Review of Welsh Labour leadership election process to get going two years late

Martin Shipton

Former First Minister Lord Carwyn Jones will finally take forward a long-awaited review into the process of electing Welsh Labour leaders after the Senedd election, he has confirmed.

The review was commissioned in April 2024 in the wake of controversy surrounding Vaughan Gething’s acceptance of donations to his leadership campaign totalling £200,000 from a businessman who had received two suspended prison sentences for environmental crimes.

Mr Gething made the review announcement in an interview with ITV Wales’ Sharp End.

He said: “As the leader of Welsh Labour, I’ve attended a very harmonious and positive meeting of the Welsh executive just this weekend gone, at which we have honoured my commitment to have a proper review of the elections process.

“Campaign finances is one of the issues to be agreed.

“Carwyn Jones, at my request, has agreed to chair that review, and it will report back to the chief executive of Welsh Labour in September.”

Lord Jones had previously criticised Mr Gething for taking the donations, branding the decision “unfortunate” and that “lessons need to be learned”.

Both the Conservatives and Plaid Cymru called for an independent investigation into the donations and a potential conflict of interest after it was revealed that the Development Bank of Wales (DBW), which is owned by the Welsh Government, had loaned the company £400,000.

The loan from DBW was given to Neal Soil Suppliers – a subsidiary of the Dauson Environmental Group which donated to Mr Gething – in 2023 to help purchase a solar farm.

David Neal, who owns Dauson, had twice been convicted of environmental offences involving the dumping of toxic waste in the sensitive wetlands landscape of the Gwent Levels.

Andrew RT Davies, the then leader of the Welsh Conservative Senedd group, said at the time: “A review in which Welsh Labour mark their own homework will not command the confidence of the wider public.

“There are direct questions to be answered about the perception of a conflict of interest over Gething’s donations that relate to the Ministerial Code, and they are not just questions for the Labour Party.

“Gething must now accept that a full, independent investigation is the only way to address the widely held concerns over his campaign finances.”

Pressure mounted on Mr Gething when Nation.Cymru revealed that he had deleted messages exchanged with ministerial colleagues at the height of the Covid crisis in order to avoid the possibility of their disclosure in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

Months later, Mr Gething resigned as Welsh Labour leader and First Minister after a number of ministers quit, saying they had no confidence in him.

Yet two years after Lord Jones was asked to chair a working group that would make recommendations about how Welsh Labour leadership elections should be run in future, and 19 months after the report’s intended delivery date, the work remains undone.

Senedd election

Lord Jones said: “A number of things have got in the way. There was the Caerphilly by-election and now the Senedd election.

“The people in the group I’m chairing were appointed by the party’s Welsh Executive Committee. We’ve had one meeting and we’ll resume after the Senedd election, in June.

“We won’t be looking at any individuals. But we’ll be discussing how leadership elections should be run.”

He agreed that one of the areas to be looked at would be whether there should be a limit on donations.

“I’d expect the work to take a few months – it’s in nobody’s interest, including Vaughan’s, to delay it further than necessary.”

Labour sources have said that Mr Gething is being lined up for a peerage, but that no announcement will be made before the Senedd election to avoid a possible negative impact on the party’s vote.

According to some polls, Welsh Labour’s current leader and First Minister Eluned Morgan is likely to lose her seat, in which case a leadership election of some kind would be necessary.