‘Wales ‘prepared to lift lockdown ahead of the rest of the UK’, first minister says

The first minister of Wales said he will move the country out of lockdown ahead of the rest of the UK if communication from Downing Street does not improve.

The first minister of Wales said he will move the country out of lockdown ahead of the rest of the UK if communication from Downing Street does not improve.

Mark Drakeford said he would prefer to work with Boris Johnson’s government but is ready to enact his own plan for easing restrictions if necessary.

It comes after his Scottish counterpart, Nicola Sturgeon, expressed her frustrations over the lack of transparency coming from Westminster about how lockdown could be lifted.  In an interview with the Guardian, Drakeford said the emergency coronavirus bill passed by MPs in March allows the devolved nations to go their own way and it may now be time to consider putting that into action.

‘We have the power to do it, definitely. I’d rather we did it together. If we can’t get to that point and we think there are things that are right to do for Wales then we will go ahead and do that but my ambition is that we do things still together across the United Kingdom’ he said.

‘The Coronavirus Act does respect devolution. It puts the solution in our own hands and we have already done things differently in a range of different matters where that’s been right for us.’

The four home nations have broadly taken the same approach in response to the coronavirus crisis up until now.

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Scotland and Wales have both released roadmaps for easing lockdown and hinted at entering this stage ahead of England, while Northern Ireland’s first minister Arlene Foster has also confirmed she is prepared to lift restrictions sooner.

Drakeford said his plan for Wales is to gradually loosen lockdown if there is a clear decline in coronavirus cases in the next two weeks. This would operate on a ‘traffic light system’ with the ‘red phase’ looking only slightly different to current restrictions and its consequences closely monitored and mapped out.

The first minister denied undermining the UK government’s approach, which is to ease restrictions only when five tests are passed, including a consistent and daily drop in deaths.

He said Westminster MPs needed to up their contact with the leaders of the devolved nations, claiming his last conversation with Michael Gove, the de facto deputy prime minister, was 10 days ago. He called on cabinet ministers to speak with them early this week and then invite them to a Cobra meeting before the weekend.

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