Covid inquiry: Missing messages 'a real embarrassment' - Gething

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.

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.

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.

Mr Gething also told the inquiry that one of his regrets from his handling of the pandemic was that he had not kept schools open for longer.

He said that the Welsh government had the understanding that schools were part of transmission of the virus.

"Home isn't a safe space for every adult - and home isn't a safe space for every child," he said.

"It's one of my regrets that we couldn't keep schools open for longer," he said.

The economy minister also defended some of the government's decisions during the pandemic, including a mandatory stay at home order in March 2020, which he described as "absolutely necessary".

"I don't think there was a way to avoid the first lockdown, I really don't. I don't think we could have justified non-acting at that point," he said.

Mr Gething was also asked about "Chipgate", when he was photographed eating chips with his family while out for a walk.

Picnics were banned, but Mr Gething said the rules allowed people to buy and eat takeaway food while out for their daily exercise.

"The rules said you could buy takeaway food, eat that and move on," he said.

"But once you're starting to trying to explain all of that, you have people wanting to throw sand in everyone's face."

He previously denied changing rules to permit people to sit and eat while out exercising due to the row over the chips.

"We wanted to make the rules easier to understand," he told the inquiry.

Bereaved families who spoke to the BBC at the inquiry were not impressed by what they heard from Mr Gething, and Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Mr Gething "talks a lot, but doesn't make sense".

This is the final week of the inquiry in Wales, and on Tuesday the inquiry will hear from Jeremy Miles, Minister for Education and Welsh Language, and who is competing with Mr Gething to become Wales' new first minister.

They are vying to replace Mark Drakeford, who will address the inquiry on Wednesday, before stepping down from his role a few days later.