National Assembly for Wales

Good afternoon. We are now going to move into a public session—the very first public session—of the Wales COVID-19 Inquiry Special Purpose Committee. Following a meeting that we've just had, we have considered moving forward into agreeing a public meeting that will be held on 2 December.

Anyway, before I do that, I should have said to you that this meeting is bilingual. Headsets provide simultaneous translation on channel 1 and sound amplification on channel 2. Participants joining online can access translation by clicking on the globe icon on Zoom. We've had no apologies from any Members, so all members of this committee are present.

We have had a letter from the Petitions Committee to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care in relation to petition P-06-1450, 'Welsh Government to take action to protect people from airborne infections in health care settings', and I ask committee members if they're in agreement on agreeing that. Yes.

We have decided that we are going to hold a call to evidence for this committee by all those people who wish to take part in it. We will be opening a formal consultation, which will be open from 8 November—is that right?—until 6 January. Is that right? Yes. And we are very keen to hear from people who want to give us information that would be relevant and useful to us in looking at this first module, which will capture the priorities and the actions needed to improve the resilience and preparedness of Wales as part of the UK. It's a gap analysis, so we're clearly going to be very much focused on that. The consultation will be e-mailed to a comprehensive list of relevant organisations and it will be published on the committee's web page, and we will be promoting that via social media and ensuring that everyone who wishes to respond can do so. All contributions are welcome.

We have agreed, of course, that there will be set questions within that call for evidence, but people are not restricted to just answering those questions. If they feel that there's additional information that would be useful to us, absolutely we are very much open to that. So, please do look for that consultation. We are extremely keen to see that we can gather far and wide all the information that will usefully help us. The committee has commissioned Nottingham Trent University to complete a gap analysis of the UK COVID-19 public inquiry module 1 report with the Welsh interim operational review, and we expect to receive that analysis by the end of December and use it as part of an evidence base to support our work and identify any gaps. The committee has also agreed to appoint Dr Simon Williams as a long-term adviser to the committee, noting his breadth of knowledge across the subject area and expertise in these matters from a Welsh perspective. And we will meet with the COVID observation group, and we have considered a letter from the COVID observation group in relation to potential gaps that they've identified in the preparedness and response of the Welsh Government during the COVID-19 pandemic. We've written back to them and hope to arrange to meet to discuss the committee's work further.

We are also going to hold a stakeholder engagement event before the end of this year; we did hold an initial event at the start of this year, aimed at providing information rather than gathering evidence. That stakeholder event will be held here in Cardiff. It will be held on Monday, 2 December. Details of that event will be made available in due course, but do feel free to contact the clerk to register your interest. Contact details are available on our website. 

The Welsh Government has six months to respond to the module 1 report, and we hope that will be available in December or January. On completion of the gap analysis by Nottingham Trent University, the consultation, the stakeholder event and consideration of the Government response to the module 1 report, this committee will then consider and agree any gaps identified in the preparedness and response of the Welsh Government and other Welsh public bodies during the COVID-19 pandemic that should be subject to further examination. Those gaps will be proposed in a motion to be agreed by the Senedd. Subject to the approval of these gaps by the Senedd, we will then begin holding oral evidence sessions, which will be held in public, with relevant witnesses and the Welsh Government. Earlier, we discussed some potential witnesses, and they're detailed in paper 1. But, as I've already said, it's not an exhaustive list and nor is it a limited list, and nor are the questions within them limited either.

We hope our work will continue now at pace now that we have the module 1 report. However, our evidence gathering needs to be robust, and therefore we need to ensure that sufficient time is available so that everyone who wishes to can contribute in one way or another. Therefore, we do not envisage starting our oral evidence sessions until the new year. Shortly after this meeting, we will publish a draft timetable of our work programme on our webpage, and the dates will be indicative and subject to change if developments happen outside of our control. Do any other Members wish to say anything? No.

So, the committee's next meeting date will be confirmed on the webpage. In the meantime, Members and the public can contact the clerking team if they have any questions or require any further information, and details are available on our webpage. Thank you. I now close the meeting—the public meeting. With Members' agreement, we'll move back into private. Thank you.