"Wales ‘getting absolutely screwed’ by UK Government over transport spending"

[Cardiff123]

It's emerged today that as rail infrastructure funding is not devolved in Wales, as it is in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and because HS2 is being classed as an 'England and Wales' infrastructure project, even though not a single length of HS2 track will be laid in Wales, and HS2 has been shown by academic studies to have a negative impact on the Welsh economy, that Wales' population share of UK transport spending has collapsed from 80.9% to just 36.6%.

Once again, Westminster is showing just how important it regards rail infrastructure spending in Wales...........


Full story here: https://nation.cymru/news/wales-get...government-over-transport-spending-says-prof/

Wales ‘getting absolutely screwed’ by UK Government over transport spending, says Professor​

25th November 2020​

Wales is getting “absolutely screwed” by the UK Government over spending on transport projects, according to the Director of Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre.

Professor Richard Wyn Jones pointed to figures that showed that Wales was only getting 36.6% of its population share of transport spending across the rest of the UK.

This was mainly as a result of HS2, the bullet train project which was classified as being an ‘England and Wales’ project by the UK Government despite the entirety of it being in England.

Meanwhile, Scotland benefitted from 91.7% of its population share of spending across the UK, despite the eventual aim that HS2 trains will be available from Edinburgh to London.

Richard Wyn Jones was responding to figures analysed by Guto Ifan, a researcher at the Wales Governance Centre.

“In today’s Statement of Funding Policy, Wales’ Barnett comparability factor for UK transport spending has collapsed – from 80.9% to just 36.6%,” Guto Ifan said.

“That means Welsh Government gets much less for every pound spent by DfT in England. Mainly as a result of HS2.

“HS2 again is treated as an “England and Wales” project, which means it is weighted 0% in Barnett calculations.

“Meanwhile, Scotland’s Barnett consequential for transport up from 91.0% to 91.7% – benefitting from a 100% factor for HS2.

“The inclusion of HS2 as an England and Wales project led to a drop in the consequential from 80.7% to 53.7%. Which will have serious ramifications for future growth in the Welsh budget.”

Professor Richard Wyn Jones said that the issue was “extremely serious”.

“Whatever your political colours it’s obvious that Wales is being, to use a technical term, absolutely screwed. With very serious consequences for future public spending and investment.”

‘Seriously’

On Monday, Wales’ Transport Minister Ken Skates, said that a a conservative estimate of the underfunding of Welsh railways from 2001-2029 was £2.4bn, and this figure could be as high as £5.1bn.

Mr Skates said: “The UK Government has to demonstrate its sincerity to levelling up our country by addressing their failure to invest fairly in Wales’s rail, broadband and aviation connectivity.

“It has refused to devolve these powers and funding, whilst also failing to take our connectivity seriously. The Union Connectivity Review is an opportunity for the UK Government to reflect on historic underinvestment and to focus on putting things right.

Here's the original twitter thread: https://twitter.com/RWynJones/status/1331602546671104002

Here's the recent Welsh Govt analysis on the scale of historic underfunding of the rail network by Westminster in Wales:

Historical investment in rail infrastructure enhancements [HTML] | GOV.WALES

Rail enhancement funding in Wales

gov.wales

 

[Bletchleyite]

"Stop whining" is the correct answer to that. Otherwise, let's devolve it, and they can pay for the Conwy Valley and Heart of Wales washouts themselves. No, I didn't think they wanted that.

Wales is full of money-sink unremunerative lines. I don't want to see these closed, of course, but it renders the complaint invalid.

 

[Cardiff123]

"Stop whining" is the correct answer to that. Otherwise, let's devolve it, and they can pay for the Conwy Valley and Heart of Wales washouts themselves. No, I didn't think they wanted that.

Wales is full of money-sink unremunerative lines. I don't want to see these closed, of course, but it renders the complaint invalid.

I'm guessing you live in England?

Maybe if the governments that English voters force upon Wales (Wales hasn't voted for a Conservative UK Govt for over 100 years) were prepared to devolve Network Rail and Infrastructure spending to Wales, then we could "stop moaning". But Westminster categorically says "No" every time they are asked.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'm guessing you live in England?

Yes.

Maybe if the governments that English voters force upon Wales (Wales hasn't voted for a Conservative UK Govt for over 100 years) were prepared to devolve Network Rail and Infrastructure spending to Wales, then we could "stop moaning". But Westminster categorically says "No" every time they are asked.

I would be more than happy for that to happen, indeed I'm strongly in support of it. However, if the branch lines wash out again, that would be Wales's problem to deal with from their own money.

 

[tbtc]

Is this the Wales that's spending eight million quid on a station at Bow Street?

I mean, fair enough if that's your top priority but you can't then complain that you're getting a rough deal when you're throwing that kind of money at such a non-essential project.

This is the same Wales which recently listed its transport priorities which included a Chester avoiding line (to save a trivial amount of time, for the benefit of a particular type of people who have a problem with their journey passing through England?

even though not a single length of HS2 track will be laid in Wales

Will HS2 mean a faster journey between parts of Wales and London?

If you can slash the Euston - Crewe journey time down to under an hour then does that not benefit Welsh passengers?

Or is it A Bad Thing because the time saving for those journeys is only on the English side of the border?

Wales' population share of UK transport spending has collapsed from 80.9% to just 36.6%

Is that just new infrastructure spending though? Rather than accounting for the ongoing subsidy required to maintain TfW services (forty pence per mile subsidy?) and the cost of rebuilding routes every time they collapse (Conwy Valley etc)?

 

[RPI]

It's funny, the Welsh assembly don't seem to complain when the English tax payer has to fund the annual rebuilding of the Conwy Valley line or the slightly less frequent but just as relevant rebuilding of various stretches of the Cambrian, its very much a case of "be careful what you wish for" I'd dread to think just how much has been poured into the Conwy Valley line over the years, a line which carries far fewer passengers than a lot of lines in England.

 

[Taunton]

Is that the Wales that got the electric line completed right through from Paddington to Cardiff, but for the equally remunerative Bristol/Bath they had to do with their line having it abandoned half-built?

 

[peters]

Plenty of places aren't benefitting directly from HS2. The Welsh government can increase the number of services routed via Crewe if they think HS2 will be so great so the Welsh people can have easy access to it.

Someone told me Sugar Loaf station has live passenger information displays. Some stations in England with 100 times more passengers still need those fitting.

 

[Llandudno]

It's funny, the Welsh assembly don't seem to complain when the English tax payer has to fund the annual rebuilding of the Conwy Valley line or the slightly less frequent but just as relevant rebuilding of various stretches of the Cambrian, its very much a case of "be careful what you wish for" I'd dread to think just how much has been poured into the Conwy Valley line over the years, a line which carries far fewer passengers than a lot of lines in England.

Is there a line in England of comparable length that carries fewer passengers than the Conwy Valley?

I would imagine even the likes of:
Barrow to Whitehaven
Middlesbrough to Whitby
Carnforth to Hellifield
Par to Newquay

carry more passengers per annum

oh, just thought of one: Stockport to Stalybridge!!

 

[tiptoptaff]

A lot of the anti-HS2 arguments in Wales are centred around a dislike to anything agreed by the Tories, regardless of what it is.

They choose to ignore what benefits it could have for Wales, simply because the Tories put pen to paper on the agreement to build it

 

[Cardiff123]

Will HS2 mean a faster journey between parts of Wales and London?

If you can slash the Euston - Crewe journey time down to under an hour then does that not benefit Welsh passengers?

Or is it A Bad Thing because the time saving for those journeys is only on the English side of the border?

Well yes it is, because how does getting faster journeys to London benefit the Welsh economy exactly?

Is that just new infrastructure spending though? Rather than accounting for the ongoing subsidy required to maintain TfW services (forty pence per mile subsidy?) and the cost of rebuilding routes every time they collapse (Conwy Valley etc)?

The point of Professor Mark Barry and others work on the historic under-investment in Wales rail infrastructure, is that rather than just maintaining what we already have, money needs to be spent on new and upgraded rail infrastructure to encourage more people onto the Welsh rail network so overall subsidy can be decreased. Look at the SWML, as soon as you get through the Severn Tunnel line speeds drop considerably, and once you get past Cardiff, line speeds drop even further.
Swansea to Cardiff could be cut down to around 30 minutes with a new line avoiding Neath. This would be of huge economic benefit to Swansea and West Wales.

The attitudes in this thread of "Wales should know it's place and be grateful for what it gets" are exactly why support for Welsh independence has risen so considerably in the last few months after barely registering on the radar for many years.

 

[Jurg]

I'm English. I don't want the union to break apart.

But I see the sort of sneering nonsense that's on this thread and similar all the time aimed by English people at Welsh and Scottish people and the democratic decisions of their limited devolved institutions. And it makes me think if was Welsh or Scottish I'd want to stick 2 fingers up at the little Englanders and end the union.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The attitudes in this thread of "Wales should know it's place and be grateful for what it gets" are exactly why support for Welsh independence has risen so considerably in the last few months after barely registering on the radar for many years.

Welsh independence is an utter fantasy, unless you consider Albania to be an economy to aspire to. It's a totally different country to Scotland and massively more reliant on the English border areas and the North West conurbation.

It might just about survive as a well-integrated part of the EU, but didn't Wales vote quite strongly for Leave?

Really, North Wales has more to do with Liverpool, Manchester and Chester, and mid-Wales with Birmingham and Shrewsbury, than they do Cardiff. That's why the Welsh railway network is shaped like it is.

 

[tiptoptaff]

Well yes it is, because how does getting faster journeys to London benefit the Welsh economy exactly?


The point of Professor Mark Barry and others work on the historic under-investment in Wales rail infrastructure, is that rather than just maintaining what we already have, money needs to be spent on new and upgraded rail infrastructure to encourage more people onto the Welsh rail network so overall subsidy can be decreased. Look at the SWML, as soon as you get through the Severn Tunnel line speeds drop considerably, and once you get past Cardiff, line speeds drop even further.
Swansea to Cardiff could be cut down to around 30 minutes with a new line avoiding Neath. This would be of huge economic benefit to Swansea and West Wales.

The attitudes in this thread of "Wales should know it's place and be grateful for what it gets" are exactly why support for Welsh independence has risen so considerably in the last few months after barely registering on the radar for many years.

Linespeed is 90 all the way from Bristol Parkway, down to 75 for the tunnel, 70 at STJ, 75 again back to 90 for the blast along Llanwern, drops obviously through NPT area and back to 95 before you're round the corner coming away from Newport passed Alexandra Dock Jcn.

West of Cardiff it's 75 to Llanharan, 80/85 bewtween there and Bridgend, back to 60 through Bridgend and up to 90 then 100 between Bridgend and Port Talbot.

They're not inconsiderable linespeeds. The section between Cardiff and Llanharan is fairly twisty over some fairly boggy terrain. Not overly simple to increase speeds there.

Avoiding Neath is utter fallacy.

And, if you want to know how faster journeys towards London benefit Wales, I'd invite you to take trips on the early morning and evening peak, off peak and even super off peak services when Covid has finally been put to bed. The 0358 Swansea to London was often fairly full by the time it left Newport. And the later ones weren't much quieter.

 

[bramling]

I'm English. I don't want the union to break apart.

But I see the sort of sneering nonsense that's on this thread and similar all the time aimed by English people at Welsh and Scottish people and the democratic decisions of their limited devolved institutions. And it makes me think if was Welsh or Scottish I'd want to stick 2 fingers up at the little Englanders and end the union.

What is little Englander about injecting a dose of reality into things? That reality which is that Wales, Scotland and NI (as well as parts of England) are subsidised by taxpayers in London and the south-east. Using independence as some kind of threat simply demonstrates an inability or unwillingness to recognise this.

 

[class26]

A lot of the anti-HS2 arguments in Wales are centred around a dislike to anything agreed by the Tories, regardless of what it is.

They choose to ignore what benefits it could have for Wales, simply because the Tories put pen to paper on the agreement to build it

But let`s remember HS2 started out with a Labour government

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

Maybe HS2 shall be completed under a labour regime too
..
A federation might be good, seems to work in Germany. What might England look like without metal and slate supplied by Cymru back then?

 

[Class 170101]

Welsh independence is an utter fantasy, unless you consider Albania to be an economy to aspire to. It's a totally different country to Scotland and massively more reliant on the English border areas and the North West conurbation.

It might just about survive as a well-integrated part of the EU, but didn't Wales vote quite strongly for Leave?

Really, North Wales has more to do with Liverpool, Manchester and Chester, and mid-Wales with Birmingham and Shrewsbury, than they do Cardiff. That's why the Welsh railway network is shaped like it is.

Wales wasn't strong for Leave. If I remember Correctly it was around 52% Leave. Not exactly resounding but still.

In terms of where North, Mid and South Wales point to I think that more reflects the infrastructure in place rather than the commercial centres themselves per se. If there were better links to Cardiff and poorer links to Chester they would point to Cardiff.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In terms of where North, Mid and South Wales point to I think that more reflects the infrastructure in place rather than the commercial centres themselves per se. If there were better links to Cardiff and poorer links to Chester they would point to Cardiff.

And that infrastructure has developed...

1. For a laugh
2. For political ends
3. Because that's what the demand was for

I'm voting #3.

Cardiff is miles away from North Wales. Liverpool, Manchester and Chester aren't.

 

[tbtc]

Well yes it is, because how does getting faster journeys to London benefit the Welsh economy exactly?


The point of Professor Mark Barry and others work on the historic under-investment in Wales rail infrastructure, is that rather than just maintaining what we already have, money needs to be spent on new and upgraded rail infrastructure to encourage more people onto the Welsh rail network so overall subsidy can be decreased. Look at the SWML, as soon as you get through the Severn Tunnel line speeds drop considerably, and once you get past Cardiff, line speeds drop even further.
Swansea to Cardiff could be cut down to around 30 minutes with a new line avoiding Neath. This would be of huge economic benefit to Swansea and West Wales.

The attitudes in this thread of "Wales should know it's place and be grateful for what it gets" are exactly why support for Welsh independence has risen so considerably in the last few months after barely registering on the radar for many years.

So much to unpick...

You're questioning why faster journey times benefit people in Wales (when it comes to journeys to London) but saying that there would be a "huge economic benefit" if journey times were reduced in another part of Wales?

Do you not see just a slight contradiction there? Faster trains mean "huge economic benefits", just as long as they don't benefit The English?

Look at the SWML? Yes, I've looked at it. It's had huge sums of money spent on it over the past decade, electrification to Newport and Cardiff, hundreds of new carriages built for the GWML - but please tell me that Wales is getting a rough deal (when the Midlands Main Line - which had a better business case than the GWML - hasn't had these benefits) - please tell me that the improvements don't really count because they partly involve travel to England?

(also worth pointing out that Cardiff does have a fully electrified service all the way to London, something that Bristol/ Bath/ Oxford were meant to have had by now, but they had to be sidelined so that we could keep paying for wires to Cardiff, when the GWML electrification money started running out)

If support for Welsh independence relies on this kind of cherry picking and distorted reporting of things, then good luck with it (tbh, as a Scot living in England, I'm all in favour of Welsh independence).

If the priorities of the Welsh people are really to spend millions of Bow Street and a Chester avoiding route then who am I to argue?

 

[Class 170101]

And that infrastructure has developed...

1. For a laugh
2. For political ends
3. Because that's what the demand was for

I'm voting #3.

Cardiff is miles away from North Wales. Liverpool, Manchester and Chester aren't.

But you forget the now closed lines. As an aside some railways were developed for #2

 

[Llandudno]

Wales wasn't strong for Leave. If I remember Correctly it was around 52% Leave. Not exactly resounding but still.

In terms of where North, Mid and South Wales point to I think that more reflects the infrastructure in place rather than the commercial centres themselves per se. If there were better links to Cardiff and poorer links to Chester they would point to Cardiff.

Not just the links from north Wales to Cardiff but the fares too:

Llandudno to Cardiff typically £93.80 return
Llandudno to Chester £21.40 return

You are not going to make too many trips to Cardiff at that fare, especially for leisure!

 

[bramling]

And that infrastructure has developed...

1. For a laugh
2. For political ends
3. Because that's what the demand was for

I'm voting #3.

Cardiff is miles away from North Wales. Liverpool, Manchester and Chester aren't.

That’s exactly it. Anywhere from Llandudno across to the border feels more like being in Merseyside than Wales.

I really can’t see that changing even if a high-speed railway and motorway to Cardiff was built.

The impression I get is that Cardiff is an irrelevance to a surprising amount of Wales, save for it being where the devolved assembly happens to be located.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But you forget the now closed lines.

None of which provided a fast connection between North Wales and Cardiff, because almost nobody wanted to make that journey.

As an aside some railways were developed for #2

The "Gerald", or whatever it's called now, is precisely for that reason!

 

[bramling]

But you forget the now closed lines. As an aside some railways were developed for #2

Which closed lines? Of the main north/south routes in Wales, two are still open (Newport to Shrewsbury and Central Wales) and two are closed (Carmarthen to Aberystwyth and the Mid-Wales). None of these four routes ever went directly to Cardiff.

 

[Y Ddraig Coch]

It's funny, the Welsh assembly don't seem to complain when the English tax payer has to fund the annual rebuilding of the Conwy Valley line or the slightly less frequent but just as relevant rebuilding of various stretches of the Cambrian, its very much a case of "be careful what you wish for" I'd dread to think just how much has been poured into the Conwy Valley line over the years, a line which carries far fewer passengers than a lot of lines in England.

Sorry , a little late to this lively discussion. But it isn't the English tax payer paying it is all UK tax payers paying. So let's be clear

Is that the Wales that got the electric line completed right through from Paddington to Cardiff, but for the equally remunerative Bristol/Bath they had to do with their line having it abandoned half-built?

Yes, but it was meant to make it to Swansea. It ended quite short of its destination.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The UK Treasury also put £250 million into the deal to transfer the Core Valley Lines to Cardiff Bay.
Ken Skates (Transport Minister among other things) is intelligent and hard working, and is a North Wales AM (Clwyd South).
So it's disappointing that he has joined the regular institutional bleating about devolved funding.
He knows quite well that North Wales will benefit from HS2 (though it would be better still with some wires west of Crewe).

It is true that Scotland has its own ring-fenced Network Rail settlement (HLOS/SoFA) while Wales doesn't, meaning DfT, ORR and NR can prioritise infrastructure spend away from Wales.
But my impression is that it reasonably equable overall, considering the nature of the Welsh network (and the Wales Route covers significant lines in England).
The Conwy Valley repeated repairs have already been mentioned.
The Cambrian didn't install ETCS for nothing either, and there has been massive spend on Cardiff resignalling over the last decade (extending up to the North Wales coast).
The Halton Curve reinstatement was partly for Welsh interests too (using Liverpool City Region funding).
Then there's Barmouth Bridge (and the replacement of other worn out assets).
It's complicated.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't think you could call out Cambrian ETCS as something Wales should have paid for, as it wasn't necessary, something cheaper could have been used, e.g. "new" RETB as used in Scotland. It was done as a technology trial, and an almighty nuisance.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I don't think you could call out Cambrian ETCS as something Wales should have paid for, as it wasn't necessary, something cheaper could have been used, e.g. "new" RETB as used in Scotland. It was done as a technology trial, and an almighty nuisance.

But it did include route upgrades (eg redoubling west of Welshpool) which benefitted the local service.
The point is it was a product of the UK-wide plan (as was GW electrification to Cardiff and the IEP infrastructure works).

 

[The Planner]

I don't think you could call out Cambrian ETCS as something Wales should have paid for, as it wasn't necessary, something cheaper could have been used, e.g. "new" RETB as used in Scotland. It was done as a technology trial, and an almighty nuisance.

Somewhere had to be the trial and the Cambrian happened to fit at the time. As noted, without the other tinkering at the edges you would still be stuck with the ability to only run the old timetables.