Speculation that Vaughan Gething may quit the Senedd earlier than expected

Martin Shipton
Senior Labour figures have suggested that Vaughan Gething may resign from the Senedd in the coming months, triggering a by-election at a difficult time for Welsh Labour.
It’s nearly 10 months since Mr Gething resigned as First Minister in the wake of a succession of scandals.
He accepted donations to his Welsh Labour leadership campaign totalling £200k from a company owned by businessman David Neal, who had been given two suspended prison sentences for dumping toxic sludge in the protected wetlands landscape of the Gwent Levels.
He also told fellow ministers during the pandemic that he was deleting messages in a group chat because they would be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. A screenshot of his incriminating message was leaked to Nation.Cymru.
Ministers and other Members of the Senedd had expressly been told not to delete messages.
Mr Gething later misled the UK Covid-19 Inquiry by saying in a sworn statement that messages had been deleted when his mobile phone was reconditioned by the Senedd’s IT department.
Liability
Eventually Labour came to see Mr Gething as more of a liability than an asset, and he resigned as First Minister in August 2024 after less than five months in the post.
The following month he announced that he would not be seeking re-election as an MS in the 2026 Senedd election. This happened after his successor, Eluned Morgan, said there was no place for him in her Cabinet team.
In recent days Nation.Cymru has spoken to a number of Labour sources about Mr Gething’s future. We were prompted to do so after receiving an email that suggested he might resign his Cardiff South and Penarth seat.
The author of the email said they had been at a wedding where Labour people had openly been talking about the possibility of his resignation.
We then received a message from another Labour source which suggested Mr Gething had asked Eluned Morgan to give him a leading role in a big investment summit being organized by the Welsh Government later this year. According to the source he had said he would resign from the Senedd if his wish was not granted.
As a result, we spoke to a number of other Labour sources, some of whom confirmed they had heard of the possibility that Mr Gething might resign his seat and that this could be linked to his wish to take a prominent role in the investment summit.
‘Insistent’
One said: “He is very insistent that he should have a leading role in the investment summit that Eluned has announced, even though he is now just a backbencher.
“It’s clearly not in Labour’s interest to have a by-election at a time when Reform UK is doing very well in the polls. While Cardiff South and Penarth is one of the least likely Labour seats in Wales to fall to Reform, nothing could be guaranteed, especially at a by-election. It’s a headache Eluned Morgan can do without.”
Another source told us: “There’s concern about Vaughan’s disengagement from the Senedd group. He’s not been attending as regularly as he should. Once he dropped into a virtual meeting dressed very casually. People think he isn’t taking the job seriously or pulling his weight.”
Another Labour source said: “It has also been mentioned that he is hoping to get a job with Rolls Royce.”
One activity Mr Gething has been involved in is promoting a plan by businessman Nigel Roberts to build a business park linked to a proposed railway station called Cardiff Parkway at St Mellons in east Cardiff.
Earlier this year, in her capacity as First Minister, Eluned Morgan granted planning permission for the business park and the station project. Mr Roberts’ company has permission to develop the business park up to an area of 30,000 square metres without starting work on the station.
In March 2024 Rolls Royce Submarines announced plans to create more than 100 white-collar jobs at St Mellons in connection with its role in providing defence nuclear projects connected to the AUKUS military partnership between the United States, Australia and the UK. In addition, Rolls Royce has plans to create a number of small MLR nuclear energy reactors in Wales.
Nuclear energy group
Mr Gething was recently involved in establishing a cross-party group on nuclear energy at the Senedd, which he chairs.
A further Labour source suggested that for family reasons Mr Gething may move to Ireland.
A spokesperson for the Welsh Government said they had no knowledge of these matters. They said Mr Gething may have an involvement in the investment summit because of his previous role as Health Minister, in which capacity he had a knowledge of biosciences, a crucial contributor to Wales’ economy.
We invited Mr Gething to comment, but he did not respond to our message.
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Should have gone sooner if he was just lingering around to bring an empty business park to beautiful green space in East Cardiff.
A new business park in east Cardiff served by its own rail station (within seven minutes of both Cardiff Central and Newport), bus links, car parking and cycle paths, isn’t likely to be empty for very long.
Good to see you read the article properly. 30,000 square metres of development before the station needs to be built. That is 3/5ths of the land. A railway station that has more than quadrupled in price since the first public consultation. That station is not coming for a very long time.
A business park that’s not wholly reliant on there being a rail connection suggests the developers are very confident they can attract businesses even with existing transport infrastructure.
The buildings will remain empty and eventually they will ask for conversion to residential.
Which can be denied, and the park bought cheap by the Welsh Gov.
Isn’t the most likely alternative outcome that a smaller and cheaper station gets built that can still terminate Crossrail services but without the direct connection to London.
This whole project made a lot of sense when it was proposed well before Covid. Business was booming, people needed office space and Cardiff city centre was full. Now there are plenty of empty business spaces in Cardiff. So much so that they are converting office spaces to residential in the bay. The Welsh government refused to reconsider the consultation and see if there was an actual business case for so much office space. They refused to just provide a small commuter station to this part of East Cardiff. Frankly this whole saga just stank and looking at the comments… Read more »
Demand has changed but not in the way you describe. More people want to live in a central location surrounded by the buzz of a city rather than be isolated in a miserable estate of identikit houses. And thanks to hybrid offices must now be very high quality and “Instagrammable” to attract staff in for a day or two each week. That’s why low quality battery cages are being converted to residential, and new offices built in beautiful locations easily accessible by public transport. Why not live in the bay and hop on a 7 minute tram to an office… Read more »
Keep building in beautiful places, there won’t be many left.
Keep building in beautiful places, there won’t be many left.
Your assumption that only places untouched by humans can be beautiful says a lot about your view of humanity.
Your assumption that all nature destroyed by human construction is somehow prettier shows how much you long for Corusant.
Let’s not forget that the Gwent Levels are man-made. It was humans that drained the salt marshes and built the sea defences. The natural ecology was totally changed yet nature adapted and thrived.
It may have been necessary at the time for the Romans. The business park is not necessary at this time.
If the environment is your priority why not campaign to remove the sea defences and recreate the salt marshes. It’s great for climate change as they lock in a lot of CO2.
Without a train station, Rolls Royce won’t come and neither will any of the big players.
Bit of bad luck for Ireland.
I think it would be a very brave decision for the First Minister to associate this man with any business dealings Labour have enough bad publicity as it is. If Reform gain his seat there’s probably enough time for them to show what there’re really about and hopefully lose it in 2026.
I’d say it was highly unlikely that any new MS winning that seat in a by-election would be able to make much of an impact on policy, especially a lone representative from Reform UK.
What they would have, however, is an elevated platform from which to broadcast their grievances — dissatisfaction with the sitting government and exasperation with the current opposition parties.
It’d be a godsend for Farage.
Yes they’d have a platform, but they still wouldn’t have solutions. Hopefully it would expose Reform for what they are.
Just take a trawl of their recently elected councillors as an example.
Sadly, it’s not always necessary to offer solutions — if you can be seen to echo the conversations taking place in clubs, pubs and cafés across the country, that can be enough to win people over.
Look at Brexit. The solutions on offer had more holes in them than a leaky bucket, yet in them saying what many wanted to hear, support became overwhelming.
Let’s hope that the spotlight on those English Reform UK councils highlights the dangers we’ll face this side of the border. This is where the media in Wales need to step up to the plate.
I’m surprised Vaughan Gething’s hung on for so long. The sad thing is. He became the first black leader to run a European country. An accolade his family were so proud of no doubt. But he inexplicably threw it all away? He could have admitted an error of judgement. And simply gave back his £200k leadership campaign donation he received from that twice convicted businessman. But he didn’t. For some unexplained reason he arrogantly decided to dig in his heels, paid with his job as First Minister, and now his political career. There a moral in this tale. Take tainted… Read more »
My hunch is that the ‘unexplained reason’ is simply the one which you’ve suggested: arrogance.
His only mistake was upsetting the elite.
As he’d spent the money to get himself elected he himself said he didn’t have the money to give back – at least an admission that he did something that shouldn’t have happened.
£200k goes a long way in the politics of this country, maybe got him that extra 1.7% of the vote he needed. To me the scandal made the result null and void, even retrospectively. The shame was on him and not our country. I look forward to celebrating the first ever fairly elected black European leader, when it does happen.
What rules were broken? There’s nothing wrong with campaign donations, there’s nothing wrong with spending it on a campaign, there’s no limits to these donations, there’s no requirement that the donor has a clean slate. Heck, Farage might even get £100m from overseas donor of questionable morality because the rules are that lax. If you don’t like these rules they should be changed. Otherwise it’s for the electorate and only the electorate to judge the wisdom of accepting them.
When Vaughan Gethin was economy minister, he authorised 3 payments to the Dauson group from the Development bank of Wales. Then he receives campaign money from this same company some tim later. And you can’t see a problem with that?
https://nation.cymru/news/vaughan-gethings-campaign-bankrolled-by-company-run-by-director-given-a-suspended-jail-sentence/
What was the outcome of the investigation?
A candidate cannot return donated money if its already been spent on the campaign.
Others have already pointed this out but it’s worth saying again. No matter how bad the optics surrounding Gething’s leadership, he hasn’t actually broken any of the rules which regulate our democracy, and neither has he been charged with any wrongdoing in a court of law.
One of his colleagues offered to loan him the money to return it back. He declined.
So he could have returned it.
Learnt from it, apologised and moved on.
The fact that neither of you can see what was wrong with this donation is deeply worrying. So you don’t see anything wrong with him effectively using tax payers money to boost his chances of becoming a leader?
I suspect that regardless of whether Gething returned the money or not, this wouldn’t have changed people’s feelings towards him. As it is, he may have lost the top job, but at least he’s not £200,000 in debt. “As I have made clear before, I don’t have £200,000 to pay anybody back. I’m not sure if the member has access to that ready cash; I certainly don’t” Gething, June 2024. The donations came from Dauson Environmental Group, not the Development Bank of Wales. I’ve presented the facts here, Amir, and haven’t said that I agreed with Gething’s decision to accept… Read more »
The member had the money.
Please provide that evidence. Thank you.
What was the outcome of the investigation?
He got kicked out of his leadership role. Justice prevailed but delayed.
All the investigations into Gething’s handling of the donations were dropped because he was found not to have broken any rules in relation to the election or as a Member of the Senedd.
Gething lost a no confidence vote in the Senedd which is something entirely different.
It started for this reason.
What started, and for what reason?
He lost his career without due process.
No, he lost this incredibly unique opportunity for a person of colour to ascend to because he refused to admit that he was wrong. Maybe even to himself.
The lack of due process should worry everyone.
Why? He resigned. No one had confidence on him to lead.
He got into politics in the first place by publicly and blatantly breaking the rules, knowing that an investigation to reverse the result would cost money that the other candidates didn’t have.
He started as a bad egg, then ended as a very bad egg with the public money cashback from a corrupt toxic criminal.
Politicians who set up rules and regulations for themselves are irrelevant compared to basic moral and ethical standards.
The latter prevailed and he’s gone, his reputation now means he may also be gone from the country for good!
Pushed out by our two-tier politics without a chance to prove himself.
He resigned in disgrace and is now behaving appallingly in search of one last big payday. I think you’ll find there is little sympathy within the Labour Party in Wales now apart from his little grifting clique.
Except no formal process found against him so the only “disgrace” was confected. At least rogue states manage a show trial first. Does innocent until proven guilty mean nothing to you?
The money he accepted should have been returned.
On what grounds?
This is just repeating for the sake of time wasting. I have already explained it above. Feel free to actually dissect my above explanation rather than just repeating yourself please.
What rules were broken? This wasn’t answered.
I have already said that. He used tax payer money to fund his leadership campaign.
Except that no formal process has found against him. How do you explain that?
He did not agree to an independent enquiry. Nothing less would do.
That’s not the only recourse.
If he was confident he had done nothing wrong, he would have agreed to an independent enquiry.
If his opponents were confident there had been serious wrongdoing they would’ve taken it much further.
If he hadn’t resigned then they would have.
So no formal process has found against him. Innocent until proven guilty. Isn’t that how it works?
He chose to resign
He didn’t choose to resign.
We all have choices in life. He needs to reflect on the ones he made. I hope he finds his way back. I wish him well.
We all need to reflect on our two-tier politics. Some glide their way to the top, while others have rocks thrown in their path at every turn. This overt rigging of the system by the elite is driving Reform’s growth.
Reform UK will put up Lee Canning or John Rees Evans as candidates! I can’t wait to see their incompetence in action!
The same Reform UK’s Lee Canning who hangs out with the racists at Voice of Wales. Of course Reform UK aren’t a far-right racist party. LOL.
We haven’t seen him on Voice of Wales’ channel yet. Have you?
And the same Lee Canning who stood for the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party, opposed the existence of the Welsh National Football Team despite coming from Northern Ireland?
I have met Mr Gething a few times in a work context, and I regard him as a capable administrator who managed his remit with competence and professionalism. You can laugh If you want, but he was far better than many Labour or Plaid portfolio holders who I’ve met. However, whilst he managed his particular remit well, he always struggled to articulate a compelling long-term vision or a bold policy direction. This sums up ‘Labour 2025’, especially in Westminster; technically proficient (mostly!) but ideologically vague, and just lacking that ambition needed to inspire transformative change. I just saw Bridget Phillipson… Read more »
Unfortunately Peter, he’s shown himself to be a corrupt liar.
Which lie has been proven? Is there evidence he actually deleted messages? Saying you’re doing something isn’t the same as actually doing it.
Are you interested in buying a bridge?
Saying you’re doing something isn’t the same as actually doing it.
Well quite, Bradley. If we look at Tory and Plaid donations over a similar period, they are hardly smelling of roses either.
Did anyone ever find out why Plaid came to acquire £500k of undeclared public funding, for which it was fined by the electoral commission? To me, that was far worse than Gething’s issue.
To quote Blair: “If we don’t have rules, we get prejudices”.
Wait a minute. The YouGov poll from earlier this month showed that in Cardiff and South Central Wales, Plaid Cymru were polling at 32%; Reform 22%; Labour 21% and Conservatives on 12% for Senedd elections, whilst the Green Party came second in the constituency at the general election last year. Labour insiders are clearly trying to mislead people into thinking that Reform are the main opposition in this constituency so that they can peddle the usual scare tactics of trying to persuade voters that if you don’t vote Labour, you’ll end up with one of Farage’s mob winning the seat.… Read more »