Wales' former health minister has said he is "incredibly hard working" and it is unfair to have expected him to have read a key report into how ready Wales was for a pandemic.
Last week Mr Gething, who is now economy minister but was responsible for health throughout the pandemic, told the UK Covid Inquiry that he had never read the report into Exercise Cygnus. This was a three-day simulation exercise carried out by the UK Government in October 2016 to estimate the impact of a hypothetical influenza pandemic on the United Kingdom. It found serious shortcomings in how ready we were to deal with this kind of scenario.
Mr Gething, who is believed to have ambitions to be First Minister when Mark Drakeford steps down, was widely criticised for the admission. In First Minister's Questions yesterday the leader of the opposition Andrew RT Davies raised the issue only for Mark Drakeford to launch a flawed defence of his health minister. You can read this full story here.
Read more: Vaughan Gething admits he never read major report into how ready UK was for pandemic before Covid
Speaking today to BBC presenter James Williams on Radio Wales Breakfast, Vaughan Gething suggested that it wasn't reasonable to expect him to read the document. He was asked by James Davies: "Just a week on from you giving evidence to the UK wide Covid inquiry. You were criticised here in the Senedd yesterday for not reading the pandemic preparation paperwork until you were preparing for last week's evidence session. How do you respond to that criticism?"
Mr Gething responded: "As I said, in the inquiry itself, the papers that referred to me in the inquiry were operational matters from within the system. And you don't get the ability as a minister to read around your subject, to go roving around looking for work. I read every single briefing on pandemic preparedness and with respect again, the leader of the opposition, recast what was said in the inquiry to something that was not said...."
The presenter then cut across him saying: "You said in the inquiry that you didn't read the Operation Cygnus report, even though you had taken part in the exercise itself, it was a roleplay exercise to see how prepared the UK would be for a pandemic."
A clearly annoyed economy minister responded: "Well, with respect to James, that is an unfair characterization, because the Operation Cygnus report was a Public Health England report. And it was a report that was delivered within the health and care and emergency planning system which was for officials talking to officials. Every single briefing that I had, including the briefing about lesson learning, post Cygnus and work being done, I read, and I considered and I made decisions on.
"You cannot be the health minister without being incredibly hard working, or indeed my current position as the economy minister. I work very hard, because I enjoy the job that I do and I recognise all the challenges. The idea that I don't read the papers that are provided to me to make decisions on simply isn't true. That isn't the evidence I gave. And it isn't what the First Minister said in the chamber either or indeed in the inquiry."
