One of Wales’s foremost transport experts has poured cold water over the Welsh Government’s hopes for the reform of UK railways and said full devolution is the only way to deliver the rail network Wales needs.
Professor Stuart Cole spoke to WalesOnline as part of our campaign to end the second class treatment of the rail network in Wales, at the start of a crucial year when Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government has two opportunities to address the historic injustice. You can read more about those here.
Prof Cole, the professor of transport at the University of South Wales, said he was very sceptical that anything but full devolution of rail infrastructure would guarantee Wales any extra funding.
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Prof Cole said: “We need to make the decisions in Wales, for Wales, because otherwise we’ll get left out simply because we’re on the fringe.”
The Welsh Government is understood to be lobbying the UK government to grant a ring-fenced additional sum of money every year for the rail network in Wales as part of the spending review being carried out by Rachel Reeves’ Treasury this spring.
However it has no ambition to take over responsibility for rail infrastructure itself and instead is understood to be lobbying for a dedicated Wales’ unit to be set up in the Great British Railways organisation set to be created as part of the Railway Act later this year, which would be overseen by Westminster.
Prof Cole said he had no confidence that such a set-up would deliver significant improvements to the rail network in Wales. He said: “All this stuff about a business unit, and stuff like that, that’s what we were before, the business unit money allocation will go and be decided by Network Rail or GBR in either London or Milton Keynes…
“At the moment [infrastructure spending] is decided by Network Rail, so we get something like 1% of expenditure despite the fact we should be getting 5%. With that money, we could, over the years have electrified the North Wales mainline and the route to Carmarthen, for example.
-Credit:Marc White / WalesOnline
Prof Cole said he thought Wales should stay out of the Great British Railways organisation being set up by the UK Labour government to renationalise the railways. He said: “If decisions on operations, separate to funding… if the number of trains per hour for example are going to be decided by some body in London then no I wouldn’t want to go for it. I would want Transport For Wales to be intact as it is, with infrastructure on top.” For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here
Prof Cole says he believes the UK Government will be very reluctant to give Wales a fair deal on rail infrastructure spending because of the financial pressures it is facing.
He said: “There is no money left. Wales comes at the bottom of the pile. It always has.” But Prof Cole said if the UK Government was forced to devolve responsibility for infrastructure, it could work. “I believe that would be the best way for us to do it because we could then decide the best way to spend capital expenditure,” he said.
Prof Cole said that if the UK Government devolved rail infrastructure there would then be a knock-on in terms of Barnett consequential payments as a result of England-only rail projects which would add up to billions of pounds. He admitted that the Welsh Government might face pressure to divert some of that additional funds to schools or hospitals but that there would still be funds for rail.
Professor Stuart Cole at the Welsh Affairs committee
He said: “You’d have this extra cash from the investment in England.The upgrading of the Piccadilly line in London, would produce a Barnett, if we were responsible for infrastructure. That scheme is about £10bn, Trans Pennine Express is £11.5bn. We’d be getting 5% of those. You start to build up a nice little cash pot.
“Ok, Eluned Morgan could decide that she wants to spend it on hospitals or schools but the money is there and then we could have an argument.”
Prof Cole said there was a huge amount of work needed on the Welsh rail network, it isn’t just the south and north Wales mainlines. He said: “The average speed on lines between London and Swindon is 120mph, on the south Wales mainline it’s between 75mph and 90mph, and most do 75mph because there’s no point taking it up to 90mph to almost immediately slow it down. The average speeds in England as far as Bristol Parkway are far better than they are west.”