 Rwy'n nhw'n ddaf i'w Lened Morgan, gwneud o giechyd meddwl, sasiant a'r Gymraeg, a mae'n bleser i mi gael cynnal y Gymhadledd Llywodraeth Ceddiw. Dwi'n siarad penawma am y ffordd i ni'n cefnogi plant a'r sector gwreidigol trwy'r pandemig, a mae'r ddau grwp yma wedi dioddau mewn ffordd hynod yn ystod y flwyddyn dweitha, o gan Lened i'r pandemig. Rwy'n Lened Morgan, rwy'n ddau Gweithfyrddol, rwy'n ddau'r ffordd yn bwysigol a'r ffordd i'n hyd yn ddweud o giechyd meddwl, ac mae'n rhan o'r ffrindio ar gyfer y Cymraeg. Rwy'n gael ddaf i'r ddweud o'r cyffredin ni'n dweud o'r cyffredin ni'n ddweud o ddweud o'r cyffredin ni'n ddweud o ddweud o'r pandemig. Mae'r rhai wneud o amnig o'r gwybod hon, i ddweud i'r ddweud ar y cyfnodau sydd ar gyfer y gyrdd yma, gennym hwnnw, o'r ddweud o'r ddweud yma. Ond o'r ddweud, rwy'n gynnig i'r ddweud i'r ddweud yma, oherwydd yma, oherwydd geisio'r ffacinatio'r ffordd yma. Mae'r bwysig yn ymgyrchol yw'r 807,000 o'r bwysig yn ystod o'r ddod, sy'n ymgyrchol o'r bwysig yn ymgyrchol o'r bwysig yn ymgyrchol o'r adrodd. A dyna'n rhaid i'n mynd i'r ffrogros ymgyrchol o'r ddod, mae'n 80% o ddod o'r bwysig yn ymgyrchol o'r bwysig yn ymgyrchol o'r ddod. Now turning to children, the latest coronavirus and me survey gives a really good insight into how children have been coping with the latest lockdown. I want to thank the children's commissioner, children in Wales and the youth parliament for their work on this really detailed set of findings, which will help us to continue to shape our response to the pandemic in a sensitive way. More than 20,000 children and young people took part in this second survey. The results show that life has been difficult for children of all ages. They spoke about frustration and even anger about the impact of the pandemic on their lives. They spoke about missing friends and family members and about missing out on experiences. Teenagers talked about their worries about exams and their futures. Almost one in three 17 and 18 year olds said they were worried most of the time. Loneliness rates are high and not being able to see friends is recorded as having the biggest impact on children's lives followed by not being able to see other family members and the impact of school and college closures. Getting children and young people back to school is absolutely our priority. On Friday the First Minister will be setting out the results of the three week review of the restrictions. The youngest children across Wales will be returning to school next week as part of our phased and flexible approach and we continue to monitor and plan for a wider return. As the public health situation continues to improve and the evidence shows it's safe to do so, more children will be able to go back to school. Remote learning has been difficult for everyone and hats off to all those parents who've done an incredible job in terms of homeschooling over the last months. We know that most children and young people will thrive once they're back in the routine of school, daily lessons and seeing their friends. We will continue to work closely with local education authorities, with teaching and non-teaching staff unions to get children back to school in a safe and phased way. To support schools and children who are learning remotely, we'll be investing a further £15 million in education technology over the next financial year. This will continue the Hub Ed Tech programme in which we've already invested £92 million over the last two years. It'll help to transform digital infrastructure in all state schools in Wales and ensure learners have access to MiFi connectivity to the end of the school year. I want to turn now to the creative sector and the arts. Wales is known throughout the world for our arts and our culture. Promoting our talents in this sector is one of the key parts of our international strategy. But the last year has been one of the toughest on record for our creative sector. Because of the virus, there have been few outlets for our nation's immense talent and creativity. There have been barely any live performances for almost a year and most creative output has moved online. We all hope that better days are ahead of us and that we'll soon see live music, performance, theatre and arts return to our lives. Over the course of the year, we've provided a range of financial support for the creative sector to help it through the pandemic. We've made £63 million available through the Cultural Recovery Fund, which includes almost £20 million for the Freelancer Fund, which is unique to Wales. I wanted to share a couple of examples with you today about how this funding is supporting individuals and organisations as diverse as Nant Gwrtheyntrust, which is receiving funding from the Cultural Recovery Fund, and a beatboxer from Blaine I Gwent. Hugh Jones, who is the chair of Nant Gwrtheyntrust, has said that this funding will help sustain its workforce and improve what it can offer to help people learn Welsh when it's able to reopen again. I ni yn edrych ymlaen at Welth Nant Gwrtheynt ar agor i'n waith eto. Our Freelancer Fund is providing grants to 3,500 Freelancers working throughout Wales. Beatboxer, Dean Ynel, is one of them. He holds songwriting sessions for young people. He calls them counselling sessions in disguise. It's also helped filmmaker and writer Lewis Carter. It's allowed him to complete production on his latest documentary, Best Foot Forward, about the famous North Scalan Road Races in Mountain Ash, which was released on New Year's Eve. Dwi'n fach dos ben heddiw modyn gallu cyhoedd i byddwn i'n rhoi 1.3 miliwn yn y chwanegol i'r Erdd, i helpu'r mediad unigryw yma i ail adeiladu. I'm really pleased to announce today that we'll be providing an extra £1.3 million to support the Erdd in its recovery and to help it rebuild. The Erdd is one of Wales's largest third sector employers, providing a whole range of Welsh medium experiences and activities for young people. Helping deliver the aims of our Camryg 2050 strategy of a million Welsh speakers and supporting community youth and apprenticeship programmes. This funding will help safeguard key jobs at the Erdd, helping it to start, rebuild and create new job opportunities. More than 60 additional staff will be employed and the Erdd has plans to create up to 300 new Welsh medium apprenticeships over the next three years. I want to end with some good news. Dwi'n siargrwp yn gyda mwy o'r newyddion dda. Hot on the heels of the success of this year's Dedd Music Camry, four of Wales's best-loved festivals, Festival of Voice, Focus Wales, Other Voices Cardigan and Aberystwyth Comedy Festival will be coming together to create Goyal 2021, a free online festival. The Music and Comedy has been filmed and recorded over recent months in Wales and around the world and it's going to be broadcast online over the weekend of March 6th and 7th. So don't forget to tune into what will be a real treat and a bit of release from our daily routines. Diolch yn fawr i'ch gyd. I'm now happy to take questions from journalists and all of the answers will be broadcast on our social media channels as usual. So I'm going to start with Nick Powell, ITV Wales. Thank you Minister. The Prime Minister in Cwmbran this morning said there are continuous conversations between the UK and Welsh governments about how to exit lockdown. How are those conversations going? Thank you. The relationship with the UK government and the Welsh government during the pandemic has ebbed in flows. At times they are happy to engage with us quite intensively and at other times they don't speak to us for months. So obviously in an ideal world we would like to be coming out of the lockdown together but at the end of the day we will do what is right for us in Wales and that will depend of course on the rates of infection and how quickly we can roll out the vaccine and of course we are doing incredibly well in Wales on that score and so we will be making those decisions of course on Friday in terms of what will happen in the next phase during our 21 day review but I think for the longer term we will have to look at our own rates in Wales and we will make that determination on what's best for Wales. Thank you but nevertheless do you accept it's at least desirable that the whole of the UK leaves lockdown in sync? I mean I presume you wouldn't want English people allowed to travel at Easter and Welsh attractions not able to accommodate them. Absolutely in an ideal world as I say it would be great if we could have gone into this together and come out together but we were determined in the Welsh government to make sure we were following the evidence, following the science and following the data that has not always been the case elsewhere in the UK but of course in particular when it comes to tourism then ideally we need to be seeing how we can work together obviously it's much more profitable for the tourism sector if the English market is able to open and if visitors from England are able to come as well but we won't be doing this in a hurry we will be taking our time we will not be working to a fixed date timetable we will be working according to the data and what's right for us in terms of making sure we don't see an uptake again in that virus. Camlyn Davies, BBC Wales. Diolch yn ei ddawg and I'd be grateful if you could respond to these questions in Welsh and English please. We know that another new variant of coronavirus has been discovered including two cases identified in Wales I wonder what more you can tell us about those cases and how concerned we should be. Diolch yn fawr, Maen a wrth gwrs achos y newydd o'r variant yn mynd i ddod yn gyson ac wrth gwrs i ni'n cadw llygad ar y sefydlfa o ran y variants newydd i ni'n gwybod bod y variant de-Africa hefyd yn bresennol ond dim ond ychydig iawn o achosion sydd gyda ni yma'n hymry. Wrth gwrs, Maen bwysig e'n bwyd ni gyd yn diall yn arbennig yn ystod amser yma e'n bwyd yn fynol ar o ni aros gartra a dyna'r ffordd ore i ni stopio y variants newydd yma trag ledu. Of course we are a way of new variants this is not going to be something that is going to change very soon the fact is that the virus will change shape it will create new variants and this is something that we are going to simply have to get used to what we will be doing in the Welsh Government is keeping a very strict eye on what is going on on the way that that is likely to spread and how serious it is of course we are aware that the South African variant is also present in Wales we have several cases most of which we can trace directly to South Africa but we are concerned about three cases where we cannot really follow where that has come from so we are doing a lot of research into that at the moment but of course at the moment we are fairly confident that the vaccines will be able to help contain at least the illness that people will suffer if they are exposed to these new variants Diolch, you mentioned that some children will be returning to school next week three to seven year olds and you said you would be monitoring and planning for the phased return of other age groups the Welsh Local Government Association are asking for a clear time scale now for when other children will be able to go back to school so that staff and councils can prepare for that do you accept that that would be helpful and is it something that you will look to provide to schools across Wales? Diolch yn fawr, Cymru wrth gwrs yn yna wedi'u iawn i gael plant nôl i'r ysgol i ni'n gobeithio fydd rhaiengau three to seven, gallu mynd nôl wrth gwrs y rwythnos nesaf ond wrth gwrs yn y penderaw mae'n bwysig yn fwy o blant nôl i'r ysgol a i ni'n gobeithio rhoi fwy o fynylder ar beth i ni'n gobeithio yn y maes yma a'r ddysgwener prif wewn idog yn rhoi fwy o syniad ynglyn â beth fydd yn cael ei rhathau nesaf. Of course, we are very anxious to get our children back to school every day that they are not back in school is a day of waste in terms of really trying to develop these children and of course parents doing a tremendous job at home in homeschooling but ideally we need to understand the importance of socialisation and in particular supporting those children from perhaps more deprived backgrounds. We will be giving far more detail on what we are hoping to do next on Friday when we come up with that 21 day review and I do hope that the First Minister will be able to give a bit more clarity of course to teachers, to the WLGA and to parents in terms of what we are hoping to do in terms of a route map to reopening schools in a more balanced way to make sure of course that we keep them safe but that we really try and encourage those children back to school. Can I ask Mark Smith, Wales Online, please? Thank you very much indeed, Minister. Firstly, with coronavirus infection rates and testing positivity rates continuing to fall to levels way below the winter peak do you think there is a growing pressure on the Welsh Government to ease more coronavirus restrictions for the sake of people's mental health and do you believe an appropriate balance is currently being struck between people's risk of contracting coronavirus and trying to improve the public's overall well-being? We are obviously really concerned about the public's well-being and we have seen reports and you can see simply from that report that was done by the Children's Commissioner of the serious concerns that people have in terms of their mental health and well-being not just children but also the adult population we know that Ipsos for example suggested that 36% of the population are lonely most of the time so of course we are anxious to reopen as soon as this is safe to do that and of course we are really pleased that we are seeing the rates of the virus come down I think we are on about 88 per 100,000 now so that is a really positive step and of course alongside that we are rolling out the vaccine in a really comprehensive way at some point of course we will therefore make a judgement as to what we are able to open and what the risks are associated with that but at this point in time because of the new Kent variant which is now the predominant variant within Wales it is absolutely key that we stick to this lockdown as it is at the moment and that we understand that when we release it will be in very small steps we will assess how the spread will increase as a result of that before moving on to the next stage but we are intensely aware of the pressure on people now so that is why in the last review we allowed people to exercise with one other person and you will have to wait until Friday to see if there will be any further support in that area Thank you very much indeed and secondly obviously we know that mental health services are sometimes referred to as Cinderella services as they are operating on more limited funding with the huge anticipated increase in demand for such services Can you confirm that people already having to wait for mental health services will not be made to wait longer because of this increased need and will the Welsh Government increase the ring-fenced mental health budget to reflect this ongoing need? We have said right from the beginning that mental health services must remain essential services so they haven't been shut down at all during the pandemic We are also very proud of the fact that we do have a very clear ring-fence and that in the next financial year we will be increasing the amount that we spend by 40 million pounds so that takes us to about 780 million pounds that we spend per year on supporting people with mental health issues so that support is there and what I would urge people to do is to reach out for that support because it is available and people need to understand in particular some sections of society that perhaps are less likely to reach out for support I'm thinking in particular black and ethnic minority communities but also middle-aged men who are not great at reaching out for support and I would ask people to take up those opportunities we have a call line that is open 24-7 and I would encourage people to use that Can I move on now to Dan Wilson, LBC? Diolch yn ni dog As Nick mentioned at the start the Prime Minister is in South Wales this afternoon he's been visiting a vaccination centre in Cwmbran A few weeks ago when he travelled north of the border to Scotland Nicola Sturgeon made it quite clear that she felt his trip may not have been necessary Does the Welsh Government feel that the Prime Minister's trip to Wales is necessary today given that we are still under strict lockdown measures? Well we have a stay at home message and you should not be travelling unless it's essential I'm not sure if Boris's visit comes under the essential category but of course he is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and has to make his own judgement on that As far as I'm concerned the important thing for us is to focus on really making sure that we do the best for Wales and of course we will continue to have discussions with Boris Johnson but in an ideal world I think as many people as possible should stay at home and yes in an ideal world perhaps that should have happened in this instance Thank you and we spent a night with South Wales police over the weekends tasked with breaking up illegal gatherings and house parties more than 100 were issued across the force area The fine here for those attending house parties is currently £60 which is reduced of course to 30 if they're paid within the first two weeks compare that to England with £800 is this still not an argument that perhaps the fines and the penalty here are not enough given the fact that many who we spoke to that were breaking the rules knew full well what they were doing? Well the situation in Wales in relation to fines is that they increase every time you break them and so that is something and they can actually go up to a very high level but of course what is good is that the police are now breaking up those parties and I would encourage them to continue to do that but in an ideal world people should not be gathering you know hopefully we haven't got a long time left now to really live through the rest of these dark days that we're living through because we're hoping to see a release in the near future but now is not the time to relax now is the time to make sure that we can really damp and down on this variant and the pandemic and let's make sure that people really try and adhere to those rules and of course we keep all of those issues under review Can I move now to Alice Roberts? Yes, thank you very much Minister continuing it in the same vein really so what extent are you concerned that a point comes where fatigue starts to set in that people feel that they can't meet family and friends they very much want to do that and in the end some people may think well we can't do this any more so if you can answer in both languages as well Gofyn ydw i gweinidog i baraf a dach chi'n pwyny felly pob o'r pobl yn dechrau laru a ddiflasu a rheol ar cyfnod colo a mae'n a bwynt sydd oedd fasaf lle bydd pobl yn penderfynu allwn i ddim gwneud hyn ddim mwy Wel dwi'n deallun iawn pob o'r pob o'r wery cael digon os y felfan i gyd yn marw i sy'n mynd allan ag i gwrdd o pobl eraill ond byth sy'n bwysig nawr i'n bod ni yn cadw at yr rheolau achos byddwn ni ddim eisiau i riddhau a wedi'n gorfod mynd nôl mewn i sefydl allu i'n caergymdeithas lawer eto felly dwi'n deall pan mae pobl wedi cael digon byddai ni yn gofynu nhw yn ymbyl ar bobl i sicrhau nawr ei bod nhw yn ystod o'r mysodd nesaf yn ystod o'r snos o'n nesaf mae tannu'n bod ni cael y faxin allan i fwy o'r bobl ogeith ac wrth gwrs gwrs ni'n gweithio bydd i'n digwydd bod pob o'r pobl yn y grwpio mwyaf yna cyn diwedd mi'n sefydl yn cael pigiad felly dyna bydd ni'n gweithio bydd i'n digwydd a bydd hwnna gweithio'n rhoi cyflenu wrth hai yn ystradd y genna Of course we all understand that people have had enough I mean we've all had enough and we are all desperate to get out of this situation to be able to go out and meet people and to be able to undertake new activities but there is just a few weeks left now before we can really put a lid on the situation in Wales What we can't risk is undoing all of that great work and throwing ourselves back into a situation where the rates will increase I think the people of Wales have been incredible they've been terrific they have kept to the rules they are continuing to keep to the rules in the vast majority of cases and I would plead with you please just for the next few weeks to stay with us to respect those rules and let's see if we can get out of this dreadful situation How much easy do you think it will be minister if you were actually able to give a precise date if you said at the end of April that's when lockdown restrictions will be lifted How much of a difference would that make Faint yn haws wrth a hit sy'n cael ei roi dyddiad 5 dan drwan a bydd pobl yn gwybod y bydd y cyfan yn dod i ben Brydynu Wel nid i'r dysgu yn ystod y pam demig yma bod unrhyw risc i roi dyddiad ar beth achos mae'r virus yma mae'n virus newydd i ni dal yn dysgu ac wrth gwrs mae'r ffaith bod hi yn newid siap bod gyda ni fyrus gwahanol yn golygu nad y gallu bod mor bendant ynglyn ar risc a dyna pam beth i ni'n mynd i wneud yw cadwll y gadael y data a sicrhau bod ni dim ond wedyn yn hwythau pan mae saf i wneud hynny There's a real danger of giving a precise date We've learnt during the course of this pandemic of the dangers of setting a date and I think it's been done far more in England than it has been done in Wales where you set a date only to have to roll back on that date We're not going to put ourselves in that situation We are going to follow the data and the last thing we want to do is to raise people's expectations just to dash them We're not going to be doing that we're going to be sticking to the plan as we have it at the moment we'll watch the rates come down we'll watch the increase in the vaccination and hopefully then we will be in a situation where when we release we won't have to go back into lockdown and into the ideal situation that we're working towards and we won't be able to do it unless the people of Wales come with us Diolch yn fawr i chi gyd