HEALTH minister Vaughan Gething has warned that the UK Treasury must not become an "England only" treasury or it risks weakening the union.

He was speaking at today's coronavirus briefing and was asked what the future of furlough could be in Wales, if England's roadmap out of lockdown means it is not needed over the border while it is still necessary here.

Mr Gething said the Welsh Government is hoping for clarity, but added that the treasury is "for the whole of the UK" and not just for England.

He said: "We hope there will be clarity, not just for the Welsh Government, but for businesses and workers as well. It is really important that a decision is made as soon as possible.

"The forecasting about whether the UK treasury will act as the England Treasury first is something that we have been through before.

"It is a treasury for the whole of the UK. It should not just be about choices that my be made and only impact England.

"I think for those people like me who actually believe the union of the UK is a good thing - and should be a good thing in the future if it is reformed and works for us all - taking choices that look very much like an England-only and England-first approach is going to weaken those bonds."

The health minister also discussed the different approaches of the Welsh Government and the Westminster Government when it came to easing lockdown.

Mr Gething suggested that England's roadmap veered away from the scientific advice on reopening schools, and warned that forecasting past mid-April was "more like astrology than science and public health".

He said: "I recognise that simplicity and having common messaging across the UK would be helpful.

"We were told about the UK plans with some detail on the day they were about to be announced so we were not able to work through, on a four-nation approach, about the maximum amount of consistency and we wanted to be able to do that.

"Where possible we want to be able to agree a joint approach. But England have made different policy choices.

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"The advice from the chief medical officers is not really any different within the UK, what England have chosen to do is move away from the advice of having a more phased approach to schools reopening and to have a big bang reopening.

"The consequence of that is they are having to have a bigger gap between that and when they are thinking about the next phase.

"We are acting in accordance with the scientific advice that we have seen.

"Forecasting much further into the future is fraught with difficulty and uncertainty."

And discussing plans in the England road map to resume foreign travel in May, he added: "I think if you start forecasting past the middle of April you are very much in real difficulty and it starts to feel not like a sensible approach that is driven by data not dates. It starts looking like a date driven approach.

"And to try to forecast where the public health picture will be then is starting to get into something that is more like astrology than science and public health.

"I would be delighted if all of the stages in England’s road map are possible and we are able to jointly across the UK suppress coronavirus to the extent that it could happen."