Wales' Health Minister says he would have had to resign had he done the same as Cummings
26 May 2020, 15:26
Welsh Health Minister says position would've been ‘untenable’ if he’d copied Dominic Cummings
The Welsh Health Minister today said that he would have resigned if he had done the same as Boris Johnson's senior adviser, Dominic Cummings.
Mr Cummings has denied accusations of breaking lockdown rules after he travelled to his parents property in Durham, 260 miles away from his London home, to self-isolate with his family after his wife became ill with possible Covid-19 symptoms.
Vaughan Gething has also been accused of flouting lockdown restrictions, which he denies, after he was pictured eating with his family on a park bench whilst out for their daily exercise.
Speaking to LBC at today’s Welsh Government daily briefing, he said: “If I had driven to the other end of the country to see a family member when I thought my wife could have been potentially symptomatic with Covid-19, that would have been a clear breach of our [Welsh Government] lockdown rules at the time.
“Then my position as a minister would have been untenable.”
Mr Cummings denies coming into contact with his parents on the property, saying he instead stayed in a cottage separate to where they live.
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Mr Gething didn’t go as far as to call for Mr Cummings to resign, instead saying: “It isn’t for me to make choices about the Prime Minister’s special advisor.
"What does matter to me is, not the fate of Dominic Cummings and his job, it’s actually whether people across all four nations, including here in Wales, will continue to follow the rules to keep us safe.
“I’d like us to be able to all move on from this particular story and to focus on how we continue to keep Wales safe and how we can work with the other three nations in the UK to do so.”
The Prime Minster has thrown his support behind his special adviser and Mr Cummings told the press yesterday he hadn’t considered resigning from his position at No. 10.
