As you all know, rail in Wales is non devolved and has suffered £Bns of relative underfunding by UK Governments over the last 25 years! This has also meant to progress rail schemes like the South Wales Metro, Welsh Government has had to use funds from its block grant meat for health, education, etc to make up the shortfall.
My last report for the Senedd Research team is worth a read Hey, Andy, time to devolve rail to Wales! – Mark Barry’s blog site
Today’s budget was an opportunity for UK Gov to begin to address this long-standing issue with some serious capital commitment to Wales’s rail network. What we have is £30M towards a Cardiff Parkway Station (yes welcome) that will costs at least £60M. This takes the current UK Gov Commitment to rail enhancements in Wales in the current CSR period to 2030 to circa £350m. This is in contrast to the circa £34Bn committed to rail enhancements in England over the same period.
Seriously does anyone think this is good enough – especially in Welsh Labour who used to vociferously make the case for change. The £14Bn oft talked about does not exist on any HM Treasury spreadsheet, and is the rail equivalent of the Emperors New Clothes
If UK Gov was taking this funding inequity seriously, it would have acted on at least some of my proposals here Wales Rail Enhancement Priorities for UK Government, October 2026. – Mark Barry’s blog site. Just £30M tells us all we need to know.
To make matters worse, sources tell me that there been little or no progress on improving the position of Wales vis a vis the current GB Railways Bill. Unsurprisingly most of the obfuscation is coming from the rail industry ecosystem in England who can’t bear to give up “their” train set. Forgetting of course they are custodians of a public asset in Wales!!
With Andy Burnham talking up devolution, one could be forgiven for thinking that we would see much more progress as far as Wales is concerned. However, disappointingly, I think Jim Royle (a famous Manchester resident who I am sure Andy Burnham is familiar with) would put the current situation most appropriately, “Devolution, My Arse”
My advice to Welsh Government is to stop playing nice with UK Government and refuse to support legislative consent of the rail bill in the Senedd.
Wales needs nothing less than a full devolved and fairly funded settlement for rail infrastructure. Like Jim said, anything else, #My Arse!