‘Don’t rely on enforcement to make this work for Wales’

THE First Minister had a very pointed message when asked how police will enforce the new firebreak lockdown.

Mark Drakeford told yesterday’s press briefing there would be more police on streets as well as regular border checks with England, where a national lockdown is yet to be announced.

But he had a key message to the Welsh public, adding: “Can I say to all the people who are listening and to the people that you will know, that if we have to rely on the police and enforcement agencies to make a success of this period we will not succeed.

“We succeed by people asking themselves not ‘what can I do?’, trying to find ways of getting around the rules, but ‘what contribution can I make?’

“[They should ask] ‘What part can I play in making this period work for Wales?’”

He added: “If we think that the answer is we have got to rely on environmental health officers and police officers to make this work, we really will not be doing what we need to do.

“So, of course our police service will be there where they need to, our environmental health officers will be able to concentrate on these simpler and stricter set of rules.

“But the real way they work is not by expecting other people to take responsibility but by each one of us taking responsibility and each one of us asking: ‘What can I do to make this a success?’... ‘How can I cut down to the barest minimum of contacts that I have with other people to make a fire-break in the way this virus is currently accelerating away from us here in Wales?’”