Vaughan Gething facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Vaughan Gething
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Official portrait, 2024
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| First Minister of Wales | |
| Assumed office 20 March 2024 |
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| Monarch | Charles III |
| Preceded by | Mark Drakeford |
| Leader of Welsh Labour | |
| Assumed office 16 March 2024 |
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| Deputy | Carolyn Harris |
| Preceded by | Mark Drakeford |
| Succeeded by | TBC |
| Minister for the Economy | |
| In office 13 May 2021 – 20 March 2024 |
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| First Minister | Mark Drakeford |
| Preceded by | Ken Skates |
| Succeeded by | Jeremy Miles |
| Minister for Health and Social Services | |
| In office 19 May 2016 – 13 May 2021 |
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| First Minister | Carwyn Jones Mark Drakeford |
| Preceded by | Mark Drakeford |
| Succeeded by | The Baroness Morgan of Ely |
| Deputy Minister for Health | |
| In office 11 September 2014 – 19 May 2016 |
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| First Minister | Carwyn Jones |
| Minister | Mark Drakeford |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Rebecca Evans |
| Deputy Minister for Tackling Poverty | |
| In office 26 June 2013 – 11 September 2014 |
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| First Minister | Carwyn Jones |
| Minister | Jeffrey Cuthbert |
| Member of the Senedd for Cardiff South and Penarth |
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| Assumed office 6 May 2011 |
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| Preceded by | Lorraine Barrett |
| Majority | 10,606 (29.2%) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 15 March 1974 Lusaka, Zambia |
| Nationality | Welsh |
| Political party | Labour and Co-operative |
| Spouse | Michelle Gething |
| Alma mater | Aberystwyth University University of Cardiff |
| Occupation | Solicitor, trade unionist |
| Signature |  |
Humphrey Vaughan ap David Gething (born 15 March 1974) is a Welsh Labour and Co-operative Party politician who is currently serving as First Minister of Wales and leader of Welsh Labour since 2024. He previously served as the Minister for Health and Social Services from 2016 to 2021 and Minister for the Economy from 2021 to 2024. He has been the Member of the Senedd (MS) for Cardiff South and Penarth since 2011.
Gething's time as Health Minister was dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2024, Gething won the Welsh Labour leadership election to replace Mark Drakeford and become First Minister, making him the first black leader of any European country. In July 2024, Gething resigned as First Minister, making him the shortest serving First Minister since the role was created.
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Early life
Humphrey Vaughan ap David Gething was born in Zambia on 15 March 1974, where his father, a white Welsh veterinarian from Ogmore-by-Sea in Glamorgan, met his mother, who is a black Zambian and was working as a chicken farmer. Gething describes his father as "a white Welsh economic migrant". When he was two years old, he moved to Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, Wales, with his family, which also included three brothers and a sister. In Monmouthshire, his family experienced racism when an employer withdrew a job offer to Gething's father upon seeing the rest of his family. 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". His father eventually found work in Dorset, England, where Gething was brought up.
Gething studied at Beaminster Comprehensive and Sixth Form in Dorset, followed by Aberystwyth University, where he graduated with a degree in Law in 1999; he then attended the University of Cardiff Law School, University of Wales. During his academic career, Gething became President of Aberystwyth University Guild of Students, as well as the first black president of the National Union of Students Wales.
Professional career
Having completed his training as a solicitor with the trade union firm Thompsons in Cardiff in 2001, Gething chose to specialise in employment law. He became a partner in Thompsons in 2007.
In 2008, at the age of 34, Gething became the youngest President of Wales TUC, also becoming the first black person to serve in the role.
Political career
Gething joined the Labour Party when he was 17, to campaign in the 1992 UK general election. He contested Mid and West Wales for Labour in the inaugural elections to the National Assembly for Wales in 1999, but was not elected.
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. 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. Campbell initially intended to have the vote re-examined in the High Court, but abandoned this because of the estimated cost of £12,000.
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 announced her intention to stand 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. At the following 2016 election, Gething was re-elected.
Following the 2016 election, First Minister Carwyn Jones promoted Gething to the Welsh Cabinet, nominating him as Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport.
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".
Gething, alongside Eluned Morgan and Mark Drakeford, was one of the three contenders in the 2018 election for the leadership of Welsh Labour, but was defeated by the latter candidate. Drakeford subsequently re-appointed Gething in the Welsh Cabinet, by nominating him as Health Minister, with the position renamed as Minister for Health and Social Services.
On 13 May 2021, Gething was appointed as new Minister for the Economy, replacing Ken Skates.
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. On the following day, the Welsh Rugby Union announced that the match was officially cancelled. 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".
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.
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.
2024 Labour leadership election
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.
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. Miles claimed he was unfairly blocked from the union nomination. An unnamed Unite official was quoted by BBC News as saying that the nomination of Gething was a "shocking mess". Journalist Martin Shipton later uncovered that Gething had only joined Unite a few months beforehand.
On 16 March, it was announced that Gething had won the election with 51.7% of the vote, thus becoming the leader of Welsh Labour, and would be the new First Minister of Wales.
First minister (2024)
Gething was officially nominated as First Minister by the Senedd on 20 March 2024, and announced his cabinet the following day. In the process, he became the first black First Minister of Wales, as well as the first black leader of any European country. His appointment to His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council was announced on 28 March 2024 as part of the 2024 Special Honours.
During the inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic response, Gething stated that he had not deliberately deleted any messages from his phone. 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." 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'. 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. She denied this. Blythyn was replaced by Sarah Murphy on 17 May.
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On 17 May, Rhun ap Iorwerth announced that Plaid Cymru had withdrawn from the co-operation agreement with Welsh Labour, saying "I remain deeply concerned that the First Minister has failed to pay back the £200,000 donation to his leadership campaign from a company convicted of environmental offences, and believe it demonstrates a significant lack of judgment." Gething responded by saying that "The co-operation agreement was about mature politics, working together on areas where we agree. While it was always a time-limited agreement, we are disappointed Plaid Cymru has decided to walk away from their opportunity to deliver for the people of Wales."
On 5 June, after just 78 days as First Minister, Gething faced a non-binding vote of no-confidence in him as First Minister, tabled by the Welsh Conservatives, in which he lost by a margin of 29 votes to 27. Welsh Labour MSs Hannah Blythyn and Lee Waters were not present due to illness. Prior to the vote Gething and his allies described the no-confidence motion as a 'gimmick'. Gething responded by saying "I'm here, proud to be the first minister of Wales to serve and lead my country." It was the second such motion to happen, the first being against fellow Cardiff South and Penarth member Alun Michael in 2000.
Despite losing the no confidence vote, Gething announced he would not resign as First Minister on 8 June. However, on 16 July he announced his resignation an hour after ministers Mick Antoniw, Julie James, Lesley Griffiths and Jeremy Miles stepped down from their posts.
Personal life
Gething and his wife Michelle live in Penarth, where he has lived since 2011. He is a member of the trade unions GMB, UNISON and Unite.
See also
In Spanish: Vaughan Gething para niños
