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Vaughan Gething: Company linked to criminal investigation donated to First Minister

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Image description, The beginning of Vaughan Gething’s term as First Minister of Wales was marred by a dispute over campaign donations.

As the BBC revealed, a company that funded Vaughan Gething’s successful bid to become First Minister of Wales was involved in criminal investigations at the time.

Mr Gething’s election campaign accepted £200,000 from a company controlled by millionaire businessman David Neal.

Natural Resources Wales (NRW) is currently conducting a criminal investigation into alleged environmental offences by Resources Management Limited (RML), one of Mr Neal’s companies.

A Welsh Labour Party spokesman said the issues had been “raised previously by Vaughan Gething and were public knowledge”.

  • Author, Paul Heaney
  • Role, BBC Wales investigates

video subtitles, Vaughan Gething avoids the question of a criminal investigation into donations at Urdd

The ongoing dispute in Wales is an unwelcome distraction for Sir Keir Starmer in the election campaign – even though the Labour leader publicly supports Mr Gething.

RML operates the Withyhedge landfill near Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, which people have been complaining about since October 2023 as a “stink bomb on steroids”.

RML stated that it would “continue to fully cooperate with any ongoing investigations by Natural Resources Wales”.

However, this is not the first time that a waste management company controlled by Mr Neal has been investigated.

He was convicted twice of environmental crimes related to two companies, in 2013 and 2017, and one of the defendants also pleaded guilty to another crime in March this year.

One woman said she had moved back to her parents’ home in the nearby village of Crundale with her partner and two young children for a “better quality of life” but the construction of the Withyhedge site had caused extensive damage.

“I left the house to go to work and was hit by the horrible smell of rotten eggs. I held my breath until I got to the car. It was horrible,” Jenny Clubbe told Wales Investigates.

Image description, The Clubbe family says their lives have been ruined by the stench of the landfill

“When I got to the car, my lips started to tingle and shortly afterwards I got a headache.

“We closed the windows because we didn’t want to wake up in a house that smelled like rotten eggs. This is worse than my son’s diaper.”

RML said it would no longer accept “a number of waste streams” that it believed contributed to the odour and plans to implement technical measures to ensure it does not happen again.

Image description, More than 2,000 people have joined the Stop the Stink campaign at Withyhedge landfill

Retired municipal employee Colin Barnett, who also lives near the landfill, has organized citizen protests against the stench and has been complaining to NRW for seven months.

“We started a Facebook campaign because the local Facebook page for Spittal was overloaded with inquiries about the dump.

“When the drone footage (of the site) that I took became public, they started investigating further. And only since then have we increased the pressure so that they have had to keep coming back there.”

Image description, David Neal controls companies that are linked both to the criminal investigations in North Rhine-Westphalia and to Mr Gething’s political donations.

The group founded by Mr Barnett now has more than 2,000 members and he said it was now a “huge campaign”.

“They are probably very surprised that it has met with such fierce opposition in a rural area that they thought was relatively small. But the problem is that so many of these villages were affected.

He added that Mr Neal stood up very early at a public meeting and said he wanted to be a good neighbor.

“So if that’s supposed to be a good neighbor, forget it. Just go away.”

NRW has reportedly identified the smell as hydrogen sulphide.

Huwel Manley, head of operations for the south west, said the regulator was working with the local authority, the local health board and Public Health Wales to resolve the issues.

“We identified worrying problems at the end of last year,” he added.

“The company is currently under investigation.”

Who knew about the investigation?

NRW is overseen by the Welsh Government and had already informed ministers about the Withyhedge site controlled by Mr Neal before Mr Gething was appointed First Minister in mid-March.

Both Health Minister Eluned Morgan and then Climate Minister Julie James met with the regulator in February to discuss the problems at Withyhedge.

The second sum of money that Mr Neal gave to Mr Gething in January 2024 was donated one day before another of Mr Neal’s companies submitted its plans for a new solar farm on the Gwent Levels in an Area of ​​Special Scientific Interest.

In a statement, Neal said: “All donations came from a separate account than those we used to develop our business. We never asked for or expected anything in return.”

Image description, Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth said the party would support a vote of no confidence in the First Minister.

But Rhun ap Iorwerth, leader of Plaid Cymru, said there was now a perception the company had bought favours from the First Minister.

“You would think that someone who pays that much money would want something, and that’s exactly what raises the questions here,” he said.

“Why is a First Minister so willing to expose himself to such blatant allegations of some kind of inappropriate relationship?

“It just shows very poor judgement.”

But other senior party figures also publicly supported the First Minister, including party leader Sir Keir Starmer and Welsh Shadow Minister Jo Stevens.

Speaking about her campaign, she said: “Vaughan has broken no rules in his campaign and we look forward to moving on to the general election. There has been a positive response to him on the doorstep.”

Image source, Senedd Cymru

Image description, Andrew RT Davies says people have “serious questions” about the donations

Politicians in the Senedd will vote on Wednesday on whether they have confidence in Mr Gething’s leadership.

A defeat in the vote would not force him to resign, but would put him in a difficult position.

The suggestion came from Welsh Conservative leader in the Senedd Andrew RT Davies, who said the debate would give people the opportunity to comment on Mr Gething’s “judgment, transparency and truthfulness”.

BBC Wales Investigates: A Big Stink is available on iPlayer and BBC One Wales at 20:00 BST on Monday 3 June

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