The Welsh Government is refusing to release ministerial advice they received regarding their policies toward care homes in the early phase of the pandemic. This is a little fiddly to explain but it is worth taking the time because their justifications are, in my view, as weak as a kitten.

It all starts with a Freedom of Information request from Plaid Cymru. They requested “all ministerial advice (and any other supporting documents) that informed the Welsh Government’s policies on Covid-19 testing for care home staff and residents in Wales (including residents being transferred from hospitals to care homes) from 30 January 2020 to 16 May 2020."

The Welsh Government refused to release this information to Plaid citing that it would be released in the future through the UK public inquiry. They outlined three reasons why they felt it was not in the public interest to release the data yet.

Read more: The Welsh Government are withholding vital information about how they handled Covid

Why this information really matters

The way that the Welsh Government handled care homes was highly controversial in the early months of Covid. As hospital patients were rushed to be discharged into care homes a rule was put in place that only people who had symptoms of Covid would be tested for the virus.

Some speculated that this was due to a lack of available tests at the time. However Vaughan Gething, then health minister, later said that even with "treble the amount of testing capacity” he still would not have allowed testing of people without symptoms in care homes.

The decision not to test incoming care home residents likely seeded the virus into the part of Welsh society which was most vulnerable. A WalesOnline investigation proved that policy makers were made aware of the risks posed by asymptomatic transmission long before they began testing. You can read this here.

The advice underpinning this decision-making is vital for not just for the people who lost loved ones understanding what happened but also so lessons can be learned for when a pandemic happens again.

The Welsh Government's justification for not releasing the data yet

In their response to Plaid the Welsh Government gave three rationales for not releasing the advice. These were:

• “The information relates to the formulation of our policies to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. As noted above the Covid-19 Public Inquiry under way is looking at both the UK and devolved governments' responses to the pandemic. It will be provided with all the information it requires in order for both the inquiry, and the general public, to understand what was known, when, and how decisions were arrived at. This information is included in the material being prepared for the inquiry and will be made available under this process.”
• “The wider public interest is best served for the information to be available consistently alongside other relevant material under the methodology adopted by the inquiry so that the bereaved and those impacted are provided with answers through the processes in place. Disclosure of such information in a piecemeal fashion, we believe, could lead to confusion and lack of clarity without the wider context and sharing of other related policy and decisions.”
• “We believe that the wider public interest is best served by the methodical approach being adopted by the inquiry. We recognise that this may be seen as a delaying release but we are of the view that the approach employed by the inquiry will allow for a more accurate understanding of the advice that informed policy and decisions made.”

On Sunday, August 6, counsel general Mick Antoniw continued to defend the decision. He said “selective and/or partial disclosure bypasses and undermines the role and purpose of the statutory inquiry set up – it does not contribute to or improve meaningful public or Senedd scrutiny".

What are the issues with the Welsh Government's defence?

In my view there are a number of weaknesses with these arguments. Let’s take them in turn. By necessity these will be brief though you could probably have a detailed debate about each one.

How does this undermine the inquiry? The idea that putting information into the public domain undermines the inquiry stretches credulity. There is a huge amount of information already in the public domain that inquiry has already looked at.

Take Operation Cygnus which looked at pandemic readiness. We knew that the Welsh Government took part in that and we knew Wales wasn’t prepared before the details were put to Frank Atherton, Mark Drakeford, and Vaughan Gething. Did this fact diminish or “undermine” the role of the inquiry when they were questioned? No. If anything it provided more context to observing members of the public when Vaughan Gething admitted not having read the report.

Can nothing the inquiry might use not be revealed until it is done? It is insane to say that info can’t be released until the inquiry concludes. It is touching on huge parts of Welsh society. The suggestion that none of this can be released until then is an enormous block on accountability and transparency on things that took place over the period 2020-22.

It may not even be used by the inquiry. Without doubt the inquiry will look at all the information provided to it but there is no guarantee that it will go in depth specifically on the advice the Welsh Government received on care homes. The remit of the UK inquiry is enormous. The Welsh public is being denied access to information that may not even form a part of the inquiry's questioning.

Bereaved families want answers now. The Welsh Government rationale for not disclosing this information was that “public interest is best served for the information to be available consistently alongside other relevant material....so that the bereaved and those impacted are provided with answers through the processes in place”. This suggestion that it is for the sake of the bereaved families this information is being withheld is preposterous. The Welsh bereaved families group is directly calling on the Welsh Government to release this information now.

The “confusion” line is patronising. Perhaps one of the arguments that grinds my gears the most is that if the Welsh Government were to release the advice that likely ultimately led to Welsh care homes disaster it would be confusing. The idea that we wouldn’t be able to grasp the complexities of their decision-making without it being seen in a UK-wide context after the inquiry has summarised it all is beyond patronising.

If we followed this logic all of the scientific advice from Sage that was released weekly during the pandemic shouldn’t have been released either. If this had been the case we would never have found out that the Welsh Government had been warned that asymptomatic transmission into care homes was possible when we did in July 2020. We would have had to wait until half a decade later when the inquiry concludes in 2025.

The inquiry is being used to dodge scrutiny again and again. Mark Drakeford has rebuffed several challenges in the Senedd citing the ongoing inquiry as a reason he can’t fully respond to a question. “Wait until the inquiry concludes,” we are told again and again. But by that time two of the main decision-makers during the pandemic will likely be in very different positions. Mark Drakeford will have almost certainly retired and Vaughan Gething could very well be First Minister (he is already making moves behind the scenes to run for the Welsh Labour leadership). Why can we only hear their answers then? The people of Wales deserve answers now.

The hypocrisy of expanding the Senedd. The request for this data was made by Plaid Cymru. They are an opposition party which has a duty to scrutinise the Welsh Government (as do the media). By not allowing them access to this advice the Welsh Government is stopping them doing their job.

Yet at the same time the Welsh Government wants to expand the Senedd because they don’t believe there are enough members to properly carry out the functions of scrutiny. But then if this is such a burning issue why are they not equipping the existing members to carry out this duty right now?

This is about saving face

It is hard to see this decision as anything other than an attempt to save face and dodge scrutiny. There is no guarantee that the ongoing Covid inquiry will even directly look at this particular evidence. Important scrutiny of the Welsh Government by opposition parties, the media, and the public should not be delayed simply because someone else may look at it.

The rationale put forward by the Welsh Government simply doesn't add up and is frankly patronising. The idea that people will be unable to understand the decision-making process around Wales' care home scandal unless it is part of the inquiry evidence is ridiculous. It appears that the Welsh Government is far more concerned that the information will be used by their political opponents to criticise their decision-making.