Wales heads for ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown

2.8k

View
comments

Wales announced a ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown today – with bars, restaurants and non-essential shops facing being closed down for two weeks.

First Minister Mark Drakeford said the draconian move will take effect from 6pm on Friday to combat a coronavirus surge.

Describing the measures as a ‘firebreaker’, he warned that failure to act now would mean ‘more people will die’. 

He said everyone in Wales will be ordered to ‘stay at home’ unless they are critical workers or have no choice about going out to work. Households are being banned from mixing indoors or outdoors, and although there is no limit on exercise it must ‘begin and end at home’.

Primary schools will reopen after half-term next week, Labour’s Mr Drakeford told a press conference, but secondaries will only re-open years seven and eight, and for pupils doing exams.

The ‘sharp and deep’ lockdown – which echoes the national demands made by Sir Keir Starmer – will end on November 9, wiping out Halloween and Bonfire Night, although Remembrance Sunday events will go ahead on November 8. 

The step was criticised by Welsh Tories, who said it was dooming Wales to an endless cycle of two-week lockdowns while Conservative MPs in Westminster said the ‘firebreaker’ was a ‘blunt instrument’ and ‘closing down the whole of Wales is disproportionate to the level of risk in some parts of the country’.

They also lashed out at Mr Drakeford, accusing him of ‘small man syndrome’, with one MP telling MailOnline: ‘You have got somebody who is the head of what is essentially smaller than the West Midlands but where they have got a mayor, Wales has a first minister. 

‘He is trying to show he is an equal to Boris Johnson. He wants to be regarded as his equal but he is not.’

However, the move will heap pressure on Mr Johnson who has been desperately resisting the option in England despite backing from his own SAGE experts. 

Northern Ireland and Scotland have already introduce their own national crackdowns amid spiking cases, but the PM has been sticking to his plan for local ‘Tiers’.

In other whirlwind coronavirus developments today:

• At least 26,000 more people than usual have died at home during the coronavirus pandemic in England and Wales because they couldn’t or didn’t want to go to hospital during lockdown, official statistics have found; 
• A further 16,982 people have tested positive for coronavirus in the UK yesterday – a leap of almost a third compared to last week
• Health chiefs reported 67 further deaths from Covid-19 – bringing the total number of fatalities to 43,646
• England’s deputy chief medical officer has called for the nation’s 10pm pub curfew to be brought forward to 6pm 
• A top government advisor said there is ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ as he predicts a Covid-19 vaccine will be ready by the end of March 2021

Mr Drakeford said it will not be clear whether the ‘circuit breaker’ has worked by November 9, but he insisted it will finish at that point. 

‘There will be no gatherings with people you do not live with either indoors or outdoors during this two-week period,’ Mr Drakeford said.

‘There will continue to be an exception for adults living alone and single parents will continue to be able to join with one household for support.’

Mr Drakeford said an extra economic resilience fund of almost £300 million had been created to support businesses.

Every business covered by the small business rate relief will receive a £1,000 payment.

Mr Drakeford admitted that the benefits of the policy could only be seen ‘in the weeks that follow’.

All non-food retail and hospitality businesses, including cafes, restaurants and pubs – unless they provide take-away or delivery services – must close.

Close contact services such as hairdressers and beauticians, and events and tourism businesses such as hotels, must also shut.

However, Local parks, playgrounds and outdoor gyms will remain open.

A ‘technical’ paper published by the Welsh government’s own experts says its aim is to ‘protect our most deprived population from the direct effects of Covid-19 in a potential second wave, and from the indirect effects of Covid-19 on the economy which will increase health inequalities in the longer term’. 

‘We will know we have succeeded in this if the gradient in Covid-19 mortality is less steep in future than in the first peak and if we see a reduction in the gradient in all-cause mortality in 2022, given that it is unlikely that inequalities will reduce in the next two years,’ the report said. 

Small and medium-sized retail, leisure and hospitality businesses that have to close will receive a one-off payment of up to £5,000.

But Paul Davies, Conservative leader of the opposition in the Senedd, said: ‘Sadly, the First Minster has failed to get public support for this second Wales-wide lockdown, failing to be open and transparent about the evidence to justify this lockdown and what his actions will entail for the future.

‘The Welsh Government also has to be honest that this road they are taking us down is committing Wales to rolling Wales-wide lockdowns.

‘This is not a two-week break to solve the pandemic, it is likely that we will see regular lockdowns across the rest of the year.’

Wales risked the wrath of Westminster on Friday by pushing ahead with an ‘unenforceable’ ban on travellers from English coronavirus hotspots.

Mr Drakeford said the border restrictions were needed as Mr Johnson had ignored his plea to impose UK-wide legal limits on travelling from Tier Two and Three areas. 

However, they have been derided as impractical and anti-English by critics. 

The Welsh Government is also demanding more support from Westminster to protect jobs and businesses.

The news was announced as ministers sent an ultimatum to Andy Burnham and mutinous Greater Manchester MPs that they must do a deal on Tier Three lockdown today – or face being forced into tougher coronavirus curbs.

Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick warned that talks had gone on ‘too long’ and the government could force the issue as early as tomorrow unless the region accepts a package of funding to ease the impact, thought to be worth up to £100million. 

The threat came after doctors voiced alarm that Manchester is at risk of running out of hospital beds for COVID, with the bitter standoff now having delayed a clampdown by days. 

Haggling is also continuing with Nottingham and Yorkshire over the possibility of shifting to Tier Three, which could put a total of seven million people under heightened restrictions. 

But along with the war of words with Mr Burnham and Labour, the wrangling is also at risk of tearing the Conservative Party apart – as local MPs including 1922 committee chair Sir Graham Brady dismiss the need for the highest levels of restrictions. 

There was a brutal response from ‘Red Wall’ MPs on Tory WhatsApp groups after colleagues from Tier One sent a letter to Mr Burnham urging him to ‘engage’ with the Government’s regional approach in order to spare other areas ‘pain’. 

The intervention – which many believe was orchestrated by Downing Street – sparked furious private rows about an ‘all-round shafting’, with one MP reportedly jibing at another: ‘You just want a promotion and you’re happy to throw colleagues under a bus to achieve it.’ 

In a round of interviews this morning, Mr Jenrick said: ‘I do think it is very clear that having now discussed this for well over a week this does now need to be brought to a conclusion.

‘I think everybody in Greater Manchester would agree with that.

‘So, I am hopeful that either today, or tomorrow, we will reach a conclusion, one way or the other.’

But Mr Burnham was still signalling defiance today, telling journalists: ‘It’s not about the size of the cheque, it’s about protecting low-paid workers, people who are self-employed and supporting businesses.’ 

Liverpool City Region received £30million in support for local businesses when it went into Tier Three, along with £14million for extra contact tracing capacity, and £7million when it entered Tier Two.

Adjusting the total package for the larger population in Manchester would give a figure of around £95million.

Although Mr Burnham has been pushing for furlough to be paid at 80 per cent rather than the two-thirds offered by the government, that is met centrally and separate from the bailouts. 

Health minister Vaughan Gething complained yesterday that the furlough scheme ends on October 31 and will be replaced by the UK Government with a ‘less generous’ Job Support Scheme.

He told the BBC’s Politics Wales show yesterday that the Welsh Government was ‘arguing’ with ministers in London that a ‘more certain and more generous package’ is needed.

From November 1 the UK Government will pay 67 per cent of wages – up to a maximum of £2,100 a month – for each employee in businesses forced to close. 

Staff must be off work for a minimum of seven days to be eligible, and their employer does not have to pay towards their salary.

Under the current furlough scheme workers get up to 80 per cent of their pay – 20 per cent from their employer and 60 per cent from the Government.

Mr Gething said the decision on a ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown was is yet to be taken but the Welsh Government is having a ‘range of conversations with stakeholders’ to understand what the lockdown might look like.

‘Part of the challenge is that support for jobs and businesses is going to change on November 1 and it will be a less generous scheme and it will only be available if businesses are legally required to close,’ he said.

‘It is a matter of fact that the new support scheme available from November 1 is less generous than the furlough scheme.

‘That’s the reality we are having to deal with, while trying to argue with the UK Government that a more certain and more generous package is needed if we are going to have the desired effect of any national intervention of any kind to reduce transmission rates while protecting people’s livelihoods as far as possible.’

Mr Drakeford said last week that local lockdowns in force across 17 areas of Wales – affecting more than 2.3 million people – have not succeeded in slowing the spread of the virus enough. 

Meanwhile, there have been a further 950 cases of Covid-19 diagnosed in Wales, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 35,628.

Public Health Wales said three further deaths had been reported, with the total number of deaths since the beginning of the pandemic rising to 1,711.