Wales' economy minister has said there is "no evidence" to suggest Covid passes have negatively impacted businesses in Wales.
Vaughan Gething said the passes allowed businesses to say open but said there was "no evidence to date it's had a significant impact on the profitability of businesses where they have been introduced."
Covid passes were introduced in Wales from October 11. The vote to bring them into use passed by the narrowest of margins in the Senedd.
Passes need to be used in:
- nightclubs and similar venues
- indoor, non-seated events for more than 500 people
- outdoor non-seated events for more than 4,000 people
- any setting or event with more than 10,000 people in attendance
Speaking in the Senedd on Wednesday, January 19, Mr Gething said: "When it comes to the introduction of Covid passes, it was on the basis that this was a useful way to manage risk and that it would help to keep businesses open for longer, because the alternative was that, to manage the public health position, there would have been further interruption and potential closures in sectors. It was about avoiding those closures and keeping those businesses open.
"The fact that we nevertheless had to take further steps, including the recent measures, doesn't mean that Covid passes have failed; it actually shows the strength and the impact of the omicron wave in particular in overtopping all of those defences.
"When you see the eye-wateringly high numbers of cases that came about, I just think it is a wholly erroneous and not terribly intellectually honest argument to say that Covid passes failed because we nevertheless had to take further measures to protect public health. I look forward to engaging with the public health advice on when Covid passes are no longer a proportionate measure to help protect public health, but there's no evidence to date it's had a significant impact on the profitability of businesses where they have been introduced."
Welsh Conservative MS Paul Davies responded and said some evidence has shown that on average the cost to implement COVID passes per week was around £400. This would represent an annual cost of £20,000 per year.
His party later quoted a survey by the Night Time Industries Association’s members in Scotland found trade levels in nightclubs dropped by 46% and 24% in pubs as a result of Covid passports. A 46% decline in trade would represent a lost income of £506,000 per year per venue on average, the survey found.
Mr Gething said on Tuesday, January 18, that passes will remain in place in Wales until at least mid-February but potentially into March.
It has also been announced a judicial review has been launched about the passes by a campaign group.
Big Brother Watch has issued a legal claim against Welsh Ministers over mandatory Covid Passes, arguing that the scheme is unlawful as it is disproportionate and unevidenced.
It wants to full disclosure of the documents and advice that led to the passes being brought in and wants to see the passes scrapped. In the weekly press conference on January 17, Welsh Government minister Vaughan Gething said they were in place until mid-February's review and could be in place beyond that.
The group say lawyers have been in contact with Welsh Government for a number of weeks but say they have so far refused to agree to Big Brother Watch’s repeated requests to publish their correspondence. It is now for permission to publish their legal claim which quotes from the correspondence "in the interests of open justice".
In that response to that legal challenge, a Welsh Government spokesman said: "The Covid Pass has been introduced as one measure – among many – to help keep businesses open while also helping to control the spread of the virus and protect the NHS.
"The venues where the Covid Pass is required have been chosen because they are mostly indoors and they see large numbers of people congregating closely together for prolonged periods of time. As we know, the longer large numbers of people are close together, especially indoors, the greater the risk of transmission.
"A stakeholder group were kept informed of plans and decisions. We continue to support businesses that are required by law to ask for a covid pass with a range of advice and guidance."
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