and civic society—trying to understand what happened with those decisions, the ramifications of them, and the measures we need to take in the future. That's why I implore Members across this Chamber to support this motion today, because I think it would be positive not just for the people of Wales but the stature of the Welsh Parliament.

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Yes, there is objection, therefore I will defer voting under this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.