Question to the Wales Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, pursuant to her oral answer in response to the question from the hon. Member for Lichfield of 16 July 2025, Official Report, Column 282, what the evidential basis is for her statement on historic underfunding.

I regret that the Hon. Member seems to refuse to accept or acknowledge the historic underfunding. When I gave evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee in January, there was widespread agreement that this was the case and many others have expressed similar sentiments.

The low levels of enhancement spending we have seen in recent years makes it more difficult to realise the modal shift needed to sustain a continuous enhancements pipeline. Denying that there has been underfunding is not the way address the problem. This government prefers to tackle the issue head on, starting with at least £445m of spending, front-loaded to support delivery of Wales' priorities for rail infrastructure during this next Spending Review period.