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.
