Cabinet meeting minutes covering devolution’s first crisis have been ‘lost’

Martin Shipton

Crucial Welsh Government Cabinet minutes relating to a major crisis in the first year of devolution have gone missing, it has been revealed.

Former Labour Minister Leighton Andrews, now a Cardiff University professor, is researching the archive of Cabinet minutes for a book on the governance of Wales.

Minutes covering Cabinet meetings during the period when the then National Assembly’s first leader Alun Michael – known at the time as the First Secretary – was ousted in favour of Rhodri Morgan cannot be found.

Opposition Assembly Members passed a motion of no confidence in Mr Michael over his failure to secure funding from Tony Blair’s government at Westminster to match aid around £1.3m in aid money coming from the European Commission.

In the latest post on his Welcome to Ukania blog, Mr Andrews writes: “There are problems with the final collection of minutes for the Alun Michael Welsh Government Cabinets. Two sets of the early 2000 minutes have not come to light as yet, despite searching the relevant National Archives.

“Cabinet meetings in the Alun Michael era are numbered. We know that the first meeting of 2000 on 10 January was the 12th, and the meeting of the 18th January was the 13th. We know that there was a meeting on 31st January, but we don’t immediately know from the archives whether this was the 14th or the 15th as there are no Cabinet minutes extant.

“However, I have now found a paper to the then First Secretary dated 26th January enclosing the minutes of the 10th and 18th January and asking for confirmation of the agenda for next Monday’s Cabinet meeting, which would have been the 31st, so that small bit of detective work makes the meeting on the 31st January 2000 the 14th meeting of the Alun Michael Cabinet. We don’t have the minutes for that meeting so far, but we do have a selection of papers discussed. We don’t have the minutes of the 15th meeting, likely to have been on Tuesday 8 February 2000.

“We do however have a note from the then Counsel General which was ‘considered’ in Cabinet on 8 February according to a hand-written note in the margin). Perhaps it is not surprising that in the turmoil of this period Cabinet minutes for 8 February and 31 January were mislaid or mis-filed.

“The next set of available minutes, counted as the 16th, is for 9 February, the day Alun resigned as First Secretary and the remaining members of the Cabinet met to appoint Rhodri as First Secretary designate.

“I will keep looking, and anyone with further information, please get in touch! We know that the Welsh Government provided its records for filing with the National Archives on an ‘as is’ basis, so the relevant documents either didn’t make it into the appropriate folders or were lost.

“Cabinet on 8 February would have had the following day’s Assembly debate on the Motion of No Confidence firmly in mind.

“The only document I have so far found in the archives in relation to that Cabinet meeting is the advice on procedure given by the then Counsel-General, Winston Roddick, to the Cabinet.

“The Labour Group meeting that day was also advised by the Business Secretary, Andrew Davies, according to contemporary reports, that the opposition parties were planning to use what Rhodri Morgan called ‘the Nagasaki after the Hiroshima’ by stripping the Cabinet of delegated powers. Moreover, assembly chairman Dafyd Elis Thomas was adamant Michael could come back once after a vote of ‘no confidence’ but if the assembly ousted him again, that would be the end.

“After the Motion of No Confidence was passed on 9 February, the Cabinet met during the brief adjournment of the Assembly, as Winston Roddick’s note had suggested it should. After discussion, the Cabinet unanimously agreed to nominate Rhodri Morgan as First Secretary.

“Andrew Davies as Business Secretary then informed the Assembly. Rhodri Morgan then spoke and requested, as the note from Winston Roddick suggested, that the Assembly meet the next day to appoint the new First Secretary formally. The timing of the meeting was of course a matter for the Presiding officer, Dafydd Elis-Thomas, and in fact, the next meeting of the Assembly which did take place was on the 15th February, six days later, by which time Rhodri had held his first Cabinet meeting but as ‘Acting’ First Secretary.

“As there is no single place where the Welsh Government Cabinet minutes prior to Rhodri’s decision to publish them in March 2000 can be located, I will create such an archive with the missing Cabinet minutes, such as we have them, shortly, as an aid to historians and others.”