Drakeford denies hypocrisy over Morgan drive ban
WALES’S First Minister has been accused of “double standards” for reacting very differently to the law-breaking of Boris Johnson and that of his own Health Minister Eluned Morgan. The Prime Minister was given a fixed penalty notice last month for breaking his own Covid laws by attending a party for his birthday in No. 10.
He is known to have been present at least two more of the 12 events being investigated by the Metropolitan Police, meaning he could be fined again. Mr Johnson is facing a future investigation by the Commons privileges committee, after MPS gave the go-ahead last month.
Meanwhile, Wales’s Health Minister Eluned Morgan pleaded guilty to a speeding charge in March and was banned from driving for six months. However, a leaked report by Standards Commissioner Douglas Bain revealed she had also been convicted of speeding in Mold on September 26, 2019, June 30, 2020, and April 24, 2021.
In the report, Mr Bain said: “Although some would regard the offence in the present complaint as not being particularly serious, when taken along with the three previous convictions for the same offence it demonstrates a disregard for the law and a failure to take action to avoid repetition of unlawful conduct.”
He also found that her actions breached the code of conduct’s integrity and leadership principles, and breached a rule saying members must not act in a way that brings the Senedd or its members into disrepute.
Following the Prime Minister’s actions, First Minister Mark Drakeford called for his resignation and said on Twitter: “You can’t be a law-maker and a law-breaker. The Prime
Minister has denied time and again that he did anything wrong. He has clearly broken the laws he made and asked people to follow. People are angry and upset. I don’t see how someone in this position can carry on.” Appearing on Politics Wales on BBC One Wales yesterday morning, Mr Drakeford was asked whether Ms Morgan could be a law-maker and a law-breaker herself.
He responded: “Well, she didn’t make the law that she has broken. There’s no doubt that she did break the law, she admitted it immediately and she has been dealt with by the courts.
“There is no moral equivalence between what the Prime Minister did in making laws himself that he then went on to break, denying that he broke them, provoked a long and expensive police investigation to reveal the fact that he had indeed broken the laws that he had made. There is no equivalence between the two cases.”
However, Mr Drakeford admitted that people who have the power to make rules should abide by them.
“This particular case has been dealt with. I’ve accepted the minister’s explanation, and I’m happy that she carries on.
“I’ve tried to explain why the cases are very different between the actions that the Prime Minister took, having enjoined everybody else to make sure that they behave in line with the laws that he had laid down in extraordinary circumstances, and the very casual way in which he and those who were working in Downing Street took their obligations to abide by those laws.”
The First Minister said he had dealt with it under the ministerial code, and that the matter was now closed.