Shambles in the Senedd is a shame for Welsh democracy
There are many talking points from the vote, but none are the evidence itself. Political editor Ruth Mosalski reports
ANEW law will come into force on Monday for all 3.1 million people that live here in Wales. To some, it won’t ever be an issue, but if you want to go to a nightclub, a large sports game, a gig, or say a book festival, it will.
From Monday, to go to a nightclub, an indoor event with more than 500 people, outdoor event with more than 4,000 people or any event with more than 10,000 you will need to show – or be prepared to show – a Covid pass, a digital certificate that says you’ve either been double vaccinated or you tested negative for Covid in the past 48 hours.
There are two sides to the argument about whether it will work, and nowhere was that more obvious than in the supposed home of Welsh democracy on Tuesday afternoon.
A 45-minute debate and vote were held in the Senedd about whether the passes should be brought in.
Had it not been for a Conservative Party MS missing the vote, the Labour party plan would have failed. Politically, the opposition parties would have enjoyed watching the humiliation of the Welsh Labour cabinet.
But it was not just schadenfreude; they wouldn’t have risked opposing a plan like this on such an important issue unless they were prepared to publicly justify their opposition on policy grounds.
Amid all the consternation about where Gareth Davies was, why he didn’t take the chance to phone in his vote and whether he should have been granted more time, what is being lost now is the examination of those concerns and whether they were justified.
Instead of talking about whether Covid passes are a good idea and will achieve what they set out to, those concerns are being drowned out by anger at process and politics.
Our Welsh affairs editor Will Hayward has previously articulated some of the big problems with the policy, not least that it provides no incentive to encourage anyone to get vaccinated while it not being clear that it will have any major effect on the circulation of the virus. And in the Senedd on Tuesday, members added their concerns.
Plaid Cymru’s Rhun ap Iorwerth said his party has, in the period since March 2020, backed measures which have imposed severe limitations on people’s civil liberties but, on this occasion, “these regulations, at this point, raise more questions than they provide answers”.
He said one scientist had told them in a briefing they were unable to complete a paper on the likely impact of the proposals in front of them because they had insufficient evidence, and would not be able to pull that paper together until later this month.
Plaid Cymru, which, let’s not forget is currently in talks with Labour about working together, says Tuesday’s vote from them wasn’t a power play. They said have large, genuine and unanswered questions about these passes.
They wouldn’t tell the journalists asking them all day yesterday how they planned to vote because, they say, they were still trying to get the answers they needed until debate time.
Speaking on behalf of the Conservative group, Russell George said the passes are a “bad idea”. He claimed that they would have a detrimental effect on people’s motivation and willingness to have the vaccination.
“It’s important to note that the study also said that vaccination passports will have an effect on people’s relationship with local government and health authorities as well. We don’t want people to lose that trust in Government officials or our health boards and our health and care workers.
“We don’t want that to happen, and we don’t want to have a checkpoint society,” he said.
Labour has arguments in favour but they have not yet won the argument.
First Minister Mark Drakeford himself has admitted that not everyone who attends any of these events will have to show their pass because the public health risk of thousands of people lining up outside a stadium to show a steward their phone is a bigger health risk than the event itself.
Of those who do show them, those who are using it to show a lateral flow test result are being trusted. Being trusted to have taken said test in the first place, and being trusted to report the result accurately.
The only thing in these regulations that stops someone who has spent an awful lot of money on a gig ticket, restaurant booking and hotel, from faking a test result is the threat of a £60 fine. But how could that ever be proven?
There are numerous voices saying that is an offence that the NHS Covid pass policy is impossible for overstretched Welsh forces to monitor. Dyfed-Powys Police commissioner Dafydd Llywelyn is one of those who has said there are concerns about the “practicality” of policing passes.
Nightlife venues are also frustrated and angry that they will have to go to great lengths to accommodate a policy that no-one has yet fully proven what benefit it is expected to have.
With all these concerns not fully answered, the Welsh Government will be very relieved that the inability of a Welsh Conservative MS to vote has got through a policy that they might have struggled to resurrect if it had failed to pass the Senedd.
It is a shame for Welsh democracy that we’re talking about why an MS couldn’t vote rather than what policies Wales should be adopting.