‘WhatsApp messages were wiped in security rebuild’

DURING the UK Covid Inquiry’s hearings in Wales, Mr Gething said that between January 2020 and May 2022 he had two Welsh Government mobile phones, which did not have WhatsApp, and two Senedd mobile phones, which did.

The first Senedd phone was given to him in January 2020 and handed back in March 2022.

He admitted using that phone to text and WhatsApp other ministers, officials and special advisers, and was part of a ministerial WhatsApp group.

He told the inquiry during his evidence on March 12: “You’ll have seen there was a ministerial WhatsApp group and within that there were incidental messages around ‘Have a look at what we’re doing,’ ‘This is what I think we’re going to need to do,’ ‘check your government device,’ essentially.”

He was part of a ministerial group involving then First Minister Mark Drakeford, and another called “schools and Covid” including then education minister Kirsty Williams and climate change minister Julie James. He also had a separate group with Ms Williams.

But he admitted having no access to “any of the texts or WhatsApp messages that you sent during your time as minister for health and social services”.

He said all messages from his first Senedd phone were transferred to a second one which he was provided from July 2021 onwards, but when it was taken for maintenance in July 2022, he lost all of the messages.

He said: “When I moved from my first Senedd mobile to my second one, I did actually have access to all the messages on my new Senedd phone. What then happened was... that, following a security rebuild, all of the WhatsApp messages were wiped.

“That includes all my personal ones as well, things that had nothing to do with the government. So messages with my family, for example. So everything went.”

He added: “I would much prefer it if I’d been able to so you could have seen what was in them and what was not in them.”