Labour not keeping Vaughan Gething’s unspent leadership donations

Money donated to Vaughan Gething during his leadership campaign will not be given to the Labour Party but will instead go to “progressive causes”.

Concerns over a sizeable donation to his leadership campaign have dogged the First Minister since he took over the role in March.

Labour announced on Tuesday that the £31,000 left over from the £251,000 he raised will no longer go to the central party but instead be given to various causes.

It follows a series of attacks on Mr Gething’s judgment, from opposition groups and members of his own party, for having taken the money from a man previously convicted of environmental offences.

A Welsh Labour Party spokeswoman said: “As agreed by the officers of the Welsh Executive Committee, Vaughan Gething is donating surplus funds from his campaign to wider progressive causes.”

What the causes will be has not been confirmed, with the executive committee expected to look at a range of options put forward by the First Minister.

Mr Gething has faced calls from opposition groups to return a £200,000 donation he received during his Welsh Labour leadership run.

The First Minister took the money from the Dauson Environmental Group, which is owned by David Neal, who has previously been convicted of environmental offences.

Opposition groups have also raised concerns about a possible conflict of interest in the money coming from a company which was loaned £400,000 by the Welsh government-owned Development Bank of Wales (DBW).

The loan from the DBW was given to Neal Soil Suppliers, a subsidiary of Dauson, in 2023 to help purchase a solar farm.

During a debate on the money in the Senedd, Lee Waters, a member of Mr Gething’s own party, said the First Minister taking the money made him feel “deeply uncomfortable”, branding it “unjustifiable and wrong”.

Mr Gething has always insisted that he cannot take any decisions relating to Dauson, which is based in his constituency, and the DBW is entirely independent of ministers.

Reacting to the news that Labour would not keep the money, the leader of the Welsh Conservatives, Andrew RT Davies said: “This is a damning indictment of Vaughan Gething’s judgment by his own party.

“Not even the Labour Party that elected Jeremy Corbyn wants to touch this money with a bargepole.”

Rhun ap Iorwerth, leader of Plaid Cymru, asked Mr Gething if he thought “that is somehow the end of the matter”, during First Minister’s Questions on Tuesday.

Mr Gething said he was “required to return the money to Welsh Labour” in accordance with the rules of the leadership contest.

He added: “They’ve agreed to my request to provide that money to progressive causes, and the Welsh executive of Welsh Labour now need to decide that.

“I want to be clear that I won’t take a part in making that decision; I think they need to have that conversation freely and without me in the room.”

Mr ap Iorwerth responded by saying that passing on the £31,000 was “the easy bit”, and insisted that the “right thing to do” would have been to pay back the money.

He said: “That money would have tainted the whole Labour general election campaign.

“So, doesn’t Labour’s decision to reject it prove the First Minister’s serious error of judgment in being more than happy to take it in the first place?”

The First Minister dismissed this, saying it showed that Labour had taken his request for the money to have a different purpose “seriously”.

Mr Gething added that he had acted within the rules and, following concerns being raised, had launched a process within his own party to look at whether changes were needed for future contests.