Vaughan Gething

Vaughan Gething (born 15 March 1974) is a Welsh Labour and Co-operative politician serving as Minister for the Economy since 2021.

Gething was born in Zambia in 1974, where his father, a White Welsh vet from Ogmore-by-Sea in Glamorgan, met his mother who is a Black Zambian.

Gething describes his father as "a white Welsh economic migrant".

When he was two years old, he moved to Monmouthshire, Wales, with his family and has three brothers and a sister.

His father eventually found work in Dorset, England, where Gething was brought up.

and moved away from Monmouthshire after experiencing racism.

Gething joined the Labour Party when he was 17, to campaign in the 1992 UK general election.

Gething studied at Beaminster Comprehensive and Sixth Form in Dorset, followed by Aberystwyth University where he read Law and graduated in 1999, and then going onto the University of Cardiff Law School, University of Wales.

Gething became President of Aberystwyth University Guild of Students and the first Black president of the National Union of Students Wales.

He contested Mid and West Wales in the inaugural elections to the National Assembly for Wales in 1999 for Labour and was not elected.

Lorraine Barrett, who had represented Cardiff South and Penarth since the Senedd's creation in 1999, had announced her intention to stand down at the 2011 election.

Having completed his training as a solicitor in Cardiff in 2001, with the trade union solicitors Thompsons, Gething chose to specialise in employment law.

He was a councillor from 2004 to 2008, representing Butetown electoral ward on Cardiff Council, having been elected with a majority of two votes over candidate Betty Campbell.

Following the election, Campbell sent a complaint letter to Cardiff Council alleging that Gething had infringed election rules by handing out leaflets to voters as they entered polling stations and telling them how to vote.

Campbell initially intended to have the vote re-examined in the High Court but abandoned this because of the estimated cost of £12,000.

Gething was selected as the Welsh Labour candidate for the Cardiff South and Penarth constituency in the Senedd.

He became a partner in Thompsons in 2007.

In 2008, at the age of 34, Gething became the youngest President of Wales TUC, also becoming the first mixed race person in the role.

He has been the Member of the Senedd (MS) for Cardiff South and Penarth since 2011.

In December 2023 he became one of two candidates in the Welsh Labour leadership election to replace Mark Drakeford.

At the Senedd election on 5 May 2011, Gething increased the Labour vote with a swing of 12.5%.

At 13,814, his share of the vote was over 50%, giving him a majority of 6,259 over the Welsh Conservative Party candidate, Ben Gray, placed second.

Gething did not support Jeremy Corbyn in either the 2015 or 2016 Labour Party leadership election (against challenger Owen Smith) but stated in a 2017 BBC Radio Wales interview that he would still like to see Corbyn as Prime Minister.

"I want a Labour prime minister - and that means Jeremy Corbyn being prime minister."

... "I don't think it matters whether I'm a fan or not - it matters whether I think he can do the job in running the country" Gething said.

He previously served as the Minister for Health and Social Services from 2016 to 2021.

At the following 2016 Welsh Assembly election, Gething once again increased his majority in terms of vote share.

Following the 2016 election, First Minister Carwyn Jones promoted Gething to the Welsh Cabinet as Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport.

Gething, alongside Eluned, Baroness Morgan and Mark Drakeford, was one of the three contenders in the 2018 election for the leadership of Welsh Labour, but was defeated by Finance Secretary Mark Drakeford.

Drakeford subsequently reappointed Gething as Health Minister, with the position renamed as Minister for Health and Social Services.

On 13 May 2021, Gething was promoted to Minister for the Economy, replacing Ken Skates.

Gething was Minister for Health and Social Services during the 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic.

On 12 March 2020, as the number of coronavirus cases in Wales reached 25, Gething resisted calls to postpone a Wales versus Scotland rugby match at the Principality Stadium, despite other sporting cancellations.

The match was due to be a 74,000 sell-out.

On the following day, the Welsh Rugby Union announced that the match was cancelled.

This was one day before it was due to take place, and many Scotland fans had already travelled to Cardiff for the match.

In a BBC Radio Wales interview, Gething said "The medical advice about the risk to people going to the rugby didn't change. What did change was the fact that the rest of sporting world decided that, regardless of that advice, they wanted to put off events."

On 22 April 2020, Gething was caught swearing about fellow Labour MS Jenny Rathbone in a virtual session of the Senedd.

Gething failed to mute his microphone as he told an unknown person "What the fuck is the matter with her?"

during the Zoom meeting.