The First Minister of Wales has confirmed there will be no local lockdowns after the end of the current 17-day firebreak in Wales. Bars, non-essential shops, restaurants, cafes and churches will reopen at the end of the current lockdown but the system of 17 separate local lockdowns will not return when new restrictions are announced on Monday. For the sake of clarity and simplicity there will be a set of national rules that will apply in all parts of Wales. A ban implemented prior to the firebreak preventing people from areas of the UK with high levels of coronavirus from entering Wales could continue after 9 November.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-politics-54748184

Yeah, entirely possible. I’m not familiar with the Welsh areas concerned, and the geography there, but what we are being asked to do here (stay in our local authority area) would be difficult to put into law because of geography in the central belt of Scotland (the area most affected). Scotland is a small country, but has 32 local authorities - and Highland Council takes up a hell of a lot of the land mass - so, they are small areas, and people travel between them a lot. I live, for example, approximately half a mile outside Glasgow City in East Dunbartonshire - but it’s all one continuous residential street. From my window, I can see West Dunbartonshire, Renfrewshire and probably one of the Ayrshires.

I guess it comes back to the point of - and this is one thing the Scottish Government has been perceived to be a lot better at - explaining (like you’re speaking to adults) why you’re doing things, and asking people to exercise their best judgment.

What's your view on the proposed national lockdown will it go ahead and will non essential travel be allowed? Thanks

England (at least) is heading for a country wide lockdown for at least 4 weeks, excluding schools, from Thursday or Friday, from all I've seen, with cabinet committees meeting today and tomorrow. The wider cabinet will have a telco cabinet meeting on Sunday, Cobra and Privy Council presumably on Monday, Parliament perhaps having a debate on Tuesday, Statutory Instrument on Wednesday or Thursday. There are a lot of moving parts and until Monday afternoon we won't really know for sure. My guess is that non essential movement will be in scope for the lockdown or there is no point having it. But other attempts at this have tended not to have full statutory instrument prohibition on movement restrictions. You should know more on Monday evening when I suspect we will get another Boris Briefing from Downing Street, right now the PM will not know what is going to happen.

In the current firebreak lockdown in Wales there are no restrictions for people to stay within their local authority area for a similar reason to what was suggested by Scots_Al.

The current rules simply ask people to stay local whenever possible, avoid unnecessary travel and not to undertake journeys of any significant distance. During the brief hyper-local lockdown in my area some people could not go to a supermarket half a mile from their home (or any other shops within a few miles) and had to travel 10 miles or more to do their shopping.

So, a national lockdown would only apply to England, right? Scotland already has their own 5 tier system that goes into effect Monday, targeting the higher infection areas.

well just to clarify current rules in Wales are that you can’t leave or remain away from home without a reasonable excuse. Basically back to where we were in the March national lockdown. If you purpose of leaving is for a reasonable excuse there is no rule on how far you can travel per se, as long as the purpose of the travel is for that reasonable excuse.

Additionally no person living outside Wales may travel in to Wales without a reasonable excuse. - previously it was only those in tier 2 & 3 areas who were not allowed to travel in to Wales.

I realise the guidance may say something slightly different regarding movement within Wales, but it is guidance only. If we talk about rules we really have to refer to what the law says.

As this is a devolved yes. However since NI and Wales are under a “stay at home” lockdown already, and if England follows, it is likely Scotland will follow too.

Things are speeding up, there will be a Downing Street briefing at 16:00 17:00 hrs GMT today Saturday, led by the Prime Minister.

I’m not disagreeing with you. I just wanted to point out that restricting travel within county boundaries or local health protection areas as they are referred to in the rules did not make sense and has now been revoked.

Surely they can't have decided already without a vote, suspect it will be a holding speech.

5pm now.

So how is the experiment in Wales lockdown going - have they seen the number of cases reducing yet, its a good example for Boris to look at to see if it works or not.

I just spoke with my sister in Kent and she told me about the nationwide lockdown Boris is supposed to announce shortly. 4 weeks? Do you think they are doing this now as to get the infection rate down before the Christmas season when many folks will (despite recommendations that say otherwise) be together?

International travel to be banned, so I read on Twitter.