Transport Funding: Wales and HS2

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Sir Edward. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) on securing the debate. He is more often in the Chair than addressing it, so it is great to see him in his place. He made a compelling case for a redesignation of the funding formula so that HS2 is considered England-only. As right hon. and hon. Members have heard, that would mean that under the Barnett formula, up to £5 billion more could flow into Wales’s rail infrastructure and put Wales on the same basis as Scotland and Northern Ireland when it comes to the formula’s consequentials.

My hon. Friend makes that argument not only because he is a doughty and dogged champion for the people of Swansea, and indeed, the whole of south Wales, but because he rightly identifies that rail infrastructure in Wales is in pressing need of investment and modernisation. The redesignation of HS2 as England-only is a sensible and practical way to release funds to upgrade the railway in Wales. It was, after all, one of the recommendations of the cross-party Welsh Affairs Committee. In its report on 6 July, the Committee concluded:

“There is a strong environmental and economic case for substantially enhancing the rail infrastructure that serves Wales, and the passenger experience of slow services and inadequate stations only underlines the need for an upgraded network.”

In its conclusions, the Committee reported that:

“Wales will not benefit in the same way as Scotland and Northern Ireland from Barnett consequentials arising from the HS2 project. This is despite the fact that UK Government’s own analysis has concluded that HS2 will produce an economic disbenefit for Wales. We recommend that HS2 should be reclassified as an England only project. Using the Barnett formula, Wales’ funding settlement should be recalculated to apply an additional allocation based on the funding for HS2 in England. This would help to ensure that Welsh rail passengers receive the same advantage from investment in HS2 as those in Scotland and Northern Ireland.”

The case is clear in the Committee’s findings, and it is indeed compelling. When the Minister responds, I hope he will not merely dismiss it out of hand, but instead consider carefully the many expert opinions in favour of such a move, including the Committee’s recommendations and the thought-provoking speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts), and the invaluable contribution from the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards).

The Opposition remain 100% committed to HS2. A Labour Government would listen carefully to local concerns and place environmental factors at the heart of the project, but we would get on with the job at hand. We see new high-speed rail as part of a much larger modernisation of our railways. We would invest in new lines and stations and open up all parts of the UK, and therefore the economy, with affordable, efficient railway services—services that are accessible to all, including young people, people with disabilities and people on low incomes; services that are safe and clean, and services that are integrated across the transport system of walking, cycling, buses, ferries, light railways, trams and road systems. A great example would be the electrified metro for the Swansea Bay city region, which my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West so ably championed and which I thoroughly support.

We want significantly more freight off lorries, off our roads and on to the railway, and we would accelerate the electrification of the railway with a rolling programme of upgrades. The Conservative Government’s decision to cancel the electrification of the Great Western main line from Cardiff to Swansea was short-sighted and bad for the environment, and it should now be reversed. It is absurd that the Great Western Railway’s Hitachi bi-mode trains run on diesel mode between Cardiff and Swansea and switch to the less polluting and more efficient electric mode on the rest of the route in England, including as it goes through the wonderful town of Slough.

As the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd rightly noted, in England trains can reach the magic inter-city speed of 125 mph, but once on the Welsh side of the Severn tunnel, they slow to average speeds well below 100 mph—not so much levelling up as slowing down. Will the Minister update us on the Department for Transport’s stalled plans for the electrification of the railway in Wales? The last Labour Government rightly prioritised and invested billions of pounds in modernising our old, inefficient rolling stock. Having achieved that, the priority of the last decade should have been the electrification of our rail lines.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

We heard from the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams) about the significance of the line from Holyhead into England. There has been no mention in the slightest of that being electrified. Those lines have some of the most polluting rolling stock, and we have no alternative in many cases but to use it. That is not the transport infrastructure of the 21st century, which, just days before COP26, is what we should be discussing.

[Mr Dhesi]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. I recently visited my family and saw the wonders of north Wales, and, although it was lovely to see the scenic countryside on steam railways and the like, what was sorely missing was an electrified rail network. That would greatly benefit the good people of Wales, and that is why there needs to be greater investment in Wales, and in particular in electrification.