Diverge from covid-19 crisis
healthcare resources and empty commercial properties should be requisitioned for NHS use; that the Welsh Government should clarify whether it can impose a rent freeze for those deprived of income; that pressure should be put on the UK Government to ensure access to social security payments is immediate and at a level people can live on; that extra support should be given to foodbanks; and that restrictions on non-essential travel should be rigorously enforced.
The letter states: “We fear that if Wales does not develop a response that goes above and beyond the UK Government’s strategy, we not only risk raising questions about the value of devolution and a Welsh Labour government, but risk the well-being and lives of potentially tens of thousands of people.”
Welsh Labour Grassroots has also published Mr Drakeford’s response, in which he said: “From the outset, we have taken different decisions when we believed they are in Wales’ interests. We were the first part of the UK to suspend routine work in the NHS, to give the NHS time to prepare for coronavirus, including staff to be retrained in the skills they need to treat patients. We have our own regulations in place in Wales.
“Uniquely, we have in law the requirement that exercise should be taken only once a day.
“We have kept the levels of fines here in Wales to under £200, when in England they can be more than £900.
“We have different rules on how funerals can be organised and who can attend. We moved ahead of anywhere in the UK in closing caravan and camping sites.
“We are the only part of the UK to have the 2m distancing rules in law, to protect people in the workplace and prevent the spread of coronavirus.
“We have arrangements in place with the food bank movement in Wales to help ensure they have the supplies they need.
“Of course there are issues on which we have worked closely with others. All four UK governments are agreed that our ability to secure PPE in the face of global shortages depends on us combining our purchasing power and sharing our procurement capacity. We are supplementing the draw down we are able to make from those UK supplies through additional contributions from Welsh industry.
“PPE has to be provided to strict and specific standards. It is not the case that every offer of help, even when very genuinely made, can be turned to use. Nevertheless, we are very grateful for the enormous offers of help we have received and are working as hard as we can to turn those offers into actual supplies of equipment.
“On testing, there are many different views in the clinical, scientific and academic communities. What I cannot do, as a politician, is to choose between those views. I have to rely on the advice of the independent experts, whose job is it to advise the Welsh Government.
“The testing regime we are following is the one supported by the Chief Medical Officer for Wales.
“If his advice changes, our actions will change accordingly. Our actions are based on the advice we receive.”