Plaid Cymru would hold Covid inquiry if it wins next election

Plaid Cymru has promised to hold a public inquiry into Wales' experience of the Covid pandemic if it forms the next Welsh government.

The party's health spokesman Mabon ab Gwynfor told the Senedd the "terrible chapter" in Wales' history had to be confronted.

It comes as a plan for Senedd members to examine Welsh "gaps" in the UK Covid inquiry was formally abandoned.

The Welsh Parliament's Covid committee effectively collapsed after the Tories pulled out in March - another committee will take on its work.

However, the chair of that group - also a Conservative - said he was unsure it could deal with the matter "sufficiently".

The Conservatives, Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems have supported calls for a Wales-specific inquiry, on the basis that much of the response to the pandemic in Wales was handled by the Welsh government.

Advocates in favour of an inquiry say what happened in Wales cannot be properly understood in at a UK-wide inquiry.

The Welsh government has refused to commission such an exercise, arguing that the pandemic needs to be investigated in a wider context.

In a compromise with the Conservatives, Welsh Labour ministers agreed to form a committee in the Senedd to examine gaps in the inquiry's approach to Wales.

But the plan fell apart after shortly after its first report after the Conservatives objected to a government refusal for ministers and officials to give evidence under oath.

The committee had found nine areas that should be examined in detail, including to review the benefits of having a Wales-specific approach to a pandemic.

Presiding officer Elin Jones confirmed on Wednesday the Covid committee will be wound up.

Ap Gwynfor told the Senedd on Wednesday: "We remain steadfast in our view that we can and should do so much more and set the very highest standards when it comes to the accountability of our democracy".

He said a Plaid government would "establish a Covid inquiry for Wales within the first year of the next Senedd term".

"This isn't about pointing fingers or seeking to apportion blame. This is about confronting the legacy of this terrible chapter in our nation's history honestly, maturely and transparently".

The work of the Covid committee will be taken on by the Public Accounts and Administration Committee, chaired by Mark Isherwood.

He said that with "limited time" left this term his committee is "likely to only be able to consider module one" of the Covid inquiry - which looked at preparedness for the pandemic, as the module two report on decision making and political governance has not been published.

He said the committee was concerned about its capacity to deal with the work.

"We may not be best placed to pursue this work," he said.

"We cannot be sure that any outcome will be sufficiently comprehensive to satisfactorily address the issues arising from the module one report, rather than through a Wales specific public inquiry."

Ap Gwynfor accused the Tories and Labour of a "backroom deal" to set the Covid committee up.

"What transpired from then on was nothing short of shambolic. Months were wasted deliberating the actual purpose of the special purposes committee," he said.

He said the Tories were not blameless either, having "effectively pulled the plug" on one committee over oath-taking, "they're now proposing to belatedly re-enter the conversation by chairing a separate committee that also doesn't have any authority to compel oath-taking."

Conservative South Wales West MS Tom Giffard, explaining why the Conservatives left the committee, said "continued obfuscation" from Labour's participants made it "impossible" to get answers.

"Time and again we'd waste time discussing the same issues over and over again," he said.

"Some would arrive at the committee tasked with reasons not to do something".

He called the committee a "kangaroo court that would never have got to the bottom of the issues that the families deserve".

Julie James, counsel general, said Giffard's comments were "absolutely disgraceful", and said he should reflect "especially when they abandoned their work half way through".

Jenny Rathbone, Labour Cardiff Central MS, said the report of the Covid committee was important with a "lot of suggestions in it, which indicate that there's a great deal more work to do".

"It's very unfortunate that it wasn't able to get on and do it," she said.