Vaughan Gething facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Vaughan Gething
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Official portrait, 2021
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First Minister-designate of Wales | |
Assuming office 20 March 2024 |
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Monarch | Charles III |
Succeeding | Mark Drakeford |
Leader of Welsh Labour | |
Assumed office 16 March 2024 |
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Deputy | Carolyn Harris |
Preceded by | Mark Drakeford |
Minister for the Economy | |
Assumed office 13 May 2021 |
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First Minister | Mark Drakeford |
Preceded by | Ken Skates |
Minister for Health and Social Services | |
In office 19 May 2016 – 13 May 2021 |
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First Minister | Carwyn Jones Mark Drakeford |
Preceded by | Mark Drakeford |
Succeeded by | Eluned Morgan, Baroness Morgan of Ely |
Deputy Minister for Health | |
In office 11 September 2014 – 19 May 2016 |
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First Minister | Carwyn Jones |
Minister | Mark Drakeford |
Preceded by | Office established |
Succeeded by | Rebecca Evans |
Deputy Minister for Tackling Poverty | |
In office 26 June 2013 – 11 September 2014 |
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First Minister | Carwyn Jones |
Minister | Jeffrey Cuthbert |
Member of the Senedd for Cardiff South and Penarth |
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Assumed office 6 May 2011 |
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Preceded by | Lorraine Barrett |
Majority | 10,606 (29.2%) |
Personal details | |
Born | Lusaka, Zambia |
15 March 1974
Nationality | Welsh |
Political party | Labour Co-operative |
Spouse | Michelle Gething |
Alma mater | University of Wales |
Occupation | Solicitor, trade unionist |
Signature | |
Vaughan Gething (born 15 March 1974) is a Welsh Labour and Co-operative politician, serving as leader of Welsh Labour since 2024. He previously served as the Minister for Health and Social Services from 2016 to 2021. He has been the Member of the Senedd (MS) for Cardiff South and Penarth since 2011.
In March 2024, he won the Welsh Labour leadership election to replace Mark Drakeford and is set to become First Minister of Wales, which would make him the first Black person to hold the role, as well as the first Black leader of any European country.
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Early life
Gething was born in Zambia in 1974, where his father, a white Welsh veterinarian from Ogmore-by-Sea in Glamorgan, met his mother who is a Black Zambian and was working as a chicken farmer. Gething describes his father as "a white Welsh economic migrant". When he was two years old, he moved to Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, Wales, with his family and has three brothers and a sister. His father eventually found work in Dorset, England, where Gething was brought up.
Gething studied at Beaminster Comprehensive and Sixth Form in Dorset, followed by Aberystwyth University, where he read Law and graduated in 1999, and then went on to the University of Cardiff Law School, University of Wales. Gething became President of Aberystwyth University Guild of Students and the first Black president of the National Union of Students Wales.
Professional career
Having completed his training as a solicitor in Cardiff in 2001, with the trade union solicitors Thompsons, Gething chose to specialise in employment law. He became a partner in Thompsons in 2007.
In 2008, at the age of 34, Gething became the youngest President of Wales TUC, also becoming the first mixed race person in the role.
Political career
Gething joined the Labour Party when he was 17, to campaign in the 1992 UK general election. He contested Mid and West Wales in the inaugural elections to the National Assembly for Wales in 1999 for Labour and was not elected.
He was a councillor from 2004 to 2008, representing Butetown electoral ward on Cardiff Council, having been elected with a majority of two votes over candidate Betty Campbell. Following the election, Campbell sent a complaint letter to Cardiff Council alleging that Gething had infringed election rules by handing out leaflets to voters as they entered polling stations and telling them how to vote. Campbell initially intended to have the vote re-examined in the High Court but abandoned this because of the estimated cost of £12,000.
Gething was selected as the Welsh Labour candidate for the Cardiff South and Penarth constituency in the Senedd. Lorraine Barrett, who had represented Cardiff South and Penarth since the Senedd's creation in 1999, had announced her intention to stand down at the 2011 election. At the Senedd election on 5 May 2011, Gething increased the Labour vote with a swing of 12.5%. At 13,814, his share of the vote was over 50%, giving him a majority of 6,259 over the Welsh Conservative Party candidate, Ben Gray, placed second. At the following 2016 Welsh Assembly election, Gething once again increased his majority in terms of vote share.
Following the 2016 election, First Minister Carwyn Jones promoted Gething to the Welsh Cabinet as Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport.
Gething, alongside Eluned, Baroness Morgan and Mark Drakeford, was one of the three contenders in the 2018 election for the leadership of Welsh Labour, but was defeated by Finance Secretary Mark Drakeford.
Drakeford subsequently reappointed Gething as Health Minister, with the position renamed as Minister for Health and Social Services. On 13 May 2021, Gething was promoted to Minister for the Economy, replacing Ken Skates.
Minister for Health during Covid pandemic
Gething was Minister for Health and Social Services during the 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic.
2024 Labour leadership election
In December 2023, Gething became one of two candidates in the Welsh Labour leadership election to replace Drakeford as party leader and Wales' First Minister.
On 16 March, it was announced that Gething had won the election with 51,7% of the vote: as a result, he would become the first Black First Minister of Wales, as well as the first Black leader of any European country.
Personal life
Gething and his wife Michelle live in Penarth, where he has lived since 2011.