Vaughan Gething gave evidence to the UK Covid inquiry in Wales
By Antonia Matthews & Catriona Aitken
BBC News
Wales’ former health minister has said that it was “a matter of real embarrassment” that messages were deleted from his phone during the pandemic.
Vaughan Gething, who is running to become Wales’ next first minister, made the comments at the Covid inquiry.
The Welsh leg of the inquiry previously heard that messages had been deleted.
“I certainly do regret that all these messages are not available to you,” Mr Gething told the inquiry.
Mr Gething led Wales’ health response for the first two waves of the pandemic before he became economy minister in May 2021.
Education Minister Jeremy Miles, who appears at the inquiry on Tuesday, is the only other candidate to become the next Welsh Labour leader. The new leader will be announced on Saturday.
On Monday, inquiry counsel Tom Poole KC asked Mr Gething about his use of informal methods of communication, including WhatsApp.
Mr Gething said it was prohibited to make decisions using WhatsApp, but added it was never his understanding it was prohibited to have a discussion about things using the messaging app.
Image source, Getty Images
Vaughan Gething said hospitals used up personal protective equipment fast
He says WhatsApp “essentially became a substitute for conversations you had in the corridor” and he was in several WhatsApp groups with other ministers.
Quizzed about missing WhatsApp messages from during the pandemic period, Mr Gething said that he handed in his Senedd mobile phone in 2022 for maintenance, which was when the messages were wiped.
He said he thought these would be backed up, but after several meetings with tech support teams, was unable to recover them.
Inadequate preparation
Mr Gething accepted there was inadequate preparation for the wrong pandemic during Monday’s hearing.
Government planning had involved preparing for a flu pandemic – and because Covid was a different virus “we went through PPE (personal protective equipment) at a much faster rate” and “some of the items weren’t fit for purpose”, he said.
Mr Gething told the inquiry “the preparation we thought we had didn’t stand up as well as we thought it would in those early weeks”, adding there was a “bridge to be gapped” between expectation and reality.
“So, in hindsight we weren’t as well prepared as we could have been and we weren’t as well prepared as we thought we were – and that’s not just in Wales but the rest of the UK,” the former health minister said.
