THE first minster will face a 'vote of no confidence' in his leadership in the Senedd on Wednesday.

The Welsh Conservatives have called upon the vote on Vaughan Gething, following the collapse of the cooperation deal between Labour and Plaid Cymru and a series of rows involving Mr Gething.

Concerns have been raised after Mr Gething accepted a donation from a man convicted of environmental offences during his run to be Welsh Labour leader.

In a plenary held at the Senedd today (Tuesday, June 4), Andrew RT Davies said: "Yesterday BBC broadcasted a programme called The Big Stink. You had to feel sympathy and empathy for the poor people of Wythyedge who are suffering the smells and odours coming from that tip. You took £200,000 as a leadership donation from that company.

"We learned from the programme yesterday that that company was under criminal investigation. Can you confirm when you knew that that company was under criminal investigation?"

First Minister Vaughan Gething responded with: "Well of course I feel sympathy for anyone directly affected by the issues raised in the programme around the operating of a site.

"The member will know, and I draw attention again to my register of interests. But actually, this is an area where it would be wholly improper or inappropriate for me to know about the investigation that the BBC reported on. 

"That's when I was first aware of it, when it was reported on.

"Either in my role as a constituency member for Cardiff South and Penarth, or indeed my role as a minister within the government.

"It would simply not be appropriate for me to be informed of any type of investigation going on into the operation of the site in Pembrokeshire.

"How could I know about the investigation taking place, and I should not know, that's the point. Whoever is undertaking the investigation, need to be able to undertake the investigation without fear or favour, and come to whatever the right outcome is to see the improvement that could and should be made."

Andrew RT Davies then asked, "what due diligence was actually undertaken, given that you were in receipt of the largest political donation in Welsh political history?

"Leave alone the other donations but on this specific £200,000 donation, given that you said you didn't know the criminal investigation was being undertaken until, I'm assuming last week because that's when the BBC put it to you, what due diligence were you and your team undertaking as any reasonable person would expect to been undertaken on a donation of that size?"

The First Minister responded: "Well of course we undertook all the due diligence we were required to. That's exactly what happened.

"And again, even the BBC programme could not find an instance where any of the rules had been broken. So we undertook due diligence. And again, I come back to the point that is being made.

"It would be improper and inappropriate for me to know about an investigation, whether undertaken by a regulator or any other authority with the ability to bring criminal proceedings, there would be no basis for me to be informed of, and I should not be informed of that.

"That is the point. And I just don't think there is much reasonable ground for a reasonable person to go over, I've answered these questions repeatedly and I'll carry on repeatedly responding, honestly and truthfully. And I should also just correct the member, the largest political donation in Welsh political history was actually made to Plaid Cymru."

The full plenary can be found here.

The debate is scheduled to begin shortly after 4pm on Wednesday, June 5, with the vote itself happening around 6.10pm.

The debate will be available to watch on the Senedd website.