Non-essential retail to be closed during two-week lockdown in Wales

Wales has today announced its plans to place the entire country under lockdown for two weeks from this Friday, which will include the closure of non-essential retail.

Mark Drakeford, the Welsh First Minister, said the "firebreak" lockdown was designed to gives its health services the breathing space required in the lead-up to winter.

Everyone will be required to stay at home, unless they have to travel for work, from 23 October and 9 November, with all gatherings banned and all non-essential retail, hospitality and tourism businesses required to close.

The firebreak or circuit breaker lockdown was been enacted on the advice of the UK Government Drakeford said: “The window in which we have to act is only very small and in order to be successful we need everyone’s help."

About 2.3 million people in Wales — around two-thirds of the population across 15 of its 22 counties — are currently living in communities under local lockdown rules.

To help business through the lockdown, the Welsh government has created a £300 million “extra economic resilience fund” and has added a further £150 million to its existing “economic resilience fund”.

Every business covered by the small business rate relief will receive a £1,000 payment and any small retail, hospitality and leisure business will get a one-off payment of up to £5,000.

So far Prime Minister Boris Johnson has resisted calls to place England under a two-week circuit-breaker lockdown to co-incide with the half-term break for schools. He has defied the advice form the Government's scientific advisers, preferring a local approach to stemming the rise in infections.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has been applying pressure to Johnson to carry out a lockdown but the Prime Minister instead has introduced a three-tier system each carrying varying degrees of restrictions, according to infection rates. Even under Tier 3, the highest tier, non-essential retail can still operate.