Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:47 pm on 13 June 2023.
Andrew RT Davies
Conservative
1:47,
13 June 2023
Thank you, Presiding Officer. First Minister, today is the first day of the UK COVID inquiry. I had very much hoped that I would be able to say that today is the first day for the Welsh independent COVID inquiry, but clearly, that's not going to happen on your watch as First Minister.
One of the points that has come out that the inquiry will spend some time looking at in the early part of the COVID inquiry is the decision by Governments across the UK to discharge patients from hospitals to care homes without testing. There was a full pandemic preparedness exercise undertaken in 2016, as I understand it. That preparedness exercise highlighted that this was a major risk and major concern. Do you agree that that was a risk too far, and that discharging patients from hospitals to care homes without testing should not have happened?
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
