Plaid MS broke Senedd rules over letter leak, watchdog says

BBC News

24-04-2025

A Plaid Cymru MS has been found by a politicians' watchdog to have broken the Senedd members' code of conduct.However, the report by the watchdog recommends "no further action is required" against Siân Gwenllian, the member for Arfon.She was found to have shared extracts from a confidential letter sent by the Senedd's Commissioner for Standards, Douglas Bain, to an individual who had complained about her.But the Senedd's standards of conduct committee agrees with the watchdog that the politician "shared this information in order to defend herself from inaccurate reports being made about inadmissible complaints".
Earlier last year, Plaid Cymru expelled Rhys ab Owen MS after he was found to have inappropriately touched and sworn at two women while drunk on a party night out.Rhys ab Owen was also banned from the Senedd for six weeks last year - the longest punishment handed out in the parliament.In August 2024, Nation.Cymru published an article saying that Gwenllian, Plaid Cymru's former deputy leader and group whip at the Senedd, had denied being involved in a cover-up of the incident involving ab Owen.According to a report by the standards committee, Gwenllian admitted to disclosing a part of a letter from the commissioner, which had been sent to an individual making a complaint about her, and which she had been sent a copy of.When asked to comment by Nation.Cymru on the cover-up allegations, Gwenllian coordinated a response with the Plaid Cymru press team and requested that the sentences from the commissioner's confidential letter be included in the response.The letter, which had been originally sent to the complainant, explained the commissioner's reasons for considering other complaints against her to be inadmissible. Three paragraphs were released by the Plaid MS.Bain wrote: "I found no evidence of any cover up during my investigation, I was satisfied that the member dealt with the matter in accordance with the then far from satisfactory Plaid Cymru processes."The letter went on to say the complainant was "incorrect" in saying Gwenllian "had investigated and dismissed the internal complaint before I informed her of the complaint I was investigating".The extract of the letter was published by Nation.Cymru.The article now includes an editor's note stating: "In the original version of this article it was stated that an extract of a letter from the Standards Commissioner had been provided to Nation.Cymru 'with permission'. In fact the commissioner had not given permission to Plaid Cymru for the extract to be published".
The Senedd appointed Melissa McCullough, Commissioner for Standards for the Northern Ireland Assembly, to deal with this specific complaint because it was to do with a letter from Douglas Bain.The acting commissioner concluded that "by disclosing the three sentences from the Commissioner's letter, it is my view that Gwenllian breached Rule 15(i) of the Code of Conduct". "I consider that Ms Gwenllian was not seeking to gain a 'personal advantage' but rather was reasonably defending herself," she added.The Senedd's cross-party standards of conduct committee - chaired by Labour MS Hannah Blythyn - agreed a breach of the code of conduct as identified by the commissioner had occurred.The committee said: "In seeking to rebut allegations made in relation to other complaints, the member inadvertently made herself subject to a further complaint." It says it "took into account of the member's acceptance of her action being a breach of the code, and that she did not explicitly authorise the release of the information for print"."However, in sharing excerpts of the letter, the member did clearly breach the confidentiality rules in the code of conduct."The committee said it would look again at the rules around confidentiality - saying that a review could allow for greater transparency over why a complaint was deemed inadmissible.The Senedd is expected to endorses the recommendation in the report - that a breach has been found but no further action is required - in plenary next Wednesday.Additional reporting by David Deans.