Welsh Labour vows to carry on as Vaughan Gething loses vote of no confidence
First Minister of Wales Vaughan Gething has refused to resign after losing a confidence motion in the Welsh Parliament this afternoon.
The Conservatives have put forward the vote of no confidence following criticism of donations received by Gething’s campaign for the leadership of the Welsh Labour Party.
Gething, who was visibly emotional during the motion debate, lost the no confidence vote in part due to two Labour colleagues being ill. He lost the motion by 29 votes to 27.
With Labour holding 30 of the 60 seats in the parliament, Gething would need all of his Labour colleagues to back him.
However, the chair of the Labour group in the Senedd Vikki Howells earlier told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast that two members are unwell and will be unable to vote.
During debate on the motion, Howells, accused the Conservatives of trying to “shift the spotlight from their own record of abject failure.”
She added: “I believe it would be a travesty for this non-binding Tory gimmick of a motion was to be used to subvert democracy.”
Gething has come under fire over a campaign donation from a company owned by an individual who was previously convicted of environmental offences.
Plaid Cymru’s Heledd Fychan, said: “You must know deep down this is wrong, and you must regret accepting the money.
“It’s not too late to stop hiding behind the rules, and loophole in them. It is not too late to apologise.”
Gething has previously signalled that he would not stand down as First Minister if he lost the vote.
A Labour spokesperson told LabourList: “Today’s motion is a political stunt from the Tory party aided and abetted by Plaid Cymru.
“The motion does a disservice to the Senedd. If the Tories and Plaid believe that they together represent the views and values of the people of Wales, they should submit a vote of no confidence in the government.
“These games have a real life impact. Today it meant that Wales was not fully represented at the D-Day commemorations in Portsmouth.
“Vaughan is now heading to Normandy to represent Wales at tomorrow’s commemoration event. Vaughan is focussed on delivering for our NHS and the economy and helping to return the UK Labour Government Wales is crying out for.”
Vaughan Gething’s 77 days in office have been plagued by scandal, with concerns over donations and leaked messages to the media.
FIRST MINISTER OF WALES VAUGHAN GETHING IS FACING A VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE (BEN BIRCHALL/PA)
GEORGE THOMPSON1
Since Vaughan Gething became the leader of Wales in March his time in office has been plagued by scandal.
Questions continue to be raised over a £200,000 donation to his Welsh Labour leadership campaign, while a row over a leaked message led to him sacking one of his ministers.
This led Plaid Cymru, which has been in a co-operation agreement with the Government, to withdraw support.
Mr Gething has been First Minister for 77 days, having succeeded Mark Drakeford in March.
He has been under pressure over a donation from the Dauson Environmental Group, which is owned by David Neal, who has twice been convicted of environmental offences.
Mr Gething took the £200,000, which was the largest individual donation in Welsh government history, during his bid to be Welsh Labour leader.
The decision led to questions about his judgment, including from his own benches, with MS Lee Waters saying he was “deeply uncomfortable” about the situation.
Concerns about a possible conflict of interest with the money coming from a company which was loaned £400,000 by the Welsh government-owned Development Bank of Wales (DBW) then arose.
The loan from the DBW was given to Neal Soil Suppliers – a subsidiary of Dauson – in 2023 to help purchase a solar farm, at a time when Mr Gething was economy minister.
It also emerged during the leadership campaign that Mr Gething had lobbied Natural Resources Wales (NRW) on behalf of one of Mr Neal’s companies in 2018.
Mr Gething has always insisted that he cannot take any decision relating to Dauson – which is based in his constituency – and the DBW is entirely independent of ministers.
He has also stressed that no rules were broken when he took the money.
But Plaid cited the donation as one of the reasons for ending its co-operation agreement in the Senedd with the Welsh Labour administration.
Mr Gething’s dismissal of the minister for social partnership, Hannah Blythyn, following the leak of a phone message to the media was also highlighted by Plaid leader Rhun ap Iorwerth in his decision to end the agreement with Labour.
Ms Blythyn strongly denied leaking anything and said she was “deeply shocked” at her dismissal.
The First Minister’s decision followed a report on the Nation.Cymru news website which featured a message posted to a ministerial group chat in August 2020 by Mr Gething, stating that he was “deleting the messages in this group”.
He said the leaked message was from a section of an iMessage group chat with other Labour ministers and related to internal discussions within the Senedd Labour group.
Mr Gething previously told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that lost WhatsApp messages were not deleted by him, but by the Welsh Parliament’s IT team during a security rebuild.
He denied the leaked message contradicted the evidence he had given to the inquiry, adding that it did not relate to pandemic decision-making but “comments that colleagues make to and about each other”.
Following the collapse of the deal between Plaid and Labour, the Welsh Conservatives submitted a motion of no confidence in the First Minister.
The motion is not a formal confidence vote and will be non-binding.
However, it would be deeply embarrassing for the First Minister were he to lose, and would indicate that he does not have the support of the Senedd.
When Humza Yousaf, the former SNP First Minister of Scotland, faced a similar vote he stepped down from his post ahead of it taking place.
Since the vote was called, Mr Gething has faced fresh questions about Mr Neal and his donation.
On Monday, a BBC investigation uncovered that one of Mr Neal’s companies was under a new criminal investigation by NRW over noxious smells at a landfill site in Pembrokeshire, South Wales.
But Mr Gething has insisted he could and should not have known about the latest NRW investigation, insisting it would have been “inappropriate” for him to know.
No comments:
Post a Comment