Alun Cairns has expressed his concern over the forthcoming ‘firebreak’ lockdown, calling for a tiered system instead.
Starting this Friday (October 23rd) at 6pm, until November 9th, people living in Wales are urged to stay at home and work from home where possible. Mixing with other households inside and outside will be stopped, and all non-essential retail, leisure, hospitality and tourism settings will be required to close.
Speaking on Bro Radio’s The Vale This Week programme, the Vale of Glamorgan MP said: “I’m concerned in terms of how the Welsh Government have introduced such a one size fits approach across Wales, when the data is very different depending on where you live.
“The Vale of Glamorgan has one of the lowest levels in Wales - 45 cases per 100,000. Compare that to other parts of Wales that have well in excess of 200 cases per 100,000. It doesn’t make sense that we’re under these same restrictions."
He believes that the Vale of Glamorgan is "paying the price" for communities elsewhere not succeeding in getting their infection rates down.
"According to the latest data, the R number for the Vale of Glamorgan is below 1, because the numbers have been falling."
Addressing how he would stop the spread of Coronavirus, Mr Cairns said that it would be “far better” to have a tiered approach:
“In areas where there are very high risks of transmission, it’s obvious they would have tighter restrictions. But in areas where the transmission levels are low and where there is good practice around social distancing - that has been used for some time, that is tried and tested - then they should clearly have greater freedoms.
“It makes little sense that a hairdresser or a retail shop in one part of the country is being closed where there are low levels of transmission, compared to another part where there are high levels of transmission.”
Mr Cairns also stressed that the need to look after the health of those most at risk and maintain a healthy economy are not mutually exclusive.
He said: "I think we absolutely need to be protecting the most vulnerable, but we also need to let businesses continue in a way that is safe and is orderly."
You can listen back to The Vale This Week here, and you can read the full restrictions for Wales' 'firebreak' lockdown here.