Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

What recent discussions he has had with the First Minister of Wales on the covid-19 outbreak.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

What recent discussions he has had with the Welsh Government on the covid-19 outbreak.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Simon Hart)]

The Under-Secretary of State for Wales and I have regular discussions with the First Minister of Wales and his ministerial team on the response to covid-19, totalling 124 meetings and calls since the pandemic began.

[Simon Hart]

We have discussed this at Wales questions before. It is disappointing that the Welsh Government did not discuss this in greater detail with the Treasury earlier on, because we could have found a way around it. Those discussions are ongoing, and there is a reasonably positive dialogue, but as I say, the answer to this would have been found in earlier engagement, rather than by making an announcement that they knew required primary legislation for which there was not time.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

On Friday, the First Minister of Wales said that it had been “impossible” to get a “sensible answer” from the UK Government on the plans to allow travel to foreign countries. At the beginning of this crisis, we regularly heard from the First Minister that he had just come off a call with the UK Government, and we know that ministerial implementation groups were being used to co-ordinate a four-nations approach. Despite the numbers that the Secretary of State quoted, there seems to be a communications breakdown. Does he believe that the Government could have done more to work more closely with Wales and other devolved nations during this crisis?

[Simon Hart]

I was talking to the First Minister about this only a few days ago, and he described the particular occasion that the hon. Lady refers to as the exception rather than the rule. As I mentioned, there have been 124 meetings between the two Governments. Actually, dialogue is pretty good, and in eight out of 10 cases, we reach agreement—albeit not necessarily in the greatest of humour, but we do reach agreement. The relationship is better than we sometimes read in the press.