Where the Welsh Government stands on introducing local lockdowns after Matt Hancock reveals plans for England

First Minister Mark Drakeford has for months said it would be a mistake

The Welsh Government is not considering bringing lockdown for only certain areas of Wales.

On Tuesday, the UK Government said some measures may be stricter in certain parts of England depending on how many cases of coronavirus there are.

England's health secretary Matt Hancock said regional flare-ups of Covid-19 cases in England will result in a "local lockdown".

Mr Hancock told the daily Downing Street press briefing: "We will have local lockdowns in future where there are flare-ups and we have a system we are putting in place with a combination of Public Health England and the new Joint Biosecurity Centre, along with the local directors of public health who play an absolutely crucial role in the decision-making in the system, to make sure if there is a local flare-up there is a local lockdown.

"And so local lockdowns will be part of the future system that we put in place as part of the NHS test-and-trace system."

When approached by WalesOnline today, the Welsh Government said they had no plans to introduce it Wales.

A spokesman for the Welsh Government said the aim was to stop the localised outbreaks happening anyway.

He said: "This is science led – and if the advice changes, then we will re-consider.

"However, as things stand, it is unlikely that we will have localised lockdowns as we are planning to avoid them in the first place.

"We have adopted a cautious and public health-led approach to easing of any of the lockdown restrictions and you didn’t see thousands of people on beaches in Wales over the bank holiday. Importantly these relaxations of restrictions can be quickly reversed if there are any unintended consequences."

First Minister Mark Drakeford has for months said it would be a mistake to introduce localised measures as it would be other unfair and almost impossible to enforce.

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The Welsh Government has just announced their track and trace plans which will be launched on Monday, which will dictate how lockdown measures are eased in future. You can read the full details on that here.

A Welsh Government spokesperson added: "The First Minister said when he published his framework that any easing of lockdown would need to be accompanied by a comprehensive public health plan to quickly identify any new cases and hotspots - this is Test, Trace, Protect.

"If people test positive for the virus, we will be tracing all those they have been in contact with and asking them to self-isolate as a way to prevent hotspots developing and the virus spreading.”