 Rhaid i chi i gyd yn gweithio. As we all get ready to start the two-week firebreak on Friday, I want to go over the main reasons why it's so important that we do this together and what we want to achieve. I want to be clear at the outset that none of us want another shutdown. None of us want to see businesses and shops across Wales closing their doors again. None of us want a fortnight of staying at home and not being able to meet family or friends in our homes or outdoors. None of us want to see this disruption to our lives again. Unfortunately, we face such a serious situation that this short, sharp shock to the virus is the best option we have of bringing the virus under control. If we don't act now, the virus will continue to spread rapidly beyond the measures we have in place to constrain it. There is a very real risk that without action the health service will be overwhelmed and more people will die. If we wait, we would have to take more extreme measures to bring the virus under control. That could mean a longer or an open-ended lockdown of the one we went through in March. This slide shows how the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus based on positive test results has increased rapidly over the last six weeks. Yesterday, Public Health Wales reported 1,148 new confirmed cases. That is the highest number recorded since the start of the pandemic. However, this only tells part of the story. The real number of infections in the community will be much higher. Our scientific experts have calculated that the number of infections is growing at 4% each day, with a total number at 2,500 per day. This slide also shows that we are seeing a definite increase in the number of people dying as a result of coronavirus. This week, 25 people have died from coronavirus. Behind all of these numbers are people with families and friends who are grieving the loss of a loved one, and there will be more. My thoughts are with all of them. The number of people admitted to hospital in Wales for treatment for coronavirus symptoms continues to rise each day. The latest figures that I have from NHS Wales show that there are 894 COVID-related cases in our hospitals, up 26% from the same time last week. This is the highest that it has been since June this year. There are 43 people in critical care with coronavirus, 72% higher than last week, and I'm out into one in four of our critical care beds across our system. One of the reasons why we are seeing more people being admitted to hospital is because as the virus has become more widespread in Wales, it has spread from younger age groups to older age groups. Now this slide shows you the rate of coronavirus cases in people over 60 in Wales. You can see very clearly the first peak of the start of the pandemic in March, April and early May, where the rates were very high. This tell away over the summer as coronavirus levels fell in Wales. But once again, we are seeing worryingly high levels of infection in our older population. This is not unique to Wales. This is a pattern seen around the world. Infections rise quickly, first in young people before spreading into older age groups. At every step during this long and difficult year, we've been guided in our response to the pandemic by scientific and medical advisers. The very clear advice we have had is that there is compelling evidence for reducing transmission of the virus as far as possible by preventing household, workplace and social contacts that drive continued infection. The two-week firebreak has been designed to do just that. Over the last couple of days there have naturally been questions from people asking why certain businesses have to close and why we can't keep some additional places open. We've chosen to make the firebreak as short as possible, but to be as effective as possible it needs to be sharp and deep, including all parts of society, to have a maximum impact on the transmission of the virus. Most importantly, it needs to target the main sources of transmission, places where people meet other people. That is why we are requiring people to stay at home and to work from home wherever possible over the next two weeks. It's why all non-essential retail, leisure and hospitality businesses will close, and why we are requiring people not to meet or gather with people they do not live with either indoors or outdoors. The firebreak is taking place over school half term to reduce disruption to children and young people's education as much as possible while still being as effective as possible. If we all do this together over the next two weeks we can drive down the R number which is currently between 1.1 and 1.4 to below 1. This will slow the spread of the virus, reducing the infection rate which ultimately means fewer people needing hospital treatment and fewer people dying. We need everyone's help to bring the virus under some sort of control again. We need a national effort in all parts of Wales to do this. I want to be absolutely clear that the firebreak will start this Friday at 6pm and it will end on Monday, November 9. We will not see the results of the firebreak immediately. It could be a couple of weeks before we see the full impact on the virus because the time it takes for infections to develop. If we do not do this we will continue to see rising cases of coronavirus in Wales in our hospitals and in our critical care units to the point where our NHS would not be able to cope. People across Wales have given so much already. I am grateful to the overwhelming majority of people who have played their part. We now need to come together once more across the country to keep Wales safe. Thank you. I will now take questions from journalists. We have broadcast all the answers live on our social media channels. I think the first question today comes from Owen Clark from BBC Wales. Eltham fawr y prynhawn da heath minister. Could I ask you first of all about people catching Covid in hospital? We hear of an outbreak in Bronglais Hospital in Aberystwyth. We know of outbreaks in Morrison Hospital, Gwent and beyond and dozens of deaths now tragically linked to outbreaks in the NHS in Cwmtaff Morganog. Is this situation in your view regarding hospital infections now out of control? No, I do not think it is out of control, Owen, but it is a real risk. Because we are seeing a significant increase in community transmission across the country. Of course our staff live within those communities so the point about contact is that it affects all of us in all particular areas of work because we are seeing that seeding right across the country. Now what we are doing is we are learning from some of the larger outbreaks that have taken place and you will see in other parts of the UK there are outbreaks too as well. Even at low levels there is still an opportunity to contain the outbreaks within each of those settings and that is what we are aiming to do. I actually met Public Health Wales today with advice they have given to our wider system as well as the learning in particular the learning from Cwmtaff Morganog and how they have had one outbreak in the Royal Glamorgan that has had a significant reach. Whereas actually they have contained outbreaks at a much lower level within Prince Charles and the Princess of Wales hospital. So we are going to need to do this as a feature through the winter. If we see significant levels of community transmission continuing now then we will see outbreaks within a variety of other settings. The firebreak will allow us to get that under control in terms of reducing the transmission of coronavirus and it should mean we have more control in all of our environments including those places where care is provided to our most vulnerable citizens. Diolch yn fawr. In your opening statement obviously you highlighted the justifications for the short, sharp firebreak lockdown. In the interest of openness and transparency amongst the advice you were getting was there any dissenting voices were there any questions? Was there an anonymity of view that this was the absolutely right thing to do? Well we of course had questions and there was a challenge in the advice that was provided and very very difficult choices were made by ministers about the balance between the economy, people's livelihoods and the challenges of reducing the number of deaths and understanding in a clear sighted way that the firebreak has consequences. It isn't harm free, nothing that we do in terms of our response to coronavirus is harm free I'm afraid. So we do know that there will be an impact on people's mental health and wellbeing during the two weeks. That's why the first minute was highlighted the advice that is available whether it's on the phone or online or from friends and family that you yourselves can contact. So we did think all of those things through but when it came to the choices we made given the significance of what we're facing myself and the first minister both took the view that there would need to be proper consideration of a firebreak and all of our ministerial colleagues understood that this was real and serious. We can see the data increasing. We've then had to work through if we were going to do this how would we balance all of those different harms and we've had to test and measure whether two or three weeks is the right period of time. But the advice we've got from our scientific advisers that we've published openly I think makes a really compelling case and if you're a responsible government you can't see that advice and then pretend it doesn't exist and then act as if you can carry on and not act to intervene before the harm is much much more significant. You look at those charts that we put up in the slides with the grass showing the rise in death compared to April and March and look at the lag in the cases of over 60s. You'll see in weeks 13 and 14 on the first chart that's the 23rd of March and the 30th of March a really significant steep upward curve. You can see that without interruption we're seeing a similar curve in growth in over 60s. It's part of the reason why shielding on its own won't work. It's also part of the reason why taking action now is hugely important to avoid there being more deaths within the next few weeks. So this really is about how responsible ministers act and behave, test and challenge the advice but ultimately ministers have to decide and we have to. Thank you, Owen. I've now got James Crichton-Smith from ITV Wales. Thank you. We were speaking to care home providers and they've told us that in some instances it's taking up to two weeks for staff's test results to come back. Obviously during that time they're still caring for vulnerable residents. Surely why is it taking so long particularly when there's clearly a risk that if they were positive they're putting residents at risk by continuing to work over that period? Well the surveillance testing programme that we have in care homes tests all people whether symptomatic or not. Of course people with symptomatic shouldn't be in the workplace. And actually what we've seen during the summer is very very low rates that are sort of around about 0.2% testing positive. We've seen that rise to about 1% of positive test results and this is part of the well run and understood challenge of the turnaround challenge with Lighthouse Labs because the care home testing programme was run through Lighthouse Labs primarily. Now what I've seen really significant challenge is we've managed to switch some of those tests to public health Wales lab to provide quicker turnaround times of people. We are now seeing some recovery and actually we can see that recovery return then we'll have quicker test turnaround times which is the key part of this. And this is a collective effort for all of us. We're in a position where we're using the tests we have in particular the public health Wales test around where there are outbreaks and we're also making sure that we take proper use of the Lighthouse Lab tests themselves as well. So we're expecting to see improvement continuing over the coming weeks and we have been listening and working with both commissioners from local government but also directly with providers and employers themselves within the sector. I understand the concern that's there and it's real and I think we are now starting to see and you'll see this in the figures when they're published over the last two weeks we have seen a rate of improvement and we need to see that continue. Thank you. Of the care providers that we've spoken to around half of them say they don't have confidence still in Welsh governments that they'll keep care homes safe. Are you disappointed that this far into the pandemic 50% of care providers is working to still say they're not confident that government's going to be able to keep them safe? I think there's the important caveat in your question James, 50% of the providers you've spoken to. There are well over a thousand care homes and my understanding is you've spoken to 50 or 60 care homes. So it's a number of people and we do take their concerns seriously and actually when we talk to both the Welsh Local Government Association and indeed to care for Wales and other providers as well we do hear directly from them what concerns that their members have. Actually we get a very different conversation with that larger group of care home providers and commissioners in local government about the steps that we're taking and the deliberate choices that we have made. So you've seen recently over the last month or so that England are now going to provide free PPE to their care homes. We've been doing that for months. You've seen the conversations we're having about the testing regime, the fact that you do have care home providers and representatives part of the conversation we're having about what we're doing and why. So I accept there are some people who are genuinely concerned and I accept those are as I say genuine concerns but I think across the sector there is a level of engagement and confidence. So we're doing the right thing to keep all parts of Wales safe including people in care homes where we recognise there are very real consequences if coronavirus does outbreak within that protected environment. Thank you. James has now got Old Dan Bevan from LBC. Thank you Health Minister. Good afternoon. I wanted to ask about Christmas. Of course one of the reasons that we're going into this circuit breaker is to give us some normality around Christmas time. With that in mind you must have a goal set within the Welsh Government to allow more household mixing around the holiday period. So I wondered if you could share that with us. At what point will you be satisfied that people could see their family members around the holiday period? Well our problem is, James, that in terms of forecasting where we're going to get to at the end of the year, that is a bit of a mugs game if we're trying to have some exactitude about where we are at the end of the year. It's really important to set out we're clear that within the health service we'll see over the next couple of weeks more people testing positive, more people coming to our hospitals. We can see that without action our NHS faces a real risk of being overwhelmed. That informs the reason for the firebreak. It informs our ability to get the R number below one and then to give us an opportunity to keep our at a much lower level to have a reduced level of harm to what we would otherwise see. That means people can in a different way see family and friends, but to forecast exactly the numbers of people people will be able to see within their own homes at Christmas. I don't think that is a reasonable thing to try to forecast because frankly I'd be making it up. And it's really important that we understand what's happening through November and December to see how successful we are as a country in coming together with the national effort we all need to see to reduce the level of coronavirus infections, to reduce the level of harm. And we do want people to be able to see their families at Christmas, but we'll have to make choices around what that will look like as we get closer to the time. I'm afraid that you and I will continue to have to get used to the fact that we're living with a continued level of uncertainty. What we can be certain of is the choices we each make will have a significant bearing on the choices that the government has to make to help keep Wales safe. And I wanted to ask about that continued level of uncertainty. You're asking a lot of people once again from Friday to give away their civil liberties, their personal freedoms. I wonder what you would say to somebody who says that they're tired of these regulations and that they will just freely flaunt them and what punishment those people will have. I think the biggest punishment for any of us is seeing more people suffer harm. More people who need long and difficult hospitalisation, more people who will sadly lose their lives. And the danger is that regardless of any penalties or sanctions that are imposed around behaviour that we're trying to manage for the benefit of all of us, that's the harm that we're trying to avoid. And that has really economic consequences as well, because if the virus takes off again, if it grows quickly and if any sort of additional restrictions have to be brought into place, that affects all of us. Now, I think the other point to make about people who are tired is I do understand that. And as I said earlier, I really do value the fact that there's been a long and difficult road for all of us and people have given so much. But it isn't just about all those people who have done their very best to follow the rules. It's about every single one of us. We're all tired of the challenges, the restrictions, the changes in what we do and how we live our lives. But the virus isn't tired. The virus doesn't care whether we're tired or frustrated of the rules, the restrictions, the guidance, the way we need to change our behaviour. The virus is only concerned about reproducing, and that means more harm with more people. So please think again about the choices we can all make to help keep each other safe, help our friends and our family safe, our community and our country safe. Thank you, John. I've now got Mark Smith from Wales Online. Thank you very much indeed, Health Minister. Could you give us your assassins of the local lockdowns which are currently in place across many parts of Wales until Friday? Do you believe they have worked on some level to reduce infection rates, or do you believe they did not have the desired effect? I think there are two points to make here Mark. The first is, and this comes, I'm sure you've had the opportunity to read the TAC report. We published at the start of the week, you should say for those who don't know what TAC is. It's essentially the Welsh equivalent of SAGE, our scientific advisors who give advice to the government together with the chief medical officer. In that report, the conclusion of TAC was that the local restrictions have made a substantial difference in slowing down the growth of the virus. Now that's important, so it shows that not just the restrictions themselves, but the changes people have made and the effort of people right across Wales with those local restrictions has made a real difference. And we're confident, I'm afraid, that the harm would be much greater if those local restrictions had not been put in place. The second point is that even having made those local restrictions, even with the effort of everyone in those local areas, it isn't enough to slow down the spread of the virus to avoid the really significant harm that could otherwise take place. And that's where the very clear advice from our chief medical officer and our scientific advisors has been to introduce this firebreak and that we need a new national settlement on how we move forward together, a new collective national effort. Not just in the firebreak, but beyond the firebreak, and we'll have to set that out in the coming days about how we want to have that new pattern of national rules and guidance for all of us to keep all of us safe. Thank you very much indeed. And secondly, could you tell us what might happen in Wales should this short, sharp firebreak lockdown not work and the cropping in fact is not materialised? What options does the Welsh Government have then? Well, we of course have a wide range of options. I just don't think it's helpful to speculate and answer a hypothetical future question when actually today we need everyone to understand what the restrictions are that are coming in place from Friday, why we're doing that, the significant rising tide of coronavirus we're seeing, the rising tide of harm that we're seeing as well. There's nothing fake or weak in the evidence that we're seeing about the harm coronavirus is causing already. And that's why we've had to take the extraordinary measures we have done with the two week firebreak. We need to be able to get to the firebreak, have everyone to understand why that's happening, to buy into that. And then with that national effort going through and beyond the firebreak, we should be able to have better choices available to us. If though coronavirus continues to take off again, then of course ministers will need to react and behave in a responsible way to help keep Wales safe as we are doing now. So it's not about ruling and a ruling out options, it's really about saying the importance of the moment we're in and the choices we make in these coming weeks will really help to determine the choices we still have to make about how we live our lives and the sort of responsible choice that ministers may have to make in the future. Thank you Mark. I've now got Rob Taylor from rexham.com. A false tweet about bed capacity in the Welsh hospital and board doctors playing golf has been hugely shared and that continues today. Twitter themselves now regularly decide to remove, hide from direct view or put unsubstantiated warnings on tweets that they deemed requiring it. Has Welsh Government had any discussions with social media networks and if so what was the outcomes? And on this specific case has Twitter UK given many reasons why they've judged it not necessary to take any action? Well I haven't had those discussions and I'm sure we can come back to you about whether Welsh Government have directly contacted social media or not. But some of this comes down to not just whether the Welsh Government noticed stuff but it's actually the responsibility of people who run these social media platforms. They're doing more but you know we're not in a game here, we're in a really serious and significant position so people who put false stories onto social media are the first point in taking responsibility. People who run those platforms, who profit from those platforms, also need to have a measure and a share of responsibility. And all of us need to look again at the position that we're in because I'm afraid that we'll see infection rates continue to rise. I'm afraid we're going to see death rates continue to rise and that underpins the moment that we're in and why the Welsh Government is taking this choice with a fire break to help keep Wales safe. And all of us need to understand that because whether you like me or other politicians or not, like I said the virus doesn't care about that, it just isn't interested, that isn't its point and purpose. All of us need to think about what we're doing as we're acting on social media with our friends and our family think, how can we do things to help keep our friends and family safe, not how do we find a way around the rules, not how do we share an interesting amusing and almost certainly untrue story as in this instance. Thank you. And can you update on your current understanding of any possible vaccine progress, any timelines to roll out, how they've been acquired or perhaps pre-ordered? And if Wales is acquiring independently, what's been put in place to ensure issues in March regarding testing acquisitions are not repeated? There are two things. The first is that we're aware that vaccine trials continue. It's really hard to forecast with any useful certainty when they'll come to fruition because we're still at a point in the trials. We need to understand what the outcome of those trials are. There are a range of different potential vaccine options that are being run through trials in the UK and around the world. What we have done, and this is an area where all four nations do work together and work together, I think, pretty successfully, we know that the UK government is procuring with the agreement of all four nations a range of vaccine supply. So we've pre-ordered from those that are going through vaccine trials. There will be supplies available across the UK in proportion for each of those countries, obviously if those vaccines go through their trials and are successful. So that will help with some helpful reassurance for people both that we are obviously taking part in that conversation and decision making here in Wales. The UK, in this instance, is working for all four countries in the UK, but I can't give people certainty because if I try to, I think it will be a level of false assurance. And now more than ever, I think it's important that we're honest about the limits of our ability to forecast and give certainty to people in all of these areas to help make sure we don't breed further mistrust amongst the public. Thanks, Rob. I've now got Josh Searle from the South Wales Argus. Afternoon. It's already been mentioned about a false claim made on a tweet yesterday about a Gwent hospital with the health board coming out to debunk those claims. How frustrating is it for you to see people disregarding the seriousness of the coronavirus whilst such serious actions are having to be taken by yourselves? It's incredibly frustrating to see direct lies being told about what is taking place within our health service. Our health service is under significant pressure. Our staff in the health service, you can see what's already coming through their doors in primary care and in our hospital based system as well. And all of us need to take a step back to ask us what we're doing and why. And to recognise that as we see the rising tide of coronavirus all around us with the information we're freely publishing and making available, the choice is what do we do to help keep us, our family and our friends safe. How do we do that and how do we avoid going into a position where we're harming the great national effort that we face to see well safely into the future and to make sure we lose as few lives and livelihoods as at all possible of what is already an incredibly difficult autumn and winter. Public Health Wales reminded people today that attendance to pre-booked health appointments counts as an essential journey. How important is it that people continue to attend these appointments and if they can't let the health boards and hospitals know that they won't be attended? I think it's even more important now than ever that if people can't attend, there are always reasons why some people can't attend health care appointments that happen as part of life. It's important to let your health care provider know that because that appointment can potentially be made available for other people. We know that in normal times wasted appointments cost the health service money and people who run and deliver health care do understand that there are times where people do need to rearrange appointments. I always think it's even more important now than ever that people who need care that isn't related to COVID take that care up. When we had to, when I made the decision in the middle of March to end large forms of planned and elective care in the National Health Service, that was to allow our health service to get ready for what we could see was coming. That meant we did have time to change the way the health service works to expand critical care, but that was only because other activity wasn't taking place. That did though mean that we paused lots of care in and the harm did take place to avoid the much greater harm of being overwhelmed by the first surge of the COVID pandemic. Now we've been able to plan for COVID lightways to run the service so that non COVID care can take place so that people have been calling for us to run the service in that way. It's already what's actually happening to maintain that part of our health service with the real impact that has again on helping to improve lives and to save lives. We all need to do our part in making sure that we act in a sensible way with COVID itself and to follow the guidance we're given about how to be safe. So please take up the health care appointments you already have, respect and recognise the importance of what our health service is doing now more than ever, and make sure that you give people who are there in our National Health Service the service to treat us and to care for us, the opportunity to do so. If you can't attend please at your health care provider now as soon as possible. Thanks Joshua and Andrew Nuttall from the Leader. Thank you Minister. The fire break will, as you've mentioned, see results in the weeks after the initial fire break ends. How long do you expect it will be before you actually know how the fire break has impacted and what sort of benchmark has the Welsh Government set to sort of deem it a success? OK, I think that's helpful to be able to restate this. So we currently understand that the reproduction number, the growth rate of the virus means there are about 4% extra cases a day, about 2,500 infections a day. So it's real and significant. For us to reduce that, that's why we're introducing the fire break. We think that it will probably be around about a couple of weeks after the fire break ends that we'll see a decline in the rate of infection. And that should mean that there are none. We should fall below one and that means the virus is in decline. What we then need to see is that, and this is the reason why the conversation that we'll have with stakeholders and the public over the coming days about what happens post the fire break, that new set of a national pattern of how we can live our lives will be really important. And again that's why it's so important not just to buy into a great national effort for the fire break but for what then comes afterwards. So we don't suppress the virus but then simply see it take off. If people act as if we're back in the middle of the summer again. Now we've seen a real take off, you saw the graph earlier, the take off in infections and the real increase in over 60s that took place from the middle to the end of August onwards. If we go back to that world we'll face a really, really difficult autumn or winter with great levels of harm and that's what we're trying to avoid moving forward. So there are questions and challenges for all of us now. A national effort required to make the fire break a success but crucially beyond the fire break as well. Thank you. And early this morning the Liverpool City region announced a U-turn from the government essentially that gyms and leisure centres will be able to remain open despite being a tier 3 lockdown. With the fire break proposed by Welsh Government gyms and leisure centres would have to see their doors closed once again. Have Welsh Government considered, as you many called for this U-turn on the physical and mental health benefits that the gyms will provide and the low transmission rates that we're seeing in gyms when they were open. Would the Welsh Government reconsider this or for future fire breaks if they were needed? Would this be taken into account? Well I'm not going to get into forecasting what might happen in a hypothetical future. In the choice we've made now we've made a clear sighted choice. And again this is advice set out for us in the attack report that we've published. We've said for a long time that schools will be our priority and that we would see other closures take place before we close schools. And we've done that. So early years childcare primary schools and in secondary schools years 7 and 8 will have in person teaching within the school environment. Others will distance learn and there's exams that are taking place and those exams will be able to take place. Having made that choice that means that we then need to look at other closures, other areas of life to make sure that we have a fire break that is effective. So all those areas that even make a small contribution when put together as a whole package that gives us the opportunity to see a reduction in the transmission of the virus. And that's also why we've gone hard and deep over this two week period to make sure we don't extend over a longer period of time. There'd be much greater harm done to the economy if we'd had to extend this over three weeks not two. There'd also be much greater harm in terms of people's mental health and well-being. So we don't ignore the challenges. We recognise this does present a challenge but we have thought carefully about each of these competing challenges, choices and questions in making a decision. I really wish there was a perfect and easy answer for us to make within government. But none of our choices are easy and they all come with difficult compromises to make. But our never-ending purpose and commitment is how we make choices to keep well safe to save lives and livelihoods and help give people some hope for the future. Thank you Andrew. I've now got Tom Magner from Careers World. Thank you minister. Careers organisations and our viewers broadly welcome your announcement of a £1m unpaid Careers Fund. Now on the way into my first question, which I promise I'll get to shortly, and as part of your reply, I'd be grateful if you could confirm or otherwise advise that, unlike Scotland, Wales doesn't have the devolved power to change benefits such as Careers allowance or add new ones. That the £1m fund means around £45,000 per local authority area and is subject to a limit of £300 per unpaid Career and that this fund will be distributed through Careers organisations with network partners. So given all that, the question is how will you ensure that the right money reaches the individual unpaid Careers in the most critical circumstances and really gives them all that they desperately need? Well thank you, so I'm sorry if I say I'm pleased to hear the welcome for the £1m fund, even in these remarkably difficult times with all the financial pressures on Welsh Government budgets. We've found this money because we recognise the impact that the pandemic has had upon unpaid Careers and our desire to support them properly. I think it's important to set out that the proposal for the fund has actually come from Careers organisations. We've worked in a genuine partnership way to understand what's needed and then to be able to provide that. So that means that your right in your third point, the fund will be distributed through Careers organisations and I think that's really important. If it was just left to a simple application process, I think we would find there'd be a range of unpaid Careers who wouldn't apply for a fund on that basis and that is almost always an unequal socio-economic result in any event. So by working with partners who are already supporting Careers, they should be able to reach out and help people who may not otherwise apply. You are right in devolution though, we don't have control over Careers, unlike the Scottish Parliament and Government and yes you're right about the size of the fund, it won't be split up on a share between each of the 22 authorities. We'll look at the per capita basis, how that's set out but you're right it'll be around about a top end of about £300 per person and actually that comes from the work we've done with Careers organisations about what would make a real and material difference to them to provide the sort of support that they are going to need. Thank you for that. Leaving aside money, a Careers Wales survey shows that unpaid caring has risen by 76% during the pandemic so far and a similar proportion declare themselves exhausted. Viewers say local authorities respond in many different ways. How will you ensure that councils take a flexible and perhaps different and more imaginative approach to giving those unpaid carers most in need the critical practical help and support? Well I think you've said yourself on the question that local authorities respond in different ways and it's important that they respond in a way that matches what matters with and for that person, that carer, the context in which they live. It'll be different for some people, say in rural Ceredigion to someone who for example lives in Wrexham or Rhyl so it's important to understand the differing context and that is what we would expect local authorities to do and if we have the Welsh Local Government Association in the room their health and social care spokesperson Hugh David I think would be on exactly the same page as us understanding the needs of carers, understanding how you can support people to make choices that make a difference to them and the people they care for. So we won't see exactly the same approach not just within local authorities but across local authorities but within a local authority area there should be a different approach that matches the needs for that individual person and the challenge there is how individualised that can be, that can only come there from a conversation not between local authorities and that person but as we were talking earlier with those carers organisations who support people and most local authorities have a very good relationship with their third sector partners in carers organisations their advocates and providers and their people as I say we work very hard with to put together something that is going to be meaningful and make a difference to provide the support that unpaid carers need and to be fair that you have consistently raised with us in this forum Tom. Thank you. Good to see you again. I look forward to speaking to you all again in the coming days and weeks.