Great Western Railway: Infrastructure

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords—

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I think the noble Lord is a bit optimistic. If mother nature continues to pour water into the railway infrastructure, because of the way it is built, any fix will be related to what the climate is actually doing.

Network Rail is very confident that there can be further reductions, some of which will be through big infrastructure, such as building small reservoirs and fitting more pumps. So, I cannot guarantee that the tunnel will never flood, but I can guarantee that every effort is being made to reduce the delays when it does.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, the points that have been raised by the noble Lords, Lord Davies and Lord Anderson, are absolutely right. In particular, west of Cardiff, there are severe problems going through to Carmarthenshire. This is probably due to underinvestment over a number of years. Can the Minister give a commitment that he will look at the situation running through to west Wales, in view of the recent experiences?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I have spoken to the Welsh regional manager of Network Rail in the past 24 hours to ask him what the incidence of flooding was in south Wales, in preparation for this question. As I said earlier, there are several sites which have never flooded before—Neath and west of Swansea—and Network Rail it is looking very urgently at dealing with those issues in order to keep the reliable railway running.