‘Politics is to blame for the lack of virus testing in Wales’

THE Welsh Government may have let “politics” get in the way of extending coronavirus testing at the same pace as England, the Welsh Secretary has said.

Simon Hart made his comments while being questioned about Wales’ response to Covid-19 by the UK Parliament’s Welsh Affairs Committee.

Welsh ministers have been criticised by opposition parties during the coronavirus pandemic for failing to increase or make full use of the country’s testing capacity.

The Welsh Government was also attacked for refusing to follow England and extend testing to all staff and residents in care homes regardless of whether there had been an outbreak, only to make a U-turn on the decision on May 16.

Virginia Crosbie, Conservative MP for Ynys Mon, asked Mr Hart what effect the Welsh Government’s “lack of testing” had had on the progression of the virus and the death rate in Wales.

Mr Hart said: “I have absolutely no doubt that when sober, calm reflection on this pandemic is explored and reported on in years to come, that there will be decisions which were made which we look back and think we would have done differently had we known then what we know now.

“I think that the critical bit of my answer is that it just looks like, and the Welsh Government will dispute this no doubt, from time to time that politics was getting in the way of the sort of decisionmaking pace that we needed to take in order to reach the same place at the same time.

“That accusation is not necessarily pointed at Vaughan Gething, I had a meeting with him and Matt Hancock early on in this process. But I’m trying to be generous here, I don’t think people should underestimate the scale of this challenge and it’s tested everybody.”

Mr Hart said that Wales was currently testing 2,478.2 people per 100,000 of its population, while England was testing 6,576.4 people per 100,000 of its population, which he said was a “significant difference”.

Wales currently has a laboratory capacity for more than 9,000 tests a day, with the capacity expected to increase to 10,000 tests a day to coincide with its test-and-trace scheme, though figures show that only 1,555 tests took place on Wednesday.