Neil Hamilton, MS for Mid and West Wales, and Leader of UKIP Wales has called on the Welsh First Minister to be bold rather than timid when lifting lockdown restrictions.

Mr Hamilton, a member of the Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs committee, was commenting during a debate on Covid–19 in virtual plenary.

He said: “For the last couple of weeks I have been urging the First Minister to relax restrictions in Wales. Without underestimating the terrible impact of the Coronavirus itself, Wales is haemorrhaging and the tourniquet, applied for medical reasons, must be released if the economy, particularly in rural Wales, is to recover.

“Of course, we must behave in a level-headed way. Vulnerable members of society, the elderly and those with underlying health conditions, need to isolate and social distancing is sensible for everyone.

“The problem is that Welsh Government policy has been too little and too late and we are now extending for too long things that have no real beneficial effect. The First Minister should err on the side of boldness, as I said to him last week, rather than being timid.

“There is no evidence that the health risks being run are anything like the economic and other risks flowing from continual lockdown. These will have an ongoing effect and result in more deaths from other causes, not the least of which is the rising levels of poverty in a declining economy.

“We must get the economy moving again. In Sweden, there has been no compulsory lockdown and people are told to be ‘socially responsible’. A third of the workforce have avoided going to their workplace and daily restaurant turnover has fallen by 70 per cent.

“Swedes are being treated as adults and allowed voluntarily to adhere to the guidance rather than being forced to.

“The result in Sweden is that fewer ICU beds are now occupied, and the number of patients in intensive care in Stockholm has dropped by 40 per cent.

“Their daily death toll flatlined in the second half of April and has been declining ever since. The famous R number is 0.85 in Sweden and is anything between 0.7 and 1 in the United Kingdom.

“Our experience is, therefore, broadly very similar with one major difference. Because of our lockdown, the economic price we will pay in this country is vastly greater than it will be in Sweden,” added Mr. Hamilton.