THERE was an “inherent suspicion” in the way the UK government dealt with its devolved counterparts during the Covid pandemic because they were “worried about the Scots,” the former first minister of Wales has said.
Mark Drakeford, who led the Welsh Labour government from 2018 to 2024 and now serves as Finance Secretary, made the comments as he spoke to the For Wales, See Wales podcast in an episode released on Thursday.
Speaking about the relationship between the Tory-run UK government and his Welsh administration during the Covid pandemic, he said that Boris Johnson’s team had been reluctant to share anything due to fears about Scotland.
“They were always much more worried about the Scots than us, and we got caught up in the backwash of that,” Drakeford said.
“The UK Government were very reluctant to share things with the Scottish Government and very reluctant to say things in meetings where they thought the Scots were there, because they suspected, I think wrongly, that the Scottish Government would use that as part of the wider battle over wanting … to take Scotland out to the United Kingdom.”
Drakeford went on: “The United Kingdom Government would treat them very warily indeed, and that would wash over into us, because they wouldn't share things with us, because they would be afraid if they did with us, they'd have to do the same with the Scots and so on.
“So there was a lot of inherent suspicion in the way that they approached dealing with devolved governments.
“All I wanted was a chance to be able to be around the table and share information together once a fortnight. I wasn't expecting anything much more than that. We would all have been better informed, and all made better decisions.”
In late 2023, former prime minister Johnson said he believed it was “wrong” for the UK government to hold regular meetings with devolved counterparts because he thought it would be too much like a “mini-EU of four nations".
Johnson’s Scottish secretary, Alister Jack, was further recorded as saying that "working at official level would be better" than with the heads of government as it "would avoid Scottish [first minister] grandstanding".
In January 2024, evidence to the Covid Inquiry showed that Nicola Sturgeon had called Johnson a “f***ing clown”.
In 2021, a documentary for the Welsh-language channel S4C showed footage of Drakeford saying Johnson “really, really is awful” after meeting with the then-Tory prime minister.
Asked about his comments on the For Wales, See Wales podcast, Drakeford told host Will Hayward and comedians Mel Owen and Robin Morgan: “The truth of the matter, in that meeting, he was awful.”
“In that particular meeting, it seemed to me, he had very little idea of what the meeting was about. He had very little idea of who was in the room. He had very little idea of what we were all there to do.”
“In some ways, compared to some people I've worked with, he was a courteous chair of a meeting. He made sure that if somebody wanted to say something, they had a chance to say it.”
Elsewhere, evidence from the UK’s national statistician Sir Iain Diamond showed that Wales and Scotland had lower mortality rates than England during the pandemic.
A submission to the Covid Inquiry from Scottish ministers stated: “When considering the outcome of the pandemic across the four nations, Sir Iain Diamond detailed that England had the highest Age-standardised Mortality Rates [ASMRs] for deaths involving Covid-19 of the four nations, 145.0 per 100,000 people followed by Wales (144.6), Northern Ireland (130.7) and Scotland (124.9), between March 2020 and February 2022.”
ASMRs are a weighted average, where proportions are measured against the corresponding age group’s standard population size.
