Transport Funding: Wales and HS2

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Andrew Stephenson

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Stephenson]

It is fine. The Network Rail regulatory financial statements and expenditure breakdowns show that Wales received around 4% of all Network Rail spending in 2011-12 to 2015-16, and 6% in 2016-17 to 2018-19. In 2018-19, the spend on Wales was 6.1% of the England and Wales figure, or 5.4% of the England, Wales and Scotland figure. The figures include Network Rail’s spending on operations, maintenance, renewals and enhancements. Does that clarify the hon. Gentleman’s point?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

We understand that to be the total spend, but we also understand that the spend on investments, development and improvements is where the spend in Wales is so much spectacularly lower than we would expect, in terms of the 11% of the rail infrastructure that we have and in comparison with the conventional Barnett formula of per head of population.

[Andrew Stephenson]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her point. The UK Government work collaboratively with the Welsh Government on putting forward business cases. As she will be aware, we do not allocate set proportions by region across the United Kingdom; we work on where the enhancements deliver the best possible value. We have worked collaboratively with the Welsh Government to bring forward a number of business cases for further investments. We hope to continue to do so. The figures I have just outlined show that an increasing proportion of the Network Rail budget is spent in Wales—something I am sure the right hon. Lady would welcome.

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[Liz Saville Roberts]

I want to be clear on this, because that, of course, includes Barmouth Bridge in my constituency, which is more than 150 years old. We will have to do work on it, if it is to be maintained as a line. I take issue with the Minister on levelling up. I rarely find myself trying to argue the Union point, as I do here, but if we are talking about levelling up, those areas of the United Kingdom that most need infrastructure will not receive it unless it is given by central Government. Wales is a classic example of this, yet we see that infrastructure investment in railway, the electricity grid and all the infrastructure needs we will have in the future to change to net zero—those are the areas where Wales is lacking. I would welcome the Minister showing us his future intentions on these arguments.

[Andrew Stephenson]

On this point we are going to have to agree to some extent to disagree. Through the Union connectivity review, the Government are demonstrating their real desire to invest more. We are investing record sums in rail across the whole United Kingdom. The £4.8 billion levelling up fund, of which at least £800 million will be allocated to projects in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland underlines the Government’s commitment. Changes to the Green Book will directly help projects in Wales in the way that I hope they will help projects in the north of England, where my constituency of Pendle is located.

I think we all share a desire for projects to be moved forward at pace. As a Rail Minister, I will not argue against even more investment in rail, but the statistics I have put on record today show that we are working collaboratively with the Welsh Government in order to deliver significant projects that the right hon. Lady’s constituents and other constituents want to see across Wales.