I’m not sure in what level of detail Dai Lloyd was able to read the committee report, but I suggest it might bear re-reading, because it represents a much fairer balance of the issues than he found himself able to represent in his speech.

The rail franchise is an example of the tortured transition in which we find rail devolution: a franchise where the powers are held in Westminster, but are exercised by Welsh Ministers, where the Welsh Government has pumped in millions of its own resources to plug gaps in funding for a franchise that isn’t even devolved, and where rolling stock is falling apart because the Welsh Government doesn’t have the power, and the UK Government doesn’t have the inclination, to order better stock in a timely fashion.

We’re approaching a situation now where the franchise is being let despite of, not because of the UK Government, in my view. Nowhere was this clearer than in the evidence of the Department for Transport to the committee, which suggested to me that the UK Government had all but washed its hands of responsibility for the franchise, whilst, at the same time, dragging its heels on devolving the powers to the Welsh Government. That is the absolute antithesis of good government and transparent administration. And so the rail franchise runs the risk of being trapped in the first circle of Dante’s hell, which the First Minister spoke to the Labour conference about, which is a state of limbo.

Powers should’ve been devolved in January of this year. We now hope that they’ll be devolved by the end of this year, but as we heard in the committee this morning, that may not even be the case by the time the franchise is let. All the Department for Transport officials could say, when they came in front of the committee, was that the franchise could be delivered in time with a fair wind. But, far from a fair wind, we’ve seen storm clouds gathering over the summer months, as the devolution of powers was linked to yet another financial dispute, this time over track access charges, which could adversely impact the Welsh Government to the tune of £1 billion. As Hefin David has already mentioned, the 2014 agreement between the UK Government and the Welsh Government confirmed that the block grant would not be cut, which is, in effect, what the UK Government is now planning. As we are in the midst of Brexit, we are used to being told repeatedly that this is a UK Government that meets its obligations to the European Union. Well, it’s now time for it to meet its obligations to Wales.

We’ve already seen, as the report lays out, the question mark that arose over the UK Government’s commitment of £125 million to the Valleys lines electrification and we know what’s happened in relation to the promise of electrification west of Cardiff. This situation is compounded by the persisting limitation caused by the failure to repeal the Railways Act 1993 in Wales, which, in truth, frustrates the Welsh Government’s scale of ambition in introducing a genuinely not-for-profit operation across all aspects of the franchise in Wales. This was dispensed with by the UK Parliament in relation to Scotland; it should’ve been and needs to be in relation to Wales as well. I agree with the Welsh Government, with our rail unions, the Co-operative Party and others in this Chamber that we need a genuine not-for-profit solution across all aspects of the franchise. I’d like to hear from the Welsh Government that it plans to continue pressing for the repeal of that provision in the Railways Act and what it will do during the lifetime of this franchise if it succeeds in that aim. I’d also like to encourage social enterprises and co-operatives to engage with the procurement of the range of ancillary services that will need to be in place when the franchise has been let.

We all look forward to a better, more passenger-focused franchise for the next 15 years than we have seen in the current franchise, and we want to see the metro come to fruition quickly. We call it ‘the south Wales metro’, but let’s not make the mistake of believing it solves the transport needs of all of south Wales. It’s, in truth, the south-east Wales metro. It’s no less important for that, but the real prize here is to see this as the beginning of an integrated rail and bus service that allows our citizens to travel from Monmouth in the east to Hirwaun, down the beautiful Vale of Neath to the mainline station at Neath, and on to a Swansea bay region integrated transport west to Mumbles, Llanelli, and beyond.