Vaughan Gethin lost covid WhatsApp messages, inquiry told

Vaughan Gething, the health minister during the coronavirus pandemic, has defended his use of mobile phone messages at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.

Tom Poole KC, the lead counsel for the inquiry, started Monday’s hearing by asking Mr Gething, who is in the running to be the country’s next first minister, about his use of WhatsApp messaging and why many were erased.

Mr Gething said: “It is a matter of real embarrassment, because if I’d been able to recover those messages then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

He blamed a “security rebuild” for their deletion and said he had spoken with the IT team at the Senedd on multiple occasions to attempt to get them back.

Mr Gething insisted that the messages were used in place of “conversations you have in the corridor” which were no longer possible during the pandemic and not for decision-making or to “circumvent processes within the government.”

The inquiry was shown Welsh government advice, which said that “any and all” official business conducted through personal mobiles and email must be “summarised and saved”.

Mr Gething accepted that, having now looked into the rules “in much more detail” and that he should not have used the messages in the way he did.

He said: “I think we need to have a review going forward about what we do need to capture in record keeping and what is incidental.

“I think when you look at the records that are available, they do reflect the way in which we made choices and the reasons for them.”

He added: “I certainly do regret the fact that all those messages aren’t available to you because you could see them and satisfy yourself that all of the information there is consistent with all the information in the records you do have in front of you.”