NDM8852 Plaid Cymru Debate - Rail infrastructure funding

NDM8852 Heledd Fychan (South Wales Central)

To propose that the Senedd:

1. Notes that:

a) the UK Secretary of State for Transport's acknowledgement in correspondence with the Welsh Government that Wales’s rail infrastructure has suffered from historically low levels of enhancement spending over many years;

b) this systematic underfunding is in addition to the withholding of HS2 consequentials; and 

c) the Welsh Government’s analysis from 2020 that relative to its share of UK population and route length of the rail network, Wales will face a shortfall of between £2.4 billion and £5.1 billion in rail enhancement funding on the basis of UK Government commitments over the period 2019 to 2029.  

2. Regrets:

a) the reports that the UK Chancellor intends to freeze spending on major new rail projects until after the next UK election, which would further entrench the systematic underfunding of Welsh rail for at least another four years; and

b) that previous UK Government pledges on rail infrastructure, which were in themselves insufficient to make up for historic underfunding, such as the pledge to electrify the north Wales mainline, have failed to materialise.

3. Calls on the Welsh Government to:

a) provide updated figures on the shortfall in rail enhancement investment in Wales;

b) confirm its position that HS2 should be redesignated as an England-only project and that Wales should receive the resultant consequentials in line with figures quoted by current UK Government Ministers when in opposition; and

c) write to the UK Secretary of State for Transport to ask for the full consequentials to be made available to Wales and reversal of low levels of enhancement spending.