Keir Starmer’s government has an opportunity next year to end the scandalous, long-running mistreatment of the rail network in Wales. It’s an opportunity he must take.
Two things happening in 2025 make next year a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change the principles underpinning how rail decisions and funding are decided in the UK.
WalesOnline and our sister print titles will be campaigning over the coming months to ensure that this opportunity to address the wrongs of the past is not missed.
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For too long, the train network in Wales has been systematically underfunded. The way in which infrastructure spending has been allocated by Westminster – focusing with tunnel vision on return on investment – has meant that cash has been ploughed into the most populous areas in the south east for decades and decades.
The result has been that London and the surrounding counties have an extensive, electrified rail network encompassing underground trains, light rail lines, commuter services, dedicated airport lines and express services all serving the UK’s most densely populated region.
Sparsely-populated Wales has never had a look in. Starved of investment, services in Wales have rattled along on older rolling stock crippled with reliability problems and frequently overcrowded. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here
In recent years, the Welsh Government has been ploughing in its own money to address some of these problems. But Wales does not get a share of rail infrastructure spending as it is not devolved. That money has effectively been redirected from the share of public spending on other areas that the Welsh Government gets from Westminster.
The Welsh Government has been contributing its own funds for the improvement of the Welsh rail network -Credit:Transport for Wales
The current focus on the £60bn+ rail behemoth that is the HS2 high speed line linking London and Birmingham has brought this into sharp focus. This is now well-trodden ground. As we all now know, Wales is getting no benefit from the scheme. Yet it is being paid from the England and Wales rail budget administered on our behalf by Westminster and over which no-one in Wales has any say. Welsh transport funding suffers as a result of the massive sums being leached out of the overall Department of Transport budget by this one monstrous scheme.
We’ve already missed out on around £400m because of this but most of the work on HS2 hasn’t happened yet and, unless Keir Starmer’s government acts this year, Wales is expected to have missed out on some £4bn by the time the line is completed in 2041.
This is not just some historic decision by a Conservative government which he has no ability to redress. This will be happening on his watch and his chance to address it is coming in 2025.
The two opportunities to address this in the coming year are firstly the multi-year spending review that Rachel Reeves’ Treasury is conducting and secondly the major bit of rail legislation – known as The Railways Bill – that the new government has committed to bring forward to overhaul the country’s railways through the creation of a new body called Great British Railways.
In this one year, the UK government has the opportunity to both reset the level of funding that goes into the transport network in Wales and to redraw the architecture of rail administration in the UK to separate Wales out from the western region in which it is currently hidden.
This is the first legislative opportunity to address this since the rail bill of 2004 that gave Scotland responsibility for rail infrastructure but not Wales – because of what one expert has called the worst decision the Welsh government ever made.
Should the Welsh Government be lobbying hard to take full responsibility for the nation’s rail network and to get a fair and proportionate share of rail funding in England?
Many would say it should, that it’s ultimately the only way that Wales will not risk being a victim of misguided decisions taken at Westminster. For the latest Welsh news delivered to your inbox sign up to our newsletter
Yet it’s not the only route the UK government could take. We understand that the Welsh Government would prefer to win a guarantee of a significant annual sum of funding for the Welsh rail network from Westminster and the creation of a separate Wales business unit within GBR to ensure proper accounting for and scrutiny of rail investment here.
The rationale for this is that the Welsh rail network needs investment and the Welsh Government wants Westminster to pay for that before it ever takes it over.
Yet whichever route is ultimately chosen, the most important thing is that this government does not miss its chance to put something right that been allowed to fester for generations.
Good public transport is the key to so much. It is more important than ever as we face up to the horrific consequences of climate change. It has the potential to help the Welsh economy thrive. It can alleviate congestion on our roads and the disaster that is the M4.
This Labour government has an opportunity this year that we haven’t seen for decades to put us on a path to a better future. It has to take it.