Campaign finance to be looked at in review of Welsh Labour leadership election

Former First Minister Carwyn Jones is to lead a review into Welsh Labour's campaign rules. It comes after the election of Vaughan Gething as Welsh Labour leader in March this year. However Mr Gething has formally rejected calls for an independent inquiry into the donations he received during the leadership campaign.

Mr Gething beat his only rival, the former education, and now economy, minister Jeremy Miles with 51.7% of the vote compared to Mr Miles' 48.3%.

During the campaign it emerged Mr Gething had received £200,000 in donations from a businessman convicted of environmental offences. He denied any wrongdoing and says he followed the rules about declaring donations. But questions over that continue to grow after it emerged David Neal had applied for permission to build a solar farm - something that will need Welsh Government approval - and has received £400,000 from the Development Bank of Wales, an arms-length public body used by the Welsh Government to support businesses.

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After his election, Mr Gething said there would be a review into how the campaign was carried out, something he said had taken place after previous elections too. Now he has given some detail of that review.

Mr Gething has told ITV Cymru Wales' Sharp End programme that the review will be led by Carwyn Jones. He said there had been a "harmonious and positive" meeting of the Welsh executive committee, which sets Labour's rules, in the last weekend.

He said: "At which we've honoured my commitment to have a proper review of the election progress. Campaign finance is one of the issues to be agreed and within that there's people who took part in the campaign on more than one side. Carwyn Jones, at my request has agreed to chair that review, and it will report back to the Welsh executive of Welsh Labour in September."

Mr Jones has previously called the donation was "unfortunate" and said Mr Gething had "lessons to learn". He told the BBC: "It's unfortunate, there's no other way of describing it. I know how much my leadership campaign cost and it was £10-£15,000. So £200,000 from one donor is a lot of money. I would have been asking questions and perhaps those questions should have been asked with the donation itself. It's difficult to know whether it will affect the final vote because it happened quite late in the process. That was certainly an unfortunate position that he put himself in."

Mr Gething has also responded to a letter from Welsh Tory leader Andrew RT Davies calling for an independent inquiry into the donations, saying he would not commission any further advice or inquiry.

He said: "The Development Bank of Wales provides commercial loans and equity investments to small businesses based in Wales and is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. All lending and investment decisions taken by the Development Bank are wholly independent of the Welsh Government.

"In addition, the Ministerial Code is clear that Ministers should not act in any ministerial capacity which might be perceived as favouring one or more of their constituents. This stipulation is strictly followed by Welsh Ministers. This protects against conflicts of interests regarding businesses located within a constituency or region Ministers represent in their capacity as Members of the Senedd.

There was no conflict of interest which would have prevented me from accepting a contribution to my leadership campaign."

During the campaign, Mr Gething received £254,600 and his rival Mr Miles received £58,000. You can see all the donations to both men here.

Concerns had been raised privately, and publicly, by Welsh Labour members about the donations. On the day Mr Gething was elected, senior Senedd politician Julie James said: “The rules for running elections need review, clearly. This is an ongoing problem and as long as you have to raise money in this way, to run these kinds of campaigns, we will always have problems – always.

"It needs a full-scale review and I think everybody knows that." Mr Gething has reappointed Ms James to his cabinet.

Andrew RT Davies MS, Leader of the Welsh Conservatives, said: "A review in which Welsh Labour mark their own homework will not command the confidence of the wider public. There are direct questions to be answered about the perception of a conflict of interest over Gething’s donations that relate to the Ministerial Code, and they are not just questions for the Labour Party.

"Gething must now accept that a full, independent investigation is the only way to address the widely held concerns over his campaign finances."

Sharpend is on ITV Cymru Wales at 11.05pm on Tuesday, April 23.