Covid: Wales ministers 'not comfortable' over new supermarket sales rules

Coronavirus restrictions have led to plastic sheeting being placed over some goods in supermarkets

Allowing supermarkets to start selling non-essential items again while other shops remain shut was not something ministers were comfortable with, the deputy economy minister says.

Non-essential aisles in supermarkets will be able to reopen From 22 March.

All other shops cannot open until three weeks later, on 12 April.

But member of the Senedd (MS) Lee Waters, said the move was seen as "the least risky" Covid rules relaxation as supermarkets are already open.

"It was something we wrestled with, it was not something we were comfortable with, if I'm completely honest with you, but it's a pragmatic judgement," he told the BBC Politics Wales programme.

Non-essential aisles in supermarkets will be able to reopen from 22 March

First introduced during Wales' firebreak lockdown, First Minister Mark Drakeford said at the time the supermarket ban on selling non-essential items was a "straightforward matter of fairness".

The Welsh government has said it was making an extra £150m available to support businesses affected by ongoing restrictions.

When asked if the government's messaging around the reopening of non-essential retail was clear enough, Mr Waters said: "I think the messaging allowed a room for interpretation that was never intended.

"I think we need to be as clear as we can but it's very difficult to be definitive because things are still so uncertain."

'Least risky'

On allowing supermarkets to sell non-essential items three weeks ahead of smaller shops, Mr Waters explained: "Because the advice was not to do everything at once, which is what they seem to be doing across the border, and our scientific advice is that is reckless.

"Now, we could therefore make everybody wait another three weeks but what we decided, because people are getting in touch with us saying 'it's been six weeks... since we can buy things in supermarkets that we need'.

"We thought [with] supermarkets - because they were already open, because they already had safeguards in place and we've tightened the rules in regulation for what they have to do - the least risky thing at this point was to give them some additional freedoms."

Lee Waters says allowing supermarkets to sell non-essential items was "the least risky" relaxation for retail because they are already open

With Covid-19 case case rates continuing to fall, positivity rates down, and less pressure on hospitals, there have been calls from some people for the government to accelerate its easing of lockdown restrictions.

But Mr Waters said advisors and ministers were "very nervous about moving too fast" because the Kent variant of the virus was "70% more infectious than the original strain of Covid".

'More cautious approach'

"The Republic of Ireland got lots of praise last year for setting a whole list of things that were going to happen, none of them happened," he said.

"The UK government have similarly set out a whole list of things that can happen into the summer - they can't say with any degree of certainty that's going to happen.

"It's one way of doing it. We've chosen a different, more cautious approach."

Aisles of goods such as toys have been blocked off

He said the Welsh government intended to update its four-level coronavirus control plan out of lockdown.

"We are going to update it and we'd hoped to have got that out this week; we weren't able to do that, we are doing it soon," Mr Waters added.