Different Covid restrictions in England and Wales make public health messages “more difficult” to communicate, but England remains the outlier, not Wales, Mark Drakeford has said.

The first minister appeared on Sky this morning, where he defended his recent comments about the lack of restrictions imposed by the UK Government in England.

And Mr Drakeford added that communicating public health messages to the public was trickier because of the differences between the two nations.

He told Sky’s Trevor Phillips on Sunday: “I’ve agreed with the Prime Minister many times that it is better to have single messages across the UK that allows us to communicate the seriousness of the position and the measures we ask individual citizens to take in their own lives.

“When we have different messages across our border, that does make it more difficult for us.

“We have faced this in the past and we go on doing as we see it as the right thing to protect lives and livelihoods here in Wales.”

England is a Covid outlier

He added: “I’m asked time after time why isn’t Wales doing the same things as England?

“My answer was to point out that in this debate it is not Wales that is the outlier.

“Wales is following the same path of putting protections in place that is being followed by Scotland, Northern Ireland, and not just devolved governments in the UK, but governments across Europe and across the world.

“The questions as to why the UK Government has decided not to follow that course of action are for them to answer, not for me.

“I think they have not done what the science would have told them they should do.

“But that’s decisions for them to answer for – I’m answerable for the decisions we take here in Wales.”