North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has called on the Transport Minister to stop blaming the UK Government for poor rail services in North Wales.
Speaking in today’s Assembly Debate ‘The Future of Wales' Railway’, Mr Isherwood referred to recent problems with services in North Wales and said the Minister for Economy and Transport, Ken Skates AM, needs to take responsibility for failings and stop claiming they are down to “underinvestment by the UK Government in Wales’ rail infrastructure”.
He also questioned the Minister over North Wales Economic Ambition Board’s calls for the Welsh Government to support the formation of a Regional Transport Body in North Wales, “with powers and funding delegated to the body to allow it to operate in an executive capacity”.
He said:
“In a Written Statement last December, this Minister stated ‘Wales has been the poor relation of the UK’s rail investment’ and that ‘we have received less than 2% of the investment in rail improvements in recent years’.
“However, after this was put to Network Rail in the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee in 2017, they copied members on the 2015-16 ‘Office of Rail and Road Annual Report on UK Rail Industry Financial Information’, which stated that Wales actually received 9.6% of net Government funding for Franchised train operators and Network Rail, and 6.4% of the total net Government funding for Network Rail routes.
“The following year’s report, published in January 2018, shone further light on this: on average, Government contributed £1.53 per passenger journey in England, £6.08 in Scotland and £8.82 in Wales; Net Government funding as a percentage of the Rail industry’s total income in England, Scotland and Wales was 17% in England, 47% in Scotland and 49% in Wales and net Government funding for Rail Franchises as a percentage of total income, including infrastructure funding, was 56% for Wales and the Borders compared to just 21% for the GB total.”
Mr Isherwood also challenged the Minister over his December 10th Statement in which in he said “the UK Department For Transport’s own forecasts indicate that HS2 will cause £200m of annual economic damage to the economy of South Wales”.
Mr Isherwood said:
“The source for this is the work undertaken by Professor Mark Barry for Welsh Government. However, his report also quotes KPMG analysis which estimated that North Wales GDP could benefit by £50 million pounds per annum from HS2. Given that the Minister is also the Minister for North Wales, we therefore need to know where his priorities lie.”
Mr. Isherwood added that the North Wales Economic Ambition Board “again calls on the Welsh Government to support the formation of a Regional Transport Body in North Wales, ‘with powers and funding delegated to the body to allow it to operate in an executive capacity’.
“Although the Minister told me in this Chamber that he ‘warmly welcomed’ the proposal ‘for the creation of a regional transport body’, he also told this Assembly that he had instructed Transport for Wales to bring forward proposals for a North Wales Office. So which is it, Minister, top-down Welsh Government direction or decisions at a regional level?”
He also added: “Although the Minister told us that detailed preparation would ensure transformational services when Transport for Wales took over the Wales and Border Franchise last October, an apology for delays and cancellations in North Wales followed in November.
“A month later, a constituent contacted me regarding continued problems on the Shotton to Wrexham line, stating ‘they are peddling ‘Storm Callum’ as part of the excuse, but that was six weeks ago’, and, last month, the Wrexham-Bidston Rail Users Association wrote that the reason passenger number were noticeably lower appeared to be because of the significant disruption ‘just after the service transferred to TfWRail Services’.”
“Instead of buck-passing, the Minister should get back on Track.”
