3. Mr Mark Drakeford

MR MARK DRAKEFORD (affirmed).

Questions From Lead Counsel to the Inquiry

Mr Keith: Would you be good enough to give your full name, please, to the Inquiry.

Mr Mark Drakeford: Mark Drakeford.

Lead Inquiry: Mr Drakeford, thank you very much for the assistance that you have so far provided to the Inquiry by way of the provision of a witness statement. Is that a witness statement dated 21 April 2023 to which you’ve appended your signature and declared the statement of truth?

Mr Mark Drakeford: It is.

Lead Inquiry: Mr Drakeford, whilst you give evidence, could you please keep your voice up whilst at the same time not falling into the trap, into which a number of other witnesses have fallen, of speaking too fast for our stenographer.

Mr Drakeford, it is very well known that you are the First Minister of Wales and you have been so since December of 2018. But before that, from March 2013, were you Minister for Health and Social Services, and from May 2016 Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, and then November 2017, Cabinet Secretary for Finance?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I was.

Lead Inquiry: Your experience, therefore, reflects or is important for a number of areas in this module, because in practice you’ve worked inside, and of course you now lead, the Welsh Government since the outset of devolution, and you’ve worked as both Health Minister and Minister for Local Government, and therefore you have great experience of dealing with the system for health emergencies, as well as, of course, the resourcing for the preparedness structures in Wales.

Did you also have to deal with the Ebola outbreak whilst you were Health Minister?

Mr Mark Drakeford: That did happen while I was the Health Minister, yes.

Lead Inquiry: You may indeed even have been an adviser in government at the time of the swine flu pandemic before that?

Mr Mark Drakeford: That’s true.

Lead Inquiry: All right.

I’d like to start asking you questions, please, about devolution and the position concerning civil contingencies.

You are, of course, familiar with the Welsh Ministers (Transfer of Functions) Order 2018. That is a hugely important piece of legislation, secondary legislation, which came into force on 24 May 2018, and it transferred functions from ministers of the Crown in London to Welsh Government ministers in relation to the field of civil contingencies, as well as, I should say, a large number of other matters; is that broadly correct?

Mr Mark Drakeford: That is correct.

Lead Inquiry: So that we can understand the position, prior to that date were there a number of functions, activities, executive functions which were already within the competence of the Welsh Government, that is to say that they were not reserved, they were devolved matters, but they had not practically been transferred to the Welsh Government enabling you to be able to carry them out?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Well, the Welsh Government had been involved in dealing with civil emergencies from the very start of devolution. The very first year I was part of advising the Welsh Government we had a series of events in flooding, in fuel protests and foot-and-mouth disease, which illustrated that in fact, if not in law, the Welsh Government was drawn in to responding to those civil emergencies, and that continued to be the case in the decade and more thereafter.

Lead Inquiry: But legally some of the functions which you were required, obligated to carry out would or were on one view still reserved matters which had not been converted into devolved matters, enabling you to act legally, or were matters which had been changed into devolved matters but the piece of secondary legislation formally confirming that they were powers that you could exercise hadn’t yet gone through, but you just got on with the job?

Mr Mark Drakeford: In many ways the Transfer of Functions Order regularised the way in which things had happened on the ground for some time.

Lead Inquiry: An important part of that order concerned part 1 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, the United Kingdom legislation concerned with civil contingencies, because until the order was made transferring functions from ministers of the Crown to the Welsh ministers, the Welsh Government was unable to pass regulations under that Act and also formally to discharge the functions specified by the Act itself; is that broadly correct?

Mr Mark Drakeford: That is correct, yeah.

Lead Inquiry: There is evidence before my Lady’s Inquiry that until the Transfer of Functions Order, much of the discharge of civil contingencies powers by the Welsh Government was therefore framed not by that legislative framework or the legality of the functions order, but by the views of the First Ministers in place at the time and senior Welsh ministers. You were, in other words, forced back into the position of making decisions yourselves as ministers, as executive ministerial decision-makers, regardless of the legal position and the application of the Civil Contingencies Act; would you agree?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Only in part, I think, because many of the emergencies which were dealt with over that period relied on other powers which were already in the hands of Welsh ministers.

So I could give you one example, while I was the Health Minister there was a major measles outbreak in South Wales. It was a public health emergency, but all the powers that we needed to respond to that were already in the hands of Welsh ministers through the Public Health Act of 1984.

Lead Inquiry: Presumably, in anticipation of the Transfer of Functions Order being made, and it was an order which you had sought of course, politically the Welsh Government had for some time stated to the United Kingdom Government, “It is time for these functions to be transferred, let us make de jure what is already de facto”, presumably you had to make sure that the Welsh Government structures, in terms of resourcing, the personnel, the group or committee structure, was ready to discharge the new functions which it would be allowed to carry out?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Well, the normal pattern would be that a transfer of functions is accompanied by a transfer of funding to discharge those functions, because those functions are already being discharged elsewhere. So you no longer need to discharge them at central government level and the funding follows. So it would be true that the Welsh Government was responsible for making sure that, in terms of structures, that we were ready to discharge those new responsibilities. In this case, as I think the Inquiry will know, no funding followed from the United Kingdom Government for these purposes. So funding had to be found from within wider Welsh Government resources that would otherwise have been used for other purposes.

Lead Inquiry: So looking at those three areas of resources, personnel and the structure, in terms of resources, the Welsh Government was keenly aware that it would need extra resources in order to be able to discharge the additional functions which it was empowered to operate or would be empowered to operate from May 2018.

Did you seek from the United Kingdom Government additional resources to enable you to carry out those new functions?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Yes.

Lead Inquiry: What was the response?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Cabinet Office said that they had been unable to identify any expenditure that they had undertaken to discharge those functions, and therefore there was no money to be transferred. They could not identify any discrete sums of money used for those purposes in Wales, and therefore there was no sum of money that they could identify to accompany the transfer of responsibilities.

Lead Inquiry: So, in effect, because they were unable to specify how much the existing discharge of those functions cost them, in the general kitty, perhaps the general consolidated fund, they would not give you and could not give you the same amount of money in order for you to then discharge those functions going forward?

Mr Mark Drakeford: That was their argument.

Lead Inquiry: Therefore you fell back, of course, on your own funding sources?

Mr Mark Drakeford: We did. We employed eight new – or we created eight new posts within the Welsh Government to enable us to discharge these new responsibilities. But they were funded, as I said, not from the new money that you might have expected, but from money that was already devolved to Wales for the functions that the Welsh Government already possessed.

Lead Inquiry: May we take it from the fact that post-Covid the relevant risk and resilience directorate or division has many more people now in it than was the case in 2018, that the number of people you were able to fund fell short of, to use a word from earlier in the evidence, the optimum? You would, all other things being equal, had you had the money, have preferred to fund considerably more people than the eight that you were able to do so?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Well, my experience as Finance Minister taught me that you always had to think of two things: you had to think of the amount of money that you have available, but you also have to think about the capacity of a system to absorb that funding. Sometimes it’s not just a matter of finding the money. Systems can’t spend the money – can’t spend the money wisely if you provide it all too quickly. Capacity has to be built up over time. In the beginning, eight posts to take on these new responsibilities, I felt, as the Finance Minister having to find the money, that that was both something we could manage financially but also that the system would be able to use that money in a proper way.

Lead Inquiry: Let me ask you the same question in a different way, Mr Drakeford: had the United Kingdom Government provided the funding that you had sought, would you have still ended up with only eight people in that team?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Very hard question to be sure, given that they didn’t give us any money at all. We would have cut our coat according to our cloth.

Lead Inquiry: All right.

In terms of personnel, it wasn’t just a question then of being able to identify changes in personnel in the particular part of the Welsh Government, the Welsh Government resilience team, perhaps. What consideration was given to ensuring that, for the discharge across the board of these civil contingencies powers, more people would need to be placed in various other parts of the Welsh Government or outside the Welsh Government, either in relation to the audit teams or the local resilience forum level or the strategic co-ordination group level and so on?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I think my recollection of the time is that the powers were more about allowing resources that were already there to be deployed more effectively. I’m not saying for a moment that there was no case for additional resources, but the primary case was: you have a resource, the powers that they need are not in the right place, when those powers are transferred, those people who are there already would be able to do their job more effectively.

Lead Inquiry: Finally, in relation to the structure, there was a pre-existing civil contingencies structure in Wales, of course, and as we will see later in the course of your evidence it had many moving parts. To what extent did the Welsh Government seek to recalibrate that structure, to make sure that the structure was in the best place possible to start carrying out the new functions which the Transfer of Functions Order permitted them to do so?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Well, ministerially, because that’s the perspective from which I was able to view it, the structures were sufficient to make sure advice flowed to ministers, flowed in a timely way, was enabled to raise issues with ministers when those issues were required. And in some ways – you don’t spend your time looking at the wiring diagram so long as you are confident that the diagram produces the result that you need, consistent advice of the quality that you require, in a timely fashion, and I felt confident that the system did do that.

Lead Inquiry: Beyond – I don’t mean this pejoratively – beyond the parochial issue of what advice individual ministers and the First Minister was receiving, to what extent did the Welsh Government stand back and say, “Is this structure for civil contingencies emergency preparedness the correct structure to be able to deal with the future discharge of these additional powers?”

Mr Mark Drakeford: Yes.

Lead Inquiry: The evidence is quite plain that there are a lot of different bodies in the Welsh civil contingency field. Were they the right bodies in the right place to be able to deal with these new functions?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Well, my predecessor as First Minister ordered a review of those structures to accompany the transfer of functions. So there was a conscious effort to make sure that the Welsh Government would be equipped in that structural sense to use the new powers that came its way.

Lead Inquiry: There was, and my Lady has heard evidence to this effect, a report on civil emergencies in Wales dated 6 December 2012. There is absolutely no reason why you would have had to have had that brought to your attention when you became First Minister or even Health Minister, because it was before your tenure as Health Minister. But the evidence yesterday and in part today is that that report in 2012 highlighted the fact that there were too many bodies, too many groups in the civil contingency system in Wales, that there was a complex resilience framework, problems with inefficiency and effectiveness, as well as there being no common approach to risk assessment and a number of other important matters.

Do you know whether or not following that report in 2012, six years before the Transfer of Functions Order, there was any rationalisation of the groups or the structures?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Well, I’ve given this some thought, having heard it raised with previous witnesses. From the perspective of the Minister, the system did not look particularly complex. You know, there was – I think it’s to be found in the Pan-Wales Response Plan, on a single page, the essence of the structure.

Once the structure moves into the particularities of, you know, professional roles and perspectives, it does sometimes enter a rather arcane world that is only really understood by those that are part of it.

But as a Minister, what I needed to know was: how would advice get to me, which levels would it have passed through, am I confident that that means that the advice that comes on to my desk has been tested, has the necessary expertise. And I didn’t feel that complexity was a barrier to that happening.

Lead Inquiry: We’re going to try to find that diagram, Mr Drakeford, if we can.

Mr Mark Drakeford: Page 9.

Lead Inquiry: I think it’s the Pan-Wales Response Plan, INQ000107119.

Mr Mark Drakeford: You can find it on page 9, and page 11 goes alongside it.

Lead Inquiry: Thank you.

Yes, so there is the flowchart which deals, in fact, with a slightly different issue, which is the levels of contingency or emergency, because in the event of a level 2, the civil contingencies group is required to establish a Wales civil contingencies committee.

So I think what you have in mind is perhaps rather more page 11, which is a concentric chart – no, that’s again dealing with levels 1, 2 and 3.

We will see if we can find it, but I think you have in mind there is a concentric chart which sets out the local resilience forums, the strategic co-ordinating groups, the various external bodies and then those parts of the Welsh Government on top.

Mr Mark Drakeford: But essentially, from a Minister’s point of view, provided all of that is effectively translated into the actions that you would need to take in face of an emergency, as set out on pages 9 and 11, then you have confidence to know that the system, when called upon, whatever complexity might lie behind it, the system when called upon will operate in that comprehensible way.

Lead Inquiry: Would you nevertheless agree that, following the 2012 civil emergencies report, the audit office report on civil emergencies in Wales, and between that time and 2018, there was no wholesale change or no significant change to the civil contingencies structure in Wales?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Yeah, I think that will be fair.

Lead Inquiry: All right.

In May 2018, exactly concurrent in fact to the Transfer of Functions Order, there was a report of Internal Audit Services called Audit Services’ Emergency Planning, Preparedness and Response , INQ000128972, which was concerned with the assurance rating of the emergency planning preparedness and response system. So it’s a report by Internal Audit Services within the Welsh Government.

If you look at the top half of the page, you will see an overarching general assurance rating given to the system of emergency planning, preparedness and response, and quite evidently, Mr Drakeford, all parts of the Welsh Government are subject to audit at some level and from time to time, and this is the audit on emergency planning, preparedness and response.

The assurance rating is given as reasonable. If you take it from me that that was a reduction in the rating from the earlier rating, which was substantial, that it had received eight years before in 2010, were you aware that at the time that the functions were being transferred to the Welsh Government, the assurance rating for the Welsh Government’s emergency planning system had been downgraded one slot, one mark?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I don’t think that I would have known it in those terms. What I would have been aware of was advice that suggested that the level of threat over that period had grown, so that the system itself may have been as it was in 2012, but now it’s having to deal with different threats and more significant threats.

Lead Inquiry: There are references in this report to prospective obligations which would have to be placed on the First Minister of Wales. You weren’t First Minister then, you became so in December of 2018, but if you could have page 3, paragraphs 1.3 through to 1.6 – page 3, 1.3 to 1.6 – and perhaps picking up the thread at 1.5:

“Following a Wales Audit Report in 2012, the First Minister has agreed to the transfer of executive functions … This is likely to take place by June 2018 … This … give[s] Welsh Ministers brand new powers to exercise additional functions including:

“- Issuing guidance …

“- monitoring devolved responders and requiring them to produce information …

“- bringing enforcement proceedings …”

Then if we could just run through, please, to page 5 at paragraph 3.7, so we can see the overarching scheme:

“Resource requirements have been identified by the Resilience Team to be able to carry out the new duties and activities required to support Ministers’ responsibilities.”

There is a reference then to the then First Minister writing to the United Kingdom Government looking for money.

In broad terms, Mr Drakeford, following that audit report, which had noted that the rating had reduced itself from substantial to reasonable, was there a wholesale rewriting of guidance? Were, in a general sense, the Welsh Government’s pandemic plans and civil contingencies plans rewritten? Were there or was there put into place a new system or an enhanced system of monitoring devolved responders and possibly bringing enforcement proceedings?

Mr Mark Drakeford: The system didn’t have a wholesale change, and the review that my predecessor set in motion in 2016 concluded that wholesale change was not required. There were adaptions and modifications but the system did not need a root and branch rewriting in the terms that you put it.

As you know, the powers that came with the Transfer of Functions Order were not exercised immediately.

Lead Inquiry: On a related issue, the Welsh Government had never produced its own self-standing risk assessment process or risk assessment document setting out all the risks facing the Welsh Government in the same way that the United Kingdom Government did in London and we’re aware that the Scottish Government did in Scotland.

Do you recall whether at this time of great change consideration was given to the production and publication for the first time of a Welsh-centric risk assessment process?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I don’t think I could say to you I remember a specific discussion of that sort. I remember the general discussion, which is that for certain purposes it is sensible from a Welsh perspective to lie on – to rely on the expertise and the capacity that the UK Government has, and we were content at this point to do so.

I’m not sure we would have felt that there was a huge advantage to be gained from deducing Welsh-specific risks when the United Kingdom Government’s risk assessment process appeared to us to be one that you could rely on and had the expertise it required to deliver it.

Lead Inquiry: You are, of course, familiar with the doctrine that all risk is local, the subsidiarity principle, you’ve no doubt seen the evidence about how, in the civil contingencies field, the principle of subsidiarity is applied. There will no doubt be risks, won’t there, which will affect Wales differently? There may even be risks which would only affect Wales. But to rely upon the United Kingdom risk register for risks identified by UK officials to apply across the board tended, did it not, to fail to give sufficient consideration to Welsh-specific risks and how they might be managed?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Well, the way that that was discharged was through the four LRFs, so I agree with you that you needed a local application of the national register. Whether there is a Welsh intermediate tier for that was something we did not feel at that time would have justified the resources that would have been required to develop it. But we did ensure that at the four LRF levels there was a statutory obligation to produce a community risk register. So if I might just give you one example, the National Risk Register no doubt had things in it about what would happen in the event of an explosion at an oil refinery. Now, in the Dyfed-Powys part of Wales, that’s a significant concern, given that there is a concentration of oil refineries. In the north of Wales that wouldn’t be a very high consideration there being no oil refineries actually across the North Wales coast.

So the way in which we discharged the obligation, which I agree with is an important one, to localise and particularise the National Risk Register, was not at a Wales level but at the level of the four LRFs.

Lead Inquiry: That’s exactly the point, isn’t it, that the risk assessments were looked at solely in the context, at least formally on paper, of the four local resilience forums. There was no formal process by which the national Welsh Government could identify a risk in relation to which it may have to step in to deal with alongside the local resilience forum, the strategic co-ordinating group, and whatever regional partnership there might be?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I think you will find that in the – and I’ve heard you used the word “labyrinthine” – structures that exist, actually there is a group which is chaired by the Welsh Government which brings the four LRF risk assessors together for this purpose. So while it’s discharged at the LRF level, the Welsh Government is not in ignorance of the way that those community risk assessments are being produced because there is a coming together of the four LRFs under the chairing of a Welsh Government official in order to collect that back at an all Wales – from an all Wales perspective.

Lead Inquiry: There is a Wales Resilience Forum at which such issues are debated?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Indeed.

Lead Inquiry: My point, though, Mr Drakeford, was concerned with the system of risk assessment. There is no process by which, formally, the Welsh Government gets to analyse the risks which its country faces – which may have to be responded to not just by local resilience forums but by the Welsh Government itself – in the way that there is for Scotland and for England?

Mr Mark Drakeford: No, for those purposes, we used the UK-wide risk assessment process.

Lead Inquiry: All right.

In October of 2018, at one of the meetings of that exact same body, the Wales Resilience Forum, Mr Drakeford, the then Cabinet Secretary for local government and public services agreed that a review of emergency planning governance and structures was required, I think, in order to ensure whether they were “fit for purpose”.

You agreed, as First Minister – because by December you had become the First Minister – you had agreed that a comprehensive review should be undertaken which would develop a platform to support the new regulations.

So the answer, perhaps, to one of my earlier questions was that there was a recognition by you, on behalf of the Welsh Government but by you personally, that it was important to carry out a review to make sure that the system could cope with that transfer of powers?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I think I said, apologies if I glossed over it in an earlier answer, that my predecessor, on agreeing the transfer of functions, had initiated that review.

Now, by the time it came to make its way into sort of formal sign-offs, it had probably been overtaken by my arrival. But the initiation of it pre-dated my becoming First Minister.

Lead Inquiry: We believe that following that Wales Resilience Forum meeting, which didn’t take place until October 2018, the matter formally did go to you as First Minister and you agreed that that review was necessary.

The review didn’t, however, take place, did it, until 2023?

Mr Mark Drakeford: No.

Lead Inquiry: So that we can understand the chronology, it took the best part of 2018 for that review process to be initiated. The review was then hampered by the diversion of resources to what is now, by way of a familiar refrain, the necessary preparations for a no-deal EU exit, and then of course, after that, Covid.

Is it a matter of some regret that that review, which was obviously important, otherwise you wouldn’t have ordered it, was not in the event able to be brought to fruition, and was not brought to fruition for a matter of years, there being at least 18 months from October 2018 to March 2020?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Well, of course it was a matter of considerable disappointment to us, because the Welsh Government had, as you said, worked hard to secure the transfer of those responsibilities, and to make sure that we were in a proper position to discharge them.

But by the time I became First Minister, I chaired my first Cabinet I think four days after becoming First Minister, and almost the whole of that Cabinet meeting is devoted to preparations for leaving the European Union without a deal. So by the time I became First Minister, the system was already turning its sights very firmly to a danger that was right in front of you and of very significant potential consequence.

Lead Inquiry: May we have, please, then that review, INQ000187580, please, of 2023.

There is the Review of Civil Contingencies in Wales. It says across it, or at least on the copy that we have, Mr Drakeford, in stern terms “Not government policy”. We have been collectively a little troubled by that. This is a review of civil contingencies in Wales ordered by the Welsh Government in part but jointly owned by a number of other organisations. Why is it necessary – or why does it say “Not government policy”? Is that because you haven’t yet formally decided whether or not to give effect to its recommendations?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Well, I am imagining, rather than being certain on the specifics, but this would be the normal way of things happening in Wales. The document would be produced, we would wish the views of partners to be received on it, there may be, you know, aspects of it that the fire service, for example, to take just one example, might wish to draw to our attention. So while we would circulate the document to make sure that anybody with an interest can contribute to the final version, we make it clear to people that it’s not, at that stage, formally adopted as government policy.

Lead Inquiry: If we turn to page 33, please, we’ll find the recommendations, priorities and next steps.

The first one is a national assurance framework for Wales to be developed with monitoring to be managed by the Wales Resilience Board. So in fact a new body, not the Wales Resilience Forum but the Wales Resilience Board. In the right-hand column the authors of this worthy document state that this is a matter that is “Critical”.

If we just go forward to page 35 we will see what is meant by critical, although it may be thought self-evident. There we are:

“Critical (Do Now) – it is of the greatest importance that action is taken immediately.”

So going back to page 33, may we take it, Mr Drakeford, that the authors of this report regarded the absence of a national assurance framework for Wales, that is to say a system by which all the moving parts in the Welsh civil contingencies structure could be tested to make sure they were up to scratch, was a matter of the very greatest concern to which it was essential that action be taken right away?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Well, it is self-evidently the views of the authors that this is their most important recommendation. My own view would be that, nevertheless, that recommendation has to be tested by others, given that its implementation will rely upon the willingness of others to make that contribution. So no doubt this will make its way to my desk with final proposals and they may not look identical to the ones that we see in front of us this afternoon.

Lead Inquiry: The civil service in Wales will of course present this to you along with their own views and no doubt seek a decision from you.

Number 2, risk, we were just debating this very issue a few moments ago:

“[The Welsh Government] and [the local resilience forums] should work in partnership to interpret the UK National Risk Register and adapt UK level risks to Wales … to identify upcoming and potential risks that would significantly impact Wales …

“Essential.”

Does that go directly to the heart of the issue that we were debating a few moments ago: the need for a Welsh Government level input into the identification, management, ownership of Welsh risks?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Yes, it does. I was careful in answering your earlier questions to try to be clear that the view that the UK risk register was adequate for the purpose was a view of that time. I was aware, because I’ve been involved in some discussions, through the resilience forum, that contemporary thinking is that that intermediate Welsh level may need strengthening, and you see that in this recommendation.

Lead Inquiry: On page 34, at number 13:

“Regional risk assessment should be used to define a regional training and exercise regime to address Wales-wide capability gaps or development needs.”

Then over the page at 15, page 35, “centrally managed training and exercise regime”.

Now, plainly many of these recommendations must have been formed as a result of the terrible experience of Covid, but to the extent that they identify significant changes in the Welsh structure for civil contingencies, training, assurance, formal process of risk assessment, does this not rather indicate that there were pre-existing structural flaws in the civil contingencies system in Wales, that is to say even before Covid?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I think I probably have two observations to make there. First of all, I wouldn’t necessarily interpret the fact that a document says that skills and professional development is needed as meaning that that didn’t exist previously.

Lead Inquiry: Agreed.

Mr Mark Drakeford: I think it is just a statement of the ongoing need to make sure that that is part of the system. And I don’t think myself you can necessarily conclude that because, in the light of new powers, changed circumstances, that a report says that that now needs to be reflected in new and strengthened systems, that that says that prior to those things the system that was there was not fit for the purposes which, at that time, were there to be discharged.

Lead Inquiry: But, Mr Drakeford, the premise of that answer was that this is recommending new and improved systems. Insofar as the report recommended a national assurance framework, a Welsh Government risk assessment procedure, a provision of centrally managed training and exercise, those were not improvements, they are standalone and completely novel developments. They simply have never existed hitherto.

Mr Mark Drakeford: And they reflect the report authors’ view of what is needed in Wales in 2023 rather than their reflection of what was needed in 2018. I think that’s the only point I’m making, is that it is reflecting today’s Wales, today’s circumstances, today’s challenges.

Lead Inquiry: But these were challenges, of course, which have come into focus as a result of Covid, but in terms of the structural performance of the civil contingencies structure in Wales, these are not new issues. The United Kingdom – the London government had put into position over many years a system for national assurance, for National Resilience Standards – my Lady heard evidence about the production of three different versions of those National Resilience Standards – a national resilience academy, a structure for training and exercising; they’re all part and parcel of civil contingencies, are they not?

Mr Mark Drakeford: And the capacity to offer training and a number of those things existed right through the system. They are restated here in the contemporary circumstances.

Lead Inquiry: All right.

Risk registers. You’ll know from the paperwork which we have provided you with that there were in existence corporate risk registers for the Welsh Government.

Please may we have up the first one, which is an issue which is January 2016, INQ000215556, page 1, column P5 – or entry P5, row P5:

“Resilience (Major Emergencies):

“If we fail to provide leadership and co-ordination in ensuring Wales is prepared for and resilient to the full range of national hazards and threats which is faces then there is a risk to the health and well-being of its citizens.”

A self-evident risk one might think.

There are then a list of controls identified as being the risk control measures or proposed mitigating actions, and if we could just go over the page, please, we will see the rubric, the notes which go with that – those scores, and explain what they all are.

If you go back, please, to page 1, there is, it appears, in this risk register, very little by way of specific identification of what the emergency that is pandemic influenza might consist of or the specific controls or countermeasures for pandemic influenza as opposed to major emergencies, civil contingencies, major events and so on.

Would you agree, Mr Drakeford?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I think that is – that’s a fair summary of what we see in front of us.

Lead Inquiry: If we then have a look at June 2019, INQ000215558, which is a single-page document – and on this occasion please feel free to scroll in, the reference to risk description, disruption event affecting people, places, finances, communications and IT. If there is a significant disruption event the Welsh Government may struggle to recover its operations quickly and effectively. Then a number of mitigation measures, control measures, by way of business continuity plan, disaster recovery arrangements, lessons are learned, emergency response protocols.

Dr Goodall, the permanent secretary to the Welsh Government, from whom we heard yesterday and today, acknowledged that, insofar as those measured purported to reduce the risk of disruption events, whilst worthy on their own – in their own terms, they did not actually reflect the reality of the position on the ground, insofar as, although there were a multitude of plans, civil contingency, public health emergency, pandemic influenza plans, they had not been updated, and in the majority had not been updated since 2014, the disaster recovery arrangements were undermined by the fact that a significant number of recommendations from earlier exercises had not been implemented, lessons had not been fully learned from disruption events, and emergency response protocols, whilst the subject of some training and exercising, had not been scrutinised to the full.

Would you agree, therefore, that insofar as the Welsh Government sought to properly understand the risk of pandemic influenza, it went awry by virtue of relying upon mitigation measures which turned out not to be wholly accurate?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Well, as far as the two documents that I’ve just seen are concerned, I think Dr Goodall is a more effective witness than I can be. Ministers are not responsible for the corporate risk register. I would expect it to be used by senior officials to draw the attention of ministers to areas where senior officials believe ministerial intervention would be necessary, but ministers do not routinely see and are certainly not directly responsible for the material that lies behind them. So Dr Goodall’s evidence to you would be more useful to you, I think, than my own.

Lead Inquiry: All right.

Could you give us, then, some indication of the frequency with which the issue of the Tier 1 risk of a pandemic influenza was brought to the specific attention of the First Minister.

You were, as First Minister, ex officio the chair of the Wales Resilience Forum, and it’s obvious that there are a number of Welsh Government documents in place. But how often was pandemic preparedness brought to you specifically as a priority worthy of your attention?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I wonder if I could just make one general point.

Lead Inquiry: Please.

Mr Mark Drakeford: Which is that I have struggled a little in reading documents again for today to distinguish between things which I am learning as a result of preparation and things that I actually knew at the time, and I do not want to imply to you that because I know things now I necessarily knew them then.

Lead Inquiry: Of course.

Mr Mark Drakeford: So that is a line I’ve not always found it easy to completely walk down.

But I think I should probably say that, of course, by the time I’d become First Minister I have been, as you have said, engaged in the Welsh Government for – well, since the very start of devolution, and have lived through a whole series of emergencies, and having been the health minister particularly, I am maybe more alert to the risk of an influenza pandemic than I otherwise would have been.

So I am –

Lead Inquiry: Because of those emergencies that you had to deal with de facto?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Yeah, the history of being in the Welsh Government is constantly dealing with one sort of civic emergency or another. During the time that I was the Health Minister, for example, as well as the measles epidemic I was dealing with officials with a TB outbreak in the town of Llanelli, the Ebola outbreak happened while I was the Health Minister, and that is, you know, completely beyond things like flooding, coal tip safety, cyber security incidents and all the other emergencies that you have to get drawn into.

By the time I became First Minister I was, therefore, aware, but I think as much because of the background of the fact that there was a Tier 1 risk and that pandemic influenza was and had been over many years repeatedly identified as the most likely risk to face the United Kingdom.

Lead Inquiry: In his witness statement to this Inquiry, Mr Gething said, as far as he could recall, preparedness was not a particular focus of interest or concern in the government, the Senedd or outside; but he became aware of it by virtue of his personal involvement in Exercise Cygnus.

Regardless of your own plainly established personal involvement as First Minister in the field of civil emergencies and including health emergencies, can you recall to what extent the civil servants brought to you or to your fellow ministers concerns about the state of preparedness for pandemic influenza?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Well, in my recollection it would almost always have been in the context of exercises that were carried out. So the 2014 Cygnus exercise happened when I was the Health Minister. That was, of course, the Welsh-only exercise.

Lead Inquiry: Yes.

Mr Mark Drakeford: So while I share the same identical experience as Mr Gething, I don’t think I was ever asked a single question on the floor of the Senedd or in any media interview on preparedness per se. That did not mean that when exercises took place and conclusions were being drawn from them that your attention as a minister was not drawn to them.

Lead Inquiry: In your witness statement for this Inquiry you say:

“I became First Minister in 2018 [that’s obviously December 2018]. I do not recall any advice from officials that there were reservations about the state of Wales’ pandemic preparedness, nor did I recall any concerns in the Senedd being raised with me.”

May we take it from that that none of the issues that we’ve so far debated, the civil contingencies report of 2012, the issues about putting the recommendations from that into place, or, as you rightly observe, the outcome of Exercise Cygnus, the Wales-specific part of it in 2014 or the UK part of it in 2016, or exercise – and the name has now completely escaped me – Talie …

Mr Mark Drakeford: Taliesin?

Lead Inquiry: Taliesin, I’m very grateful, Mr Drakeford.

None of those specific issues, we may take it, were brought to your attention because they all preceded, of course, you becoming First Minister, and if you never received advice or you can’t recall advice about reservations and the state of pandemic preparedness, it must follow that none of those specific matters were brought to your attention?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Not at the point that I became First Minister, but, as I’ve tried to indicate, I would have been aware of them, having been involved in those events throughout that period.

Lead Inquiry: But your own personal knowledge of the state of affairs or the state of play of the civil contingencies system can’t be translated into executive action on the part of the government or a determined attempt to try to improve the position, that’s not within your capability, is it? You may have known of problems or flaws in the system, but unless the government around you identifies those flaws and determines it will act upon them, nothing is likely to be done, is it?

Mr Mark Drakeford: So just to try and make myself plainer, if I can: by the time I’ve become First Minister I’m not unaware of the issues that have been faced by the Welsh Government or the exercise in which the Welsh Government has been involved. When I become First Minister I do not receive advice from the civil service that says, “You need to be particularly aware of difficulties that we are now experiencing in these fields”.

Lead Inquiry: Thank you.

We have heard something of task and finish committees being instituted in order to ensure that recommendations from exercises and outbreaks are learnt. Following swine flu, the Wales Resilience Partnership Team agreed to set up the Wales pandemic flu task and finish group to consider recommendations from the 2009 swine flu pandemic.

Were you aware that that committee was unable to finish its task because the recommendations were not all fully implemented?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I could not say that I was – that I recollect being aware of that specific issue.

Lead Inquiry: All right. There was a review in 2013 called the Pollock review which investigated ironically why lessons weren’t being learned, and as a result of that review the Wales Learning and Development Group was formed, and a decision was taken to apply something called Joint Organisational Learning strategy.

But then Exercise Cygnus came along, both in 2014 and 2016, and the Wales Resilience Partnership Team delegated the responsibility of implementing recommendations to yet another body, the Wales Pandemic Flu Preparedness Group.

That group met in September 2017, but didn’t meet again after January 2018. Were you aware when you became First Minister in December 2018 that that primary group for the implementation of the recommendations from Cygnus, whilst sitting in September 2017, never sat after January 2018?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I’d want to check my own recollection, but I actually believe it met in as late as October of that year.

Lead Inquiry: October 2018?

Mr Mark Drakeford: 2018, yes, I believe that was the final meeting before its resources were directed into the no-deal Brexit exercise, rather than the January.

Lead Inquiry: All right. Well, we’ll double-check that, of course.

Mr Mark Drakeford: Thank you.

Lead Inquiry: But the point remains, doesn’t it, that the workstreams which were identified after Exercise Cygnus in 2016 were not all fully implemented because the body designed to ensure implementation, the Wales Pandemic Flu Preparedness Group, didn’t sit – we’ll agree to disagree whether it was after January or October 2018 – because of the impact of the no-deal EU exit planning?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Yes, I think the expert report that the committee – that the Inquiry has says that devolved administrations did pursue pandemic preparedness, and that in Wales it went on for two years after the Cygnus conclusions were reached, but you reach a point at which we are diverting resources across the whole of the Welsh Government into dealing with the dangers that are sitting right in front of us of leaving the European Union without a deal.

Lead Inquiry: But obviously this Inquiry is concerned exclusively with civil contingency emergency preparedness; from that standpoint, those recommendations were never fully implemented?

Mr Mark Drakeford: That is without doubt. I simply make the point that government is never exclusively concerned with any one strand in the many challenges that it has in front of it.

Lead Inquiry: Indeed.

Mr Mark Drakeford: You can’t understand the way the government responds unless you are aware of the context within which it is responding.

Lead Inquiry: Pandemic preparedness is self-evidently a matter of life and death, is it not?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Yes.

Lead Inquiry: To what extent was that terrible balance identified between focusing upon the life and death consequences of pandemic preparedness and the consequences of failing to prepare for a no-deal EU exit?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Apologies if this answer is slightly longer than some of the ones I’ve tried to give.

So at the point when the UK Government decides to institute Operation Yellowhammer and we are now facing the reality of leaving the European Union without a deal, with all the consequences that that would have had for Wales, I am making a decision, along with my colleagues, to divert resources to deal with that.

The number of people we have in the Welsh Government who have genuine expertise in civil contingency matters is relatively modest, and their skills are particularly relevant to preparing for leaving the European Union without a deal. To give you just one example, Wales has reservoirs that serve not simply the Welsh population, but the whole of Birmingham and the whole of the northwest of England. The chemicals that you rely on to make that water safe to drink come from Germany, and while we were a member of the European Union they came without hindrance and they came on an “as they were needed” basis. We faced a real risk that if we left the European Union without a deal, that water supply would no longer be usable. That is the sort of present danger that you are talking about. It is absolutely real, would be immediate, and would have absolutely direct results on the lives of people.

Who do we look to in the Welsh Government to help us to find a way through that if we need to? Well, some of those people would need to be people who had the expertise in preparing and thinking about, and indeed, in the Welsh context, practically responding to the other emergencies we had already faced.

Lead Inquiry: To what extent was that balance brought to your attention, Mr Drakeford? And the point that you make is, if I may say so, very well made. You were faced with present and immediate risks, which of course you had to address. But it’s in the way of government, isn’t it, that you get on with addressing the job in hand? To what extent were you aware that that necessarily was diverting resources away from other less present but perhaps more catastrophic risks? Was it an issue on which they sought your advice?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I am very consciously aware of it, and I am consistently aware of it because I’m forever having to disappoint my colleagues, who have ambitions in their own portfolio areas, pieces of legislation that they are committed to bringing forward, for example, and my job is to explain to them why that will now not be possible. I’d do that, you know, month after month, throughout the whole of 2019, always to their disappointment.

So yes, the diversion of resources from other priorities to dealing with leaving the European Union without an agreement, it’s a very conscious set of decisions, and constantly debated as well, as to whether we are getting that balance right.

Lead Inquiry: May we take it from that answer, Mr Drakeford, that you were, therefore, aware of the consequential impact upon pandemic preparedness because of the necessary diversion of resources, that it was an area that was brought to your attention and in relation to which you were forced into the Hobson’s choice, perhaps, of saying, “That area can no longer be resourced and it simply cannot be the subject of focus because of this other greater risk that we face”?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Well, it cannot be resourced to the extent that it previously was being resourced. It’s not the case that you rob everything away from it. Work does continue even beyond the end of December 2018, but you’ve had to reduce the resource in order to deal with something that is immediate and pressing and potentially catastrophic in its impact if you’re not able to deal with it.

Lady Hallett: Mr Keith, forgive my interrupting. How are we doing for time? Because obviously we need a break.

Mr Keith: It’s a very convenient point.

Lady Hallett: We are determined to complete your evidence today, Mr Drakeford, don’t panic.

The Witness: Thank you.

Lady Hallett: So I shall return at 4.10, just a five-minute break.

(4.05 pm)

(A short break)

(4.10 pm)

Mr Keith: Mr Drakeford, turning to the question of guidance and strategies and plans, you are of course aware that the United Kingdom 2011 document, the influenza preparedness strategy, formed the genesis for all the civil contingency and major infectious disease pandemic related documentation in Wales, and therefore was similarly tainted – they were all similarly tainted by the same doctrinal or strategic flaws, as my Lady finds them to be. What was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander doctrinally for all that material, wasn’t it?

Mr Mark Drakeford: The plan was an inadequate basis for dealing with the events that subsequently unfolded, but not wholly inadequate. There were aspects of it which were still useful, but it clearly did not stand up to its major test.

Lead Inquiry: It went beyond that, though, didn’t it, because there was a complete failure to address issues such as the inherent characteristics of respiratory viruses, the consequences of differing incubation periods, differing transmission rates, differing viral loads and so on, and of course all the associated countermeasures which might prove to be necessary to deal with such a virus; all that was absent?

Mr Mark Drakeford: All of that is absent, and there are other aspects that the plan turned out not to have grappled with adequately either.

Lead Inquiry: Yes. The Pan-Wales Response Plan of 2019, even by 2019, was tainted by the same doctrinal flaws. It doesn’t itself or didn’t itself in fact contain much in it by reference to pandemic planning, because although there was a section on terrorism and the threat of terrorism, there was no analogous section on influenza pandemic, was there?

Mr Mark Drakeford: It is a generic document intended to cover the range of potential emergencies that might be faced in Wales, so in that sense it doesn’t operate at that level of specificity, that is true.

Lead Inquiry: So in summary, Mr Drakeford, by the onset of the pandemic in January 2020, the government – not you personally but the government – had failed to address many of the problems identified in the Wales audit office report of 2012 in relation to the complexity of the Resilience Framework, problems with inefficiency and ineffectiveness, doubts over the availability and maintenance of physical assets in human resources.

It had failed to implement all the recommendations from Exercise Taliesin and the two Cygnus exercises. There hadn’t been any significant recalibration of the structural system following the Transfer of Functions Order. None of the pandemic or disease outbreak or civil contingency paperwork that mattered had been updated. Then, of course, materially some of the final workstreams arising from the Wales Pandemic Flu Preparedness Group were blown off course by the preparations for a no-deal EU exit.

So, in the round, would you agree that there were and there continued to be significant failings over that eight-year period?

Mr Mark Drakeford: There’s no doubt at all that there were failings. I think the way that you set them out would, to my mind, give an unduly bleak account of some of the things that had happened over that period. So while some things had failed to be followed through, it was a failure in part rather than in whole.

When you say that the system had not taken the lessons in terms of effectiveness, in fact the system was very, very regularly tested in reality, including to a very major extent in February of 2020, and demonstrated that it was very effective in dealing with real life civil emergencies in Wales.

So while I don’t dissent at all from your general conclusion that there were things that ought to have been done and could have been done that hadn’t been done, I think to describe it entirely in those terms is to overlook some of the things that positively had happened and the successful way in which the system in Wales demonstrated its ability to respond when real emergencies arose.

Lead Inquiry: Let me make it absolutely plain, Mr Drakeford, it forms no part of this examination to question the remarkable individual response, of course, from all those who responded in the face of the pandemic, and of course it’s quite plain that the Welsh Government was able to, in material regard, respond efficiently to the terrible demands made on it. But the fact that it was able to respond is neither here nor there in terms of the consideration of whether or not structurally the system of preparedness, in advance of the pandemic, was simply not as good as it should have been and therefore the Welsh Government was not as prepared as it could have been. Would you agree?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Put like that, I would agree, yes.

Lead Inquiry: Right.

Could I now ask you, please, some questions about links to the United Kingdom at a ministerial and medical level.

The Hine review in July 2010 made a multitude of recommendations about how health ministers should meet pan UK in order to address matters of mutual concern.

Was it your experience that at that level, the health minister level, the relations between Wales and the Westminster government worked well?

Mr Mark Drakeford: No, I wouldn’t characterise them as working well. What they –

Lead Inquiry: Why not?

Mr Mark Drakeford: – lacked was a systematic basis for engagement, and this has long been my complaint about intergovernmental relations in the United Kingdom, that they rely far too often on individual willingness to work in that way, whereas what you need is a robust system of machinery of government that brings people to the table for common purposes, whether individuals are so inclined or not.

Lead Inquiry: You’ve referred then expressly to ministers. I was actually asking you about at the health level. Does what you say apply, therefore, to all forms of Welsh ministers, so the First Minister, health ministers and other ministers, or does it also apply to the health official level, so, for example, relations between the Chief Medical Officers?

Mr Mark Drakeford: At official level, much work goes on day in, day out in a perfectly orderly and engaged way, and I think you’ve got good examples in the way the Chief Medical Officers at that top of the profession level worked together as well. I was trying to explain my long-held view that the United Kingdom lacks, at that ministerial intergovernmental level, a sufficiently robust, reliable, regular pattern of engagement that does not rely on the individual predilections of particular players either to become engaged or not to become engaged.

Lead Inquiry: In effect, a system that doesn’t rely on ministerial whim as to whether or not a meeting will take place at all?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Well, I would give you a good example, if I could. When I became the Finance Minister, I took a telephone call at his initiative from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond at the time. We agreed that day-to-day the relationships will be between myself and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, but he made it clear in that call that at any point if I needed to speak directly to him about an issue, he would always be available to take that call.

That is a good example of where a particular minister with a predilection to co-operate in that way made it clear that he wanted to do so. The system ought not to rely on individual willingness of that sort.

Lead Inquiry: There is evidence to suggest that consideration was given at some stage to the setting up of a health ministers forum to provide a structure of the type that you’ve described. Do you know why that never came to pass?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Well, there is a JMC mechanism, a joint ministerial committee mechanism. It operated very well in certain contexts, it didn’t operate at all in others. It didn’t operate in the Health context and during the time that I was the Health Minister in Wales. While we enjoyed, I would say, very good relationships with Jane Ellison, who was a Conservative minister in charge of public health and who led the Ebola response, that was absent at the level of the Secretary of State.

Lead Inquiry: The JMC system has always existed, and it may or may not operate effectively depending on perhaps the whim of the contributors, but I am asking about a particular body, a health ministers forum, which was debated after the Hine review in 2010. Do you know what became of those proposals or why nothing in practice was done?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I would say there was no appetite on the part of UK Government ministers to establish such a forum. The initiative lies with them in a JMC context.

Lead Inquiry: Right. So it wasn’t a lack of initiative on the Welsh part; the problem lay on the UK side, you believe?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Under the JMC mechanism, the initiative lies in the hands of UK ministers.

Lead Inquiry: There has since been a review of intergovernmental relations, it took place in 2022. I think it was commissioned in 2018, so it didn’t proceed terribly quickly. Do you know whether or not, as First Minister, there have been any meetings of the interministerial group or the standing committee or the secretariat for which that new process provides?

Mr Mark Drakeford: It is a three tiered structure.

Its pinnacle is a council of ministers, that’s the First Ministers and the Prime Minister. It has met once, but not in full form because there has not been a First Minister of the Northern Ireland Executive since the agreement was struck, but the current Prime Minister, Mr Sunak, has presided over one meeting of the council.

The intermediate tier has the F:ISC, the finance interministerial committee, that does meet regularly, and then it has another standing committee that has met more intermittently.

Then at the third tier there will be the sort of meeting between specific portfolio ministers, health ministers for example could be one. I myself do not believe that that tier has operated in the way that the intergovernmental review mechanism anticipated. It has been at best hit and miss.

Lady Hallett: Is that because health is such a party political issue? Why do you think, Mr Drakeford?

Mr Mark Drakeford: It will be wider than health, and my own view is, is that where there were pre-existing relationships, they have continued. So there’s always been a strong interministerial group around farming and environment and rural affairs, and that has continued to meet under the new regime and to do so regularly. Where there is no history of engagement of that sort, the new machinery has not succeeded in sparking those arrangements into life.

So I don’t think it’s particularly to do with health or the politically contested nature of health. I think there’s no history of it in health, and as in other parts of Whitehall where there is no history, the new intergovernmental arrangements haven’t succeeded in generating new forms of interaction.

Mr Keith: It does appear, however, to be an improvement on what went before?

Mr Mark Drakeford: It is systematic, it has an independent secretariat, it has an independent means of resolving disputes. All of those are improvements. I was glad to be able to sign the document.

Lead Inquiry: Good.

There is also, in the field of resilience, a new forum, the UK Resilience Forum, in relation to which the Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden gave evidence now some time ago. There have been three meetings of that UK Resilience Forum. The Welsh Government attended the first one in July 2021 and it attended the third one in February 2023, but was absent with apologies from the May 2022 meeting. Do you happen to know why, unusually, the Welsh Government, given the attendance of other entities, absented itself from that meeting?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I think it’s important to say that while it is ministerially chaired, that forum, it is not a ministerial meeting.

Lead Inquiry: No, indeed not.

Mr Mark Drakeford: The Welsh Government is represented by senior officials. I have made enquiries as to why we were not represented that day, alongside almost a dozen other bodies, and the information that I received was that our officials felt that the agenda that day was an agenda in which they were already engaged in other forums and that on that day couldn’t command a priority in their dairies.

But, as you say, they were at the first and third meetings and it’s our intention to continue to be involved.

Lead Inquiry: If all these bilateral or multilateral meetings or fora are to work, then of course it requires the participation of all the parties and effort to be made to attend; I’m sure you’d agree with that notion?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I do.

Lead Inquiry: The final topic, Mr Drakeford, concerns inequalities.

There is evidence that the Welsh Government has devoted a great deal of time and energy to ensuring an improvement in prospects economically, societally, on the part of its citizens and its communities. It does, nevertheless, appear that, in the field of pandemic preparedness, civil emergency planning, very little attention was given to the issue of how a pandemic would affect sectors of the community disproportionately, and how steps could be taken to ensure that the impact on those who are vulnerable and marginalised could be mitigated. Would you agree?

I should say that it is a flaw that is apparent from the analogous papers, guidance, doctrine, strategies in Scotland and in London.

Mr Mark Drakeford: I should say at the outset that addressing inequalities is absolutely in the bloodstream of successive Welsh Governments. I spent a great deal of my time in the very first Assembly term working with Professor Peter Townsend who was the – probably the world’s leading expert on health inequalities at the time to get his advice to address those issues in Wales.

I think there is evidence you will have seen from Dr Sandifer, who has given evidence, and the advice of Public Health Wales to us was, that while you had to be aware of the unequal impact of a pandemic on the population, it was very difficult to anticipate in advance of the particular nature of that pandemic where those inequalities would most fall.

So while there is evidence in the documentation of awareness of inequality and the way in which a pandemic would exaggerate existing inequalities and therefore had to be planned for from the outset, the more granular planning, which groups would be affected, how would you respond to them, you’d have to do that when the nature of the pandemic you were dealing with became more apparent. You – it just wouldn’t be possible to plan without that greater knowledge.

I think that was the advice that Public Health Wales would have given to us and I think has given to the Inquiry.

Mr Keith: Thank you, Mr Drakeford.

My Lady, those are all my questions. I believe you have granted permission to Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru to ask five minutes’ worth of additional questions.

Lady Hallett: Ms Heaven.

Questions From Ms Heaven

Ms Heaven: Thank you, my Lady.

First Minister, my name is Kirsten Heaven and, as I think you know, I represent the Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru.

I just want to ask you really about one very small topic around some discussions in 2013, but before we get there, can I please clarify some things from your statements about some of the jobs and political roles you’ve held.

So what you tell us in your statement is from 2000 you became a special adviser for health and social policy, I think that was to Rhodri Morgan, and I think at that time you had some experience of the SARS outbreak; is that correct?

Mr Mark Drakeford: That is correct.

Ms Heaven: We know obviously that you were elected in 2011. Can I just ask, where were you, politically, in 2009 when swine flu broke out?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I was still a special adviser to the Welsh Government.

Ms Heaven: Okay. Were you a special adviser in a health role still at that time or were you in a different role?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I was the head of the First Minister’s political office at that time.

Ms Heaven: But would it be fair to say you knew about the fact of swine flu?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Oh, I did, and I attended, in that advisory capacity, a number of meetings between Scottish, UK, Welsh and Northern Irish ministers.

Ms Heaven: 2011 to 2013, we know that you were the chair of the Welsh Assembly Health and Social Care Committee. We also know, obviously, that there was a MERS outbreak in April 2012. Did that come up when you were chairing the committee at all, do you recollect?

Mr Mark Drakeford: It would only have come up in this way: that I think, from recollection, once a term, so three times a year, the minister responsible would appear in front of the committee for what is called general scrutiny, in which any topic of the day could be raised and the minister asked questions. That would have been the opportunity for the committee to hear on that matter.

Ms Heaven: But do you recollect whether or not that happened now?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I –

Ms Heaven: You can’t?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Without looking back, I can’t recollect here.

Ms Heaven: But did you know that there had been such a thing called MERS, either then or later, when you became Minister for Health?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I would have been aware of it, yes.

Ms Heaven: You also say in your statement that you had experience of Ebola, and you’ve mentioned that briefly today, and I think that was when you were Health Minister –

Mr Mark Drakeford: Yes.

Ms Heaven: – is that fair?

And, just to be clear, you became –

Lady Hallett: Ms Heaven, sorry, I’ve been asked to ask you to slow down. I appreciate –

Ms Heaven: Sorry, I know I –

Lady Hallett: Don’t worry, I know you’re trying to keep to the timing.

Ms Heaven: I’m trying to get through.

Lady Hallett: Don’t worry, I’ll let you off if you run over if you slow down.

Ms Heaven: I will. Sorry, I’m just trying to stick to the time.

Lady Hallett: Yes.

Ms Heaven: To be clear, March 2013 was, I think, when you became elected Minister for Health; is that right?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Correct.

Ms Heaven: Okay.

So yesterday Frank Atherton was taken to some minutes from the Health Emergency Preparedness Unit, so that’s HEPU for short, and these related to a pandemic planning yearly conference in October 2013. They were chaired by David Goulding, who was head of HEPU. Now, there was no suggestion, just to be clear, that you were at this conference. We know that HEPU sits within the Health and Social Services Group and it reports to the Welsh Government.

So by the stage of October 2013 I think you had been in post for seven months. Is it safe to assume that by this stage you knew about the fact that HEPU existed and the general nature of its work?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I would have known Mr Goulding prior to becoming the Health Minister, so I would have been aware of his work and the unit, yes.

Ms Heaven: Now, what’s interesting about this 2013 conference is we can see that a talk was given by somebody called a Dr John Watkins, and I won’t bring it up just to save time, but I’ll summarise the gist of what I want to ask you about.

Now, we understand he’s a consultant or he was then a consultant epidemiologist in Public Health Wales, and he is telling this conference about how current threats include a novel virus, and he says that that pandemic influenza planning assumptions in Wales must consider that Wales could see the emergence of such a novel virus, and he talks about little background immunity, that a vaccine may not work or it may not be available. There is then a reference to virulence and transmissibility in the context of the 1918 Spanish flu, and there is also a reference to swine flu.

So in other words, he is talking about virulence and transmissibility with the potential for fast transmission and a very high death rate.

Now, as I’ve said, you were not at this meeting, we know that, but given that there is no reference in your witness statement to HEPU or this specific meeting or the gist of this information, is it safe for us to assume that you were not aware that these matters were being discussed either in this conference or in general terms, and that’s in relation to a novel virus or a Disease X, as it’s been referred to in this Inquiry; would that be a fair assumption?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I think it would be fair. I was aware of the conference, I’ve seen the report of Dr Watkins’ contribution since, but I don’t think I would be likely to have been alerted to it at the time.

Ms Heaven: So in other words you were not briefed?

Mr Mark Drakeford: Not on the contribution of a single speaker at a single conference, and I wouldn’t expect to be.

Ms Heaven: No. But just thinking generally about your state of knowledge on this, obviously you’ll appreciate why I’m asking, it’s a very important topic: novel virus, Disease X, it’s being talked about as a possible risk in 2013 in Wales. We obviously know that you went on to become First Minister for Wales, you went on to chair the Wales Resilience Forum. Did you, as either a Health Minister or even in your capacity as First Minister for Wales, specifically ask your officials – be it David Goulding or somebody in Public Health Wales – about the risk of a novel virus or a Disease X breaking out in Wales and whether Wales was prepared? So did you ask that question of anybody?

Mr Mark Drakeford: No.

Ms Heaven: Given your long experience in health and given what you had seen of the dangerous viruses that I’ve set out, would you not accept today that that was an obvious and basic question that you could and should have asked?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I don’t think I would accept it on those terms, because I would have asked myself what sort of answer I was likely to have received, other than to recognise that there are a plethora of unknowns out there that you need to be aware of, and that you need to have sources of information about, and I doubt that the answer would have gotten me much further than that.

Ms Heaven: But the point is you didn’t ask the question, did you?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I’ve –

Ms Heaven: Forgetting what the answer might have been, you didn’t ask the question?

Mr Mark Drakeford: I didn’t ask the question. You said to me that was not a reasonable thing –

Ms Heaven: Okay.

Mr Mark Drakeford: – to have done, and I was explaining – trying to explain why I didn’t ask the question.

Ms Heaven: Those are all my questions. Thank you very much, First Minister.

The Witness: Thank you.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much, Ms Heaven.

Mr Keith.

Mr Keith: My Lady, that concludes the evidence for today.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed, Mr Drakeford.

The Witness: Thank you.

Lady Hallett: The next time we meet I think will be in Wales.

The Witness: Wales. Excellent. Thank you.

Lady Hallett: Thank you for your time.

(The witness withdrew)

Lady Hallett: 10 o’clock tomorrow?

Mr Keith: Yes, please.

(4.40 pm)

(The hearing adjourned until 10 am on Wednesday, 5 July 2023)