Gething was sworn in as First Minister in March 2024. Less than two months into his term of office, allegations were raised that he had perjured himself at a COVID-19 inquiry by falsely denying that he had deleted text messages from his phone. In response, Plaid Cymru withdrew from its co-operation agreement with Labour and supported a non-confidence motion introduced by the Welsh Conservatives, which passed by two votes. Gething initially refused to resign, sparking a government crisis, but following a mass resignation of cabinet ministers in July 2024 announced that he would leave office. Eluned Morgan was elected unopposed as his successor and he formally resigned as First Minister in August 2024, making him the shortest-serving holder of the office.[8]
Early life
Humphrey Vaughan ap David Gething[9] was born on 15 March 1974 in Lusaka, Zambia,[10][11][12] where his father, a whiteWelsh veterinarian from Ogmore-by-Sea in Glamorgan, met his mother, who is a black Zambian and was working as a chicken farmer.[13] Gething describes his father as "a white Welsh economic migrant".[13] When he was two years old, he moved to Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, Wales, with his family, which also included three brothers and a sister.[14][13] In Monmouthshire, his family experienced racism when an employer withdrew a job offer to Gething's father upon seeing the rest of his family.[14][15] Speaking of the incident, Gething said: "They said, 'Come back with your family and we'll sign everything up', but he walked in with my mother, and a trail of brown boys, and the job offer got withdrawn".[15] His father eventually found work in Dorset, England, where Gething was brought up.[14]
He served as 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.[17][23] 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.[24] Campbell initially intended to have the vote re-examined in the High Court, but abandoned this because of the estimated cost of £12,000.[25]
In the 2011 National Assembly for Wales election, Gething was selected as the Welsh Labour candidate for the Cardiff South and Penarth constituency in the Senedd, after Lorraine Barrett, who had represented Cardiff South and Penarth since the Senedd's creation in 1999, had stood down from her role. 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.[26][27] At the following 2016 election, Gething was re-elected.[28]
Gething did not support Jeremy Corbyn in either the 2015 or 2016 Labour Party leadership election against challenger Owen Smith; however, he stated in a 2017 BBC Radio Wales interview that he would still like to see Corbyn as prime minister, saying quote, "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".[30][31]
In August 2017, Gething walked away in the middle of an interview on ITV Wales, 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.[32]
Minister for Health and management of the COVID-19 pandemic
Gething served as the Welsh Minister for Health and Social Services during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
On 12 March 2020, despite a steady surge in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Wales and other sporting events getting cancelled, Gething resisted calls to postpone a rugby union match between Wales and Scotland at the Principality Stadium, which was due to be sold-out with 74,000 spectators.[36] On the following day, the Welsh Rugby Union officially cancelled the match.[37] Gething justified his decision in a BBC Radio Wales interview, saying "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".[38]
On 22 April 2020, Gething was caught swearing about fellow Labour MS Jenny Rathbone during a virtual session of the Senedd on Zoom. After Rathbone had asked the Minister a few questions about the Welsh Government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, he failed to mute his microphone as he told an unknown person, "What the fuck is the matter with her?".[39][40] Some undisclosed Labour MSs contacted by BBC Wales said they were also "very angry" over Gething's actions.[39]
In May of the same year, Gething was reportedly photographed by a Sun reporter eating chips with his young son in a local park, prompting criticism by those who suggested he was breaking the COVID-19 restrictions he had imposed himself. Gething denied the accusations, and the Welsh Government stated nothing he had done contravened such regulations.[41]
Gething was questioned at the COVID-19 Inquiry in July 2023, due to his former role as Wales' Minister for Health during the COVID-19 pandemic; in his deposition, he admitted that he had never read a report on Exercise Cygnus, a simulation exercise to estimate the impact of a hypothetical influenza pandemic on the UK population.[42]
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.[43]
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.[44] Miles claimed he was unfairly blocked from the union nomination.[45] An unnamed Unite official was quoted by BBC News as saying that the nomination of Gething was a "shocking mess".[46] Journalist Martin Shipton later uncovered that Gething had only joined Unite a few months beforehand.[47]
On 16 March, Gething emerged victorious with 51.7% of the vote, thus becoming the leader of Welsh Labour.[48][49]
Gething being sworn in as first minister on 20 March 2024
Gething was officially nominated as First Minister by the Senedd on 20 March 2024,[50][51] and presented his cabinet the following day.[52][53] In the process, he became the first black First Minister of Wales,[48] as well as the first black leader of any European country.[49][51] He was appointed to the Privy Council on 28 March 2024 as part of the 2024 Special Honours.[54] He was sworn in as a member of the privy council on 10 April 2024 at Buckingham Palace,[55] entitling him to the honorific prefix "The Right Honourable" for life.
During the inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic response, Gething stated that he had not deliberately deleted any messages from his phone.[56] On 7 May, Nation.Cymru obtained text messages from Gething in a Welsh Government group chat, in which he said "I'm deleting the messages in this group. They can be captured in an FOI [Freedom of Information request] and I think we are all in the right place on the choice being made."[56] Gething denied allegations of perjury put to him in by Rhun ap Iorwerth in First Minister's Questions the same day, describing the allegations as 'obnoxious'.[57] A few days later, he removed Hannah Blythyn from her role as Minister for Social Partnership, alleging that she was the leak of the text messages.[58] She denied this.[59] Blythyn was replaced by Sarah Murphy on 17 May.[60]
^Mercer, Rosie; Deans, David (16 July 2024). "The Welsh first minister who lasted 118 days". BBC News. Retrieved 17 July 2024. Mr Gething, whose full name is Humphrey Vaughan ap David Gething, was born in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, in southern Africa in 1974.
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