'Early 2020 business as usual for ministers'published at 10:50 Greenwich Mean Time 12 March

10:50 GMT 12 March

Owain Clarke
BBC Wales Health Correspondent

A recurrent question during these hearings has been whether or not the Welsh government was "too slow" to realise the scale of the Covid threat.

From previous evidence we knew Wales' chief medical officer warned First Minister Mark Drakeford of a "significant threat" that the virus would reach Wales in late January.

In the following weeks, leading experts were becoming increasingly frustrated that the Ministers and officials in their view weren't gearing up sufficiently or quickly enough for what ws to come.

The fact that Eluned Morgan, then the minister responsible for promoting Wales abroad, travelled to Canada, USA and Ireland in February and early March - Wales' first Covid case was 28 February 2020 - is an example of how in some respects it was still "business as usual" at the top of Welsh government.

But she tells the Inquiry she did "start" to understand how significant a threat was on her return from that trip.

Image source, UK Covid-19 Inquiry

The inquiry is shown a WhatsApp message from Morgan to the Welsh ministerial group chat on 21 March 2020 where she says “we really need to stop people coming to Wales on holiday”.

“Two bus loads of pensioners arrived in St David’s on Friday,” she tells the inquiry.

The following day, Morgan sent a message to First Minister Mark Drakeford referencing a Daily Mail article which was encouraging people to visit Wales “as a place to escape”.

“Tenby is full of tourists,” the message reads.

A response from Drakeford says public messaging asking people not to travel would continue, but the Welsh government's ability "depends entirely on our legal powers" which he hoped to know more about by the end of that day.

Morgan agrees that text communications from First Minister Mark Drakeford in March 2020 suggest the Welsh government wasn’t clear on whether they could stop people coming into Wales - and how they could enforce this.

On 16 March, the health minister tells the inquiry “there had already been a requirement for people to not undertake unnecessary travel" and she adds but “what was clear was people were not adhering to that”.

“The text from the first minister suggests we were still looking for our ability to enforce it,” Morgan says.

Morgan admits Wales should have been more prepared for the pandemic.

When asked if the Welsh government was too slow off the mark, Wales' health minister says: "I think if we had our time again we recognise that we probably should have been making earlier preparations."

She says it would have been "quite difficult" to put restrictions in place ahead of the UK government, but Morgan says in retrospect lockdown should have come about a week sooner.

Eluned Morgan tells the inquiry that in February 2020 she didn’t fully realise how much of a threat Covid would become.

As minister for international relations at the time, she travelled overseas on 23 February visiting the United States and Canada.

“I think this was quite important, in that we had just come out of Brexit… St David’s Day is a key time for us to go and beat the drum for Wales abroad, so I missed the first cabinet meeting where Covid was discussed.”

Image source, UK Covid-19 Inquiry

First up to the stand this morning is Eluned Morgan.

The Welsh health minister took over the role from Vaughan Gething in a May 2021 cabinet reshuffle.

She has therefore been in the job during the later stages of the pandemic, as well as overseeing the knock-on effect of Covid on the NHS in Wales.

Morgan put herself forward for the first minister job back in 2018, but ruled herself out of this year's race at an early stage.

Image source, UK Covid-19 Inquiry

Pandemic health minister Vaughan Gething answered questions spanning the whole of yesterday's session.

• He spoke about his mobile phone going in for maintenance in 2022, and WhatsApp messages being "wiped". He apologised they weren't available for scrutiny at the enquiry, dubbing it a "matter of real embarrassment"
• He said the running of Cobra meetings was "frustrating", with briefing papers handed out only a few minutes beforehand and limits placed on attendees from the devolved nations. He added it would have been good to see the prime minister at these meetings earlier in the pandemic, but that when he did lead the meetings they were "scatty"
• He said the Welsh government was not as prepared as it could have been for the type of pandemic it was later faced with
• He thought more lives could have been saved had lockdown come in earlier than 23 March 2020
• When it came to school closures, Gething said he regretted that schools could not have stayed open for longer at the start of the pandemic

It’s day two of the final week of the UK Covid Inquiry in Wales, with more ministers set to take the stand.

• Following yesterday’s grilling of Labour leadership contender Vaughan Gething, first up today will be Eluned Morgan, who took over from him as health minister in May 2021
• It will then be the turn of Rebecca Evans, minister for finance since 2018 and local government since 2021
• This will be followed by evidence from Gething’s competitor in the leadership race, Jeremy Miles who was the counsel general (law officer) and minister for European integration during the pandemic, before being appointed education minister in May 2021. He was also tasked with Covid recovery
• It comes ahead of Wednesday’s finale, when First Minister Mark Drakeford will be under the limelight just days before he steps down