What was the donation about?published at 16:34
David Deans
BBC Wales political journalist
The biggest problem Vaughan Gething faced was criticism of his decision to take £200,000 from Dauson Environmental Group, a recycling and waste management company that has been embroiled in controversy.
The group is owned by David John Neal, who was given suspended sentences in 2013 and 2017 for waste offences.
In 2013, it was an illegal dumping of waste, which was not cleaned up afterwards.
After the press discovered that public statements had been made, BBC Wales learned that Vaughan Gething had pressured Natural Resources Wales to be lenient with the company.
Some were concerned about the appearance of the donation and its scale – an unprecedented scale for a single candidate in the Welsh Labour race.
It all came to a head during the campaign itself – and the controversy continued after Mr Gething was elected by Labour.
The situation has not been helped by the fact that the company remains in the news for one reason or another – mainly because of a landfill it owns in Pembrokeshire, which residents find stinking and which NRW has investigated.
After the election it became clear that there would be money left over – £31,600 – from the total of £251,600 raised by Mr Gething.
Normally the remainder would have gone to the Labour Party, but fearing that nothing from Dauson would reach them, Mr Gething agreed that the £31,000 should be spent on “progressive causes”.
