Wales' health minister Eluned Morgan sent text saying 'we're all f***ed' after Covid meeting

Wales' health minister Eluned Morgan has apologised for her “fruity language” in a text message saying “we are all f****d” as the Welsh Government wrestled with travel restrictions for Covid-vaccinated visitors. 

She also told the UK Covid Inquiry that in hindsight lockdown should have come at least a week earlier than it did in March 2020.

Ms Morgan was in a different role at the start of the pandemic but was involved in decision-making as part of a group of senior ministers known as “the star chamber”. She later became health minister in May 2021, switching her portfolio from international relations and the Welsh language.

She has been giving evidence to the inquiry in Cardiff which is currently looking at the way the pandemic was handled in Wales and acknowledged "we probably should have been making earlier preparations".

Ms Morgan said: “At the time it was very late when we realised that the Welsh Government would have responsibility effectively for managing how we responded to the pandemic.

"I think there was an assumption that it would have come under civil contingencies… So I think also there has to be an awareness that in Wales lots of people get their information from the UK press and for us to have initiated something prior to England would have been very difficult.

“In retrospect I think there’s an agreement across the United Kingdom that given our time again we would have gone into lockdown slightly earlier”.

Ms Morgan was confronted with a text of hers using a profanity which she sent just after becoming health minister in May 2021.

Joanne Cecil, counsel for the inquiry, said to Ms Morgan: "[In relation to a] Covid-O meeting about relaxing inbound travel for vaccinated travellers and you sent a text saying 'On Covid-O, we are all f****d'."

Ms Morgan said: “Can I first apologise for my fruity language. I don’t think that’s going to go down very well with my husband who’s a priest, and being a vicar’s daughter that’s probably not what you want to see. 

“But this was quite early on after my appointment, so on this particular Covid-O, there were some very interesting discussions, there was a suggestion that we should be opening up our borders to travellers coming from France and the introduction of a pilot programme where we would recognise vaccination certificates from France and allow travel to recommence but on the same day there was a discussion about Covid-O about whether France should be put onto the red list, so I just found that a massive contradiction and very, very worrying.”

Ms Morgan went on to acknowledge that, further into the pandemic, the Welsh Government would "err on the side of caution" in making decisions to ease restrictions.

“I think if the evidence wasn’t as clear as we’d like, we would err on the side of caution, and I think we were aware that the scientists generally were just one step ahead of us on the information that we were being given.”

But she denied that a cautious approach was taken with one eye on what was happening in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

“I don’t think it was a deliberate decision to do it in comparison to any other countries. We were doing what was right for our nation.

“We were looking at the data, looking at the evidence, looking at the spread, looking at the ability of the NHS to cope, so those were the things that were determining our decision-making.”

• ITV Wales health reporter Katie Fenton reacts after former health minister Vaughan Gething gives evidence to the UK Covid Inquiry

She insisted that when ministers took decisions about what should remain restricted and what should be opened up, they took very seriously other harms such as the cost to businesses.

She told the inquiry: “We had extensive conversations with our social partners and with economic partners as well.

“So it wasn’t just one aspect that we were looking at. We had evidence from all of those, and one of the things that we did very carefully and very seriously was to have really comprehensive discussions with our stakeholders before we implemented any changes.

“So, you know, they made it very clear to us, particularly in my dealings, for example, in relation to opening hospitality, you know, how difficult it was for us, for them and how practically we could open whilst protecting people and trying to mitigate the possibilities for the virus to spread.”

Later in the hearing, education minister Jeremy Miles faced questions about his role. He had been the Welsh Government’s legal chief, the counsel general, at the start of the pandemic.

Like others, he was asked about his use of WhatsApp to discuss government decision-making. He defended using his personal phone because “the Welsh Government’s policy is not to allow WhatsApp to be downloaded on to Welsh Government phones, so … in my case that was on my personal phone, my private phone, not my Senedd phone, so I was having colleagues message me on my personal phone effectively.”

Mr Miles defended deleting WhatsApp messages by switching on the “disappearing messages” function.

He told the inquiry: "I had my phone stolen in 2017 and was sensitive to having anything which somebody picking up the private phone of a public figure might be interested to read, so … it was my practice to delete that.

"I regarded the kind of things that were being talked about as not being public records in that sense, they were chat between work colleagues.

"I obviously know in light of the discussions in this inquiry that that was the wrong assumption to make, but that was my understanding at the time."

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