Mark Drakeford concerned Boris Johnson's handling of COVID was 'genuine threat to UK future'

A senior Welsh government adviser told the COVID Inquiry in Cardiff that "tensions" between the Welsh and UK governments "became more and more obvious" during the early stages of the pandemic.

Tomos Evans

Wales reporter

Thursday 7 March 2024 15:13, UK

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The first minister of Wales was concerned that the UK government's handling of COVID was a "genuine threat" to the future of the union, the public inquiry has heard.

Mark Drakeford's most senior special adviser, Jane Runeckles, told the COVID Inquiry there were "tensions" between the way Welsh and UK governments responded to the pandemic.

The inquiry is in its second of three weeks of hearings in Cardiff, focusing on the Welsh government's decisions.

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Ms Runeckles said the contact between Wales's first minister and then Prime Minister Boris Johnson was "infrequent".

"I believe the first minister had a genuine, sincerely-held concern that some of the actions of the United Kingdom government in relation to the way they had handled some of the earlier period was a genuine threat to the future of the United Kingdom," she said.

"The tensions between the actions taken by the Welsh government and the actions taken by the UK government became more and more obvious."

She said the fact the Welsh and UK government were taking different approaches "meant that there was very little for [both governments] to talk about".

Ms Runeckles said she had "no real contact" with her special adviser counterparts in the UK government until the beginning of the pandemic.

"The relationships with the UK government special advisers were frequent in the beginning," she added.

"My relationships with them deteriorated over the first months of the pandemic and I would guess that by the summer of 2020 we weren't really having any regular contact at all."

'UK-wide basis'

Former Wales Secretary Simon Hart, who now serves as the UK government's chief whip, said a pandemic response would need to be done on a "UK-wide basis" in future.

Simon Hart told the inquiry "the idea that there was an England-only problem or a Wales-only problem is nonsense".

"There was a UK problem, there was a global problem, there was definitely a UK problem," he said.

"The idea that we could sub-divide it into even smaller responses I think just makes the situation more complicated than it needed to be."

Mr Hart said it was "difficult to reach any other conclusion" than the Welsh government was occasionally being "different for the sake of being different".

"What genuinely worried me was if that's what people were thinking then their enthusiasm, if there was such thing, for complying with the regulations was going to be compromised. That ultimately was bad for everybody," he added.

"Frequently, I remember asking comms people talking to the media about making clear what was Wales-only, what was UK-wide, what was England-only. It was an ongoing problem, it would often occur every day."

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