Welsh Government to “explain why we took the decisions that we did” as part of UK wide pandemic inquiry

The First Minister has said his government will ‘explain why we took the decisions that we did’ during the pandemic and ‘leave it for the inquiry to decide whether those decisions were defensible’, but again rejected calls for a Wales specific inquiry.

Last week saw renewed calls for a Wales specific pandemic inquiry after the High Court found the policy of discharging untested asymptomatic patients from hospital to care homes in England was unlawful – a practice that also took place in Wales.

The issue was raised again yesterday during Questions to the First Minister, with the Conservative Leader Andrew Davies MS asking, “First Minister, what view has the Welsh Government formed in light of the recent court judgment about discharging patients from hospitals into care homes?”

First Minister Mark Drakeford replied, “The High Court case was a case that did not concern the Welsh Government; it was a case brought against authorities in England. We will nevertheless study the judgment carefully and respond to it in the evidence that we will submit to the independent public inquiry into the experience of coronavirus across the United Kingdom.”

Mr Davies detailed the background to the issue, asking “It took a whole two weeks from the policy change in other parts of the United Kingdom for the Welsh Government to catch up. Why did the delay in testing happen here in Wales, which the court has now found illegal?”

The First Minister said, “To be clear, the court has found nothing illegal as far as Wales is concerned, because Wales was not a participant in that High Court case. It took no evidence from Wales, it looked at no documents according to Wales, so, let’s be clear for the record: when the Member says that the policy was illegal, what the court discovered was that it was illegal in England, where his party was in charge. It made no observations at all about what happened here in Wales.”

“I’m simply not going to pretend that in an answer on the floor of the Senedd we can explore an issue that took 75 pages of a High Court judgment to explore. And as I think the Member has just conceded, in order to make sense of what happened here in Wales you need to make sense of that wider UK context. We will respond, of course, to those issues, those very important issues that were at the heart of the High Court case, but we will do so in our evidence to the inquiry, which I am very confident will explore this issue along with a wide range of other issues that are there in its terms of reference when it begins its work later this year.”

The debate moved to the topic of an injury with Mr Davies stating his unhappiness at answers given, “I listened very carefully to your response to my second question. I asked you why the Welsh Government policy position took a further two weeks to change to the testing of patients being transferred to care homes. I also pointed out that at the time you said—you said—that there was no value in this testing taking place and that your health Minister—again, his words—said that if there was a trebling in the amount of testing capacity, he still couldn’t see the reason to test patients being transferred from hospitals into care homes.”

“That’s what I asked you, First Minister. You didn’t offer any defence whatsoever to my question to you. That is why we need an independent inquiry here in Wales that looks at the Welsh policy position.”

Mr Davies went on, “We know for a fact, as I’ve outlined here, that there’s a distinct difference in the policy that you’ve pursued here in Wales on this issue and many other issues. It is a fact that, regrettably, we have the highest death rate of any part of the United Kingdom; it is a fact that many people who were shielding were sent incorrect letters; and it is a fact that your policy position put more patients at risk because you didn’t introduce testing that has been found to have been a necessity at the time. Is it the case, First Minister, that you are blocking this inquiry happening here in Wales because you have a fear of scrutiny, or just arrogance that your position is right and it shouldn’t be scrutinised by an independent inquiry here in Wales? Because I fail to see why you are still steadfastly objecting to an independent inquiry here in Wales that would look at these policy positions that your Government took, and ultimately exposed patients here in Wales to greater risks.”

The First Minister rejected the call again, detailing how Welsh Government are taking part in the UK wide inquiry: “The Member could not be more mistaken. He answered his own question in his very first set of remarks: an independent inquiry focused only on Wales would never be able to make sense of exactly the sorts of decisions to which he has pointed.

“Had he been actually following what the High Court said, he would have seen that the High Court referred to the advice that was available to the UK Government, which was the same advice available to the Government here in Wales. You cannot understand the decisions that were made in Wales by divorcing those decisions from the UK context, the UK advice, the UK level of understanding at the time, and the way in which that was available here in Wales.”

“That’s why I have always argued that the best way in which people can get answers to the questions that they absolutely rightly want to see explored, and the Welsh Government will take part in the independent inquiry led by Judge Hallett in the most open way that we can. We will provide all the documents that we have; we will provide all the evidence that was available to us, and we will do so in a way that is not designed to defend the position that the Welsh Government took on any issue.

“I’ve already instructed those people who are helping to prepare the Welsh Government’s evidence that the approach I want us to take is one in which we will explain why we took the decisions that we did and then leave it for the inquiry to decide whether those decisions were defensible. I am not going to go into an inquiry seeking to justify or defend—those were terms that the Member used; they’re not the terms that I will use.

“We will go there to explain and we will provide all the evidence we can as to why we came to the decisions that we did, and it’s then for the inquiry, not for the Welsh Government, and if I can say so, not for the leader of the opposition either, to decide whether or not those decisions were defensible in the context of the time in which they were made.”