Vaughan Gething

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Vaughan Gething
MS
File:Vaughan Gething (cropped official portrait).jpg
Official portrait, 2021
First Minister-designate of Wales
Taking office
20 March 2024
Monarch Charles III
Succeeding Mark Drakeford
Leader of Welsh Labour
Assumed office
16 March 2024
Deputy Carolyn Harris
Preceded by Mark Drakeford
Minister for the Economy
Assumed office
13 May 2021
First Minister Mark Drakeford
Preceded by Ken Skates
Minister for Health and Social Services
In office
19 May 2016 – 13 May 2021
First Minister Carwyn Jones
Mark Drakeford
Preceded by Mark Drakeford
Succeeded by Eluned Morgan, Baroness Morgan of Ely
Deputy Minister for Health
In office
11 September 2014 – 19 May 2016[1]
First Minister Carwyn Jones
Minister Mark Drakeford
Preceded by Office established
Succeeded by Rebecca Evans
Deputy Minister for Tackling Poverty
In office
26 June 2013[2] – 11 September 2014
First Minister Carwyn Jones
Minister Jeffrey Cuthbert
Member of the Senedd
for Cardiff South and Penarth
Assumed office
6 May 2011
Preceded by Lorraine Barrett
Majority 10,606 (29.2%)
Personal details
Born (1974-03-15) 15 March 1974 (age 51)
Lusaka, Zambia[3]
Nationality British
Political party Labour Co-operative
Spouse(s) Michelle Gething
Alma mater University of Wales
Occupation Solicitor, trade unionist
Signature Vaughan Gething's signature
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Vaughan Gething (born 15 March 1974) is a Welsh Labour and Co-operative politician serving as leader of Welsh Labour since 2024. He previously served as the Minister for Health and Social Services from 2016 to 2021. He has been the Member of the Senedd (MS) for Cardiff South and Penarth since 2011.[4] In 2024, he was elected as Labour's candidate to succeed Mark Drakeford as First Minister of Wales.[5] He will be the first black First Minister of Wales and the first black leader of any country in Europe.[6]

Early life

Gething was born in Zambia in 1974, where his father, a white Welsh veterinarian from Ogmore-by-Sea in Glamorgan, met his mother who is a Black Zambian.[7] Gething describes his father as "a white Welsh economic migrant".[7] When he was two years old, he moved to Monmouthshire, Wales, with his family and has three brothers and a sister.[8][7] His father eventually found work in Dorset, England, where Gething was brought up,[8] having been forced to leave Monmouthshire after experiencing racism.[9]

Gething studied at Beaminster Comprehensive and Sixth Form in Dorset, followed by Aberystwyth University, where he read Law and graduated in 1999,[10] and then went on to the University of Cardiff Law School, University of Wales.[7][11] Gething became President of Aberystwyth University Guild of Students and the first Black president of the National Union of Students Wales.[7][12][13]

Professional career

Having completed his training as a solicitor in Cardiff in 2001, with the trade union solicitors Thompsons, Gething chose to specialise in employment law. He became a partner in Thompsons in 2007.[11]

In 2008, at the age of 34, Gething became the youngest President of Wales TUC, also becoming the first mixed race person in the role.[14][15]

Political career

File:Cynhadledd i'r Wasg Press Conference - 04.01.21.webm
A video of Gething representing the First Minister in a COVID-19 press conference in January 2021

Gething joined the Labour Party when he was 17, to campaign in the 1992 UK general election.[7] He contested Mid and West Wales in the inaugural elections to the National Assembly for Wales in 1999 for Labour and was not elected.[16]

He was a councillor from 2004 to 2008, representing Butetown electoral ward on Cardiff Council, having been elected with a majority of two votes over candidate Betty Campbell.[11][17] Following the election, Campbell sent a complaint letter to Cardiff Council alleging that Gething had infringed election rules by handing out leaflets to voters as they entered polling stations and telling them how to vote.[18] Campbell initially intended to have the vote re-examined in the High Court but abandoned this because of the estimated cost of £12,000.[19]

Gething was selected as the Welsh Labour candidate for the Cardiff South and Penarth constituency in the Senedd. Lorraine Barrett, who had represented Cardiff South and Penarth since the Senedd's creation in 1999, had announced her intention to stand down at the 2011 election. At the Senedd election on 5 May 2011, Gething increased the Labour vote with a swing of 12.5%. At 13,814, his share of the vote was over 50%, giving him a majority of 6,259 over the Welsh Conservative Party candidate, Ben Gray, placed second.[4][20] At the following 2016 Welsh Assembly election, Gething once again increased his majority in terms of vote share.

Following the 2016 election, First Minister Carwyn Jones promoted Gething to the Welsh Cabinet as Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport.[21]

Gething did not support Jeremy Corbyn in either the 2015 or 2016 Labour Party leadership election (against challenger Owen Smith) but stated in a 2017 BBC Radio Wales interview that he would still like to see Corbyn as Prime Minister. "I want a Labour prime minister - and that means Jeremy Corbyn being prime minister." ... "I don't think it matters whether I'm a fan or not - it matters whether I think he can do the job in running the country" Gething said.[22][23]

In August 2017, as Health Secretary, Gething walked away mid-interview on ITV Wales television when questioned by journalist James Crichton-Smith over his decision not to hold a public inquiry into Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board following allegations that an employee had sexually assaulted vulnerable patients.[24]

Gething, alongside Eluned, Baroness Morgan and Mark Drakeford, was one of the three contenders in the 2018 election for the leadership of Welsh Labour, but was defeated by Finance Secretary Mark Drakeford.

Drakeford subsequently reappointed Gething as Health Minister, with the position renamed as Minister for Health and Social Services. On 13 May 2021, Gething was promoted to Minister for the Economy, replacing Ken Skates.

Minister for Health during Covid pandemic

Gething was Minister for Health and Social Services during the 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic.

On 12 March 2020, as the number of coronavirus cases in Wales reached 25, Gething resisted calls to postpone a Wales versus Scotland rugby match at the Principality Stadium, despite other sporting cancellations. The match was due to be a 74,000 sell-out.[25] On the following day, the Welsh Rugby Union announced that the match was cancelled.[26] This was one day before it was due to take place, and many Scotland fans had already travelled to Cardiff for the match. In a BBC Radio Wales interview, Gething said "The medical advice about the risk to people going to the rugby didn't change. What did change was the fact that the rest of sporting world decided that, regardless of that advice, they wanted to put off events."[27]

On 22 April 2020, Gething was caught swearing about fellow Labour MS Jenny Rathbone in a virtual session of the Senedd. Gething failed to mute his microphone as he told an unknown person "What the fuck is the matter with her?" during the Zoom meeting. Rathbone had been asking the Minister questions about the Welsh Government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.[28] BBC Wales reported that Labour MSs were also "very angry" over Gething's actions.[28]

In May 2020 Gething was photographed eating chips with his young son in a local park. Journalists suggested he was breaking his own Covid-19 restrictions. The Welsh Government stated nothing Gething had done contravened Welsh government regulations.[29]

Gething was questioned at the UK Covid Inquiry in July 2023, about his former role as Wales' health minister during the Covid pandemic. Gething admitted that he had never read a report on Exercise Cygnus, a simulation exercise to estimate a hypothetical influenza pandemic's impact on the UK.[30]

2024 Labour leadership election

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Main article: 2024 Welsh Labour leadership election

In December 2023 Gething became one of two candidates in the Welsh Labour leadership election to replace Drakeford as party leader and Wales' First Minister.[31]

On 16 January, Gething and the other candidate, Jeremy Miles, took part in a hustings event to get the nomination from the trade union, Unite. Miles' team were then informed of a rule requiring that only people who had been "lay officials" could be nominated. Gething therefore received the nomination.[32] Miles claimed he was unfairly blocked from the union nomination.[33] An unnamed Unite official was quoted by BBC News as saying that the nomination of Gething was a "shocking mess".[34] Journalist Martin Shipton later uncovered that Gething had only joined Unite a few months before hand.[35] Gething won the election by a margin of 3.4%.[36]

Atlantic Recycling

In February 2024 it emerged that Gething had received a campaign donation of £200,000 from David John Neal, a businessman who had previously been convicted twice of environmental offences as head of two companies, Atlantic Recycling and Neal Soil Suppliers.[37] Gething's ministerial colleague and Miles supporter,[38] Lee Waters, described the donation as "completely unjustifiable and wrong".[37]

The following month BBC Wales reported that it had obtained letters written by Gething in 2016 and 2018 to Natural Resources Wales requesting that it ease restrictions on Neal's company Atlantic Recycling. Former Welsh Government minister, Leighton Andrews, was quoted as saying that the donations were "damaging devolution" and called for Gething's campaign to return the donation of £200,000.[39]

Personal life

Gething and his wife Michelle live in Penarth, where he has lived since 2011.[17] He is a member of the trade unions GMB, UNISON and Unite.[14][40]

External links

References

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National Assembly for Wales
Preceded by Member of the Senedd for Cardiff South and Penarth
2011–present		 Incumbent
Political offices
Preceded by Deputy Minister for Health
2014–2016		 Succeeded by
Rebecca Evans
Preceded by Minister for Health and Social Services
2016–2021
Preceded by
Trade union offices
Preceded by President of the Wales TUC
2008–2009		 Succeeded by
Paul O'Shea

Template:Current Welsh MSs

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