Covid: Welsh Labour ministers accused of failure at inquiry

The Welsh government has been accused of a "catastrophic failure" to prepare for a pandemic.

Giving evidence on the first day of the UK Covid Inquiry, the Covid Bereaved Families for Justice Wales group said vulnerable groups in Wales suffered "more severe consequences" as a result.

It also accused Labour ministers of trying to shift responsibility.

The first minister repeatedly refused to answer a question about his response to Covid in the Senedd on Tuesday.

He told the Welsh Parliament the matter "ought" to be pursued in the inquiry, not the Welsh Parliament.

Wales' pandemic preparedness will be considered as part of the UK-wide Covid inquiry, after calls for a Wales-specific inquiry were rejected by the Welsh government.

First Minister Mark Drakeford and the then Health Minister Vaughan Gething are expected to be called to give evidence to the UK inquiry.

The Welsh families group told the inquiry the Welsh government "do not appear to have taken sufficient steps to understand and plan for the risks of a pandemic as they would present in Wales."

Speaking on behalf of the group, barrister Kirsten Heaven said that this had "led to much more severe consequences from Covid-19 for vulnerable groups and communities" in Wales.

The group also accused the Welsh government of trying to "shift responsibility" over pandemic planning onto the Senedd and civil service.

"The Welsh government have had 24 years since devolution to plan for such a pandemic in a way that best protected the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our society," Ms Heaven told the hearing in London.

"It is deeply shocking to the Cymru group that those with political responsibility for protecting people in Wales from a pandemic did not consider it their job to understand and check the state of pandemic preparedness and resilience in Wales.

"Instead there now seems to be a distinct attempt to shift responsibility for the oversight of pandemic planning implementation onto civil servants, officials and the Senedd.

"This gives the inquiry an insight into the Welsh government's approach to pandemic planning in the years before Covid-19, and their willingness now to accept some responsibility for what went wrong."

Ms Heaven said that the Welsh government had failed to take "sufficient steps" to understand and plan for the risks of a pandemic for Wales, despite UK-wide warnings.

"Wales and the Welsh government did not have an adequate understanding of the risks posed to the people of Wales from the pandemic before and during the relevant period and this led to much more severe consequences from Covid-19 for vulnerable groups and communities in Wales," she said.

"For example, pandemic preparedness failed to take account of the acute health inequalities in Wales, distinct from the rest of the UK, and that specifically included levels of chronic ill-health and disability in the older population."

In the Senedd, Mark Drakeford repeatedly refused to answer a question about whether it was right for people to have been discharged to care homes during the pandemic, without having been tested for Covid.

Mr Drakeford's comments came in a fiery exchange with the Welsh Conservative Senedd leader Andrew RT Davies, who accused the first minister of hiding something.

Mr Davies told the first minister that a pandemic preparedness exercise had identified in 2016 that discharging to care homes was a "major risk and major concern".

"Do you agree that was a risk too far ,and that discharging patients from hospitals to care homes without testing should not have happened," he asked.

Mr Drakeford welcomed the first day of full hearings at the inquiry but said "matters that the leader of the opposition raises are now matters for the inquiry".

Mr Davies pressed again: "If all of a sudden, all this is going to be taken off the table, what is the point of the Welsh Parliament?"

The first minister repeated his point, and said it was "disrespectful to the inquiry to try to shift the responsibility that they have into questions to me here".

Mr Davies asked the same question again: "Are you hiding from something first minister?"

"I think the leader of the opposition let himself down," Mr Drakeford said, claiming ministers in Holyrood and Westminster would have the same answer.

"The place I believe where those questions are to be pursued, is where they ought to be, in the independent inquiry that has been established for that purpose, and that is what ministers in his government will be saying in Westminster as well."