FIRST minister Mark Drakeford has said the decision to agree a relaxing of restrictions over Christmas was to avoid a "free for all".

"I think it was very clear to us from the advice we received at the Cobra meeting, but also from what we hear in Wales, that unless we found a formula that allowed people to get together over Christmas, people were very unlikely to be willing to stick to the current level of restrictions that we have here in Wales," Mr Drakeford told BBC Breakfast.

"So the choice was between a guided form of meeting over Christmas or people simply making their own solutions."

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Mr Drakeford said it was "not a matter of encouraging people" to gather over the festive period.

"It is finding a set of rules that give us a guided way to Christmas - without the rules that we've agreed, I think the risk was very high that people would simply make up the rules for themselves," Mr Drakeford said.

Mr Drakeford has denied that the agreement to allow three households to meet for Christmas is "headline seeking".

He told BBC Breakfast's Dan Walker: "Our decision is based on the calculation that this is the safest way - not a completely safe way, not a risk-free way - but the safest way that we can offer.

"By giving people a limited amount of freedom, a set of rules that we think people can operate within, we will have a Christmas where people will be able to have an opportunity to see people they haven't seen for months and months in the toughest year they've ever been through, but to do it in a way that does not mean that people will simply feel that the restrictions are so severe that they will take no notice of them.

"Most people in Wales would want to abide by the rules, but in coronavirus you only need a small minority of people who decide that they're not prepared to do that and that means the virus spreads again."