Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies]

I am sure that my hon. Friend’s constituents, like farmers across the whole United Kingdom, are pleased that the British Government will not implement the 10% cut to agricultural payments, which is being brought about by the European Union. He will be pleased that we have used the most generous exchange rate possible to calculate what those payments will be. If he lived in Wales, he would be pleased to know that the UK Government are providing £1.3 billion of additional funding to the Welsh Government, and we look forward to seeing how much of that will be used on agriculture.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

What discussions he has had with Welsh Government Ministers on the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on pub closures in Wales.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (David T. C. Davies)]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State wrote to the First Minister before he announced the closure of pubs in Wales and asked him to consider a tiered structure for covid restrictions, which would have better targeted areas with a high incidence of the virus. Regrettably, at that time the First Minister chose not to do so. I believe he may now be about to follow my right hon. Friend’s advice.

[Tim Loughton]

Before the Welsh Labour Government had the bright idea of bringing in a circuit breaker, the infection rate in Wales was 33 per 100,000 head of population. Since then, Wales has had one of the toughest lockdowns. Pubs have to close at six o’clock and they cannot serve alcohol. Infection rates in Wales are now 423 per 100,000. Have Welsh Government Ministers confided in my hon. Friend the reasons for this raging success, and is it perhaps that people in Wales have been so driven to drink with despair that they have to do it at home without social distancing, rather than in pubs?

[David T. C. Davies]

It is a sad fact that at the moment Wales has the highest number of cases per 100,000 in the UK, the highest number of deaths per 100,000, and the lowest amount of testing, but I do not think my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I wish to make any political point out of that. All of the United Kingdom has suffered. What I think we would welcome is a recognition that the Welsh Labour Government do not have some sort of magical answer to this situation which has eluded everybody else. We would welcome Welsh Ministers sitting down and working with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the UK Government, so we can tackle this pandemic together as one nation.