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Vaughan Gething
Vaughan Gething (cropped official portrait).jpg
Official portrait, 2021
First Minister-designate of Wales
Assuming office
20 March 2024
Monarch Charles III
Succeeding Mark Drakeford
Leader of Welsh Labour
Assumed office
16 March 2024
Deputy Carolyn Harris
Preceded by Mark Drakeford
Minister for the Economy
Assumed office
13 May 2021
First Minister Mark Drakeford
Preceded by Ken Skates
Minister for Health and Social Services
In office
19 May 2016 – 13 May 2021
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
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
First Minister Carwyn Jones
Minister Jeffrey Cuthbert
Member of the Senedd
for Cardiff South and Penarth
Assumed office
6 May 2011
Preceded by Lorraine Barrett
Majority 10,606 (29.2%)
Personal details
Born (1974-03-15) 15 March 1974 (age 50)
Lusaka, Zambia
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.

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.

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