Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport – in the Senedd at 1:46 pm on 22 November 2017.

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Photo of Ken Skates Ken Skates Labour 1:46, 22 November 2017

I'm sure the Member will appreciate that there are some details that I'm not able to divulge at this moment in time because the procurement process is a live one, and to do so could attract action from one or more bidders after the process has been completed. But I would say that survey work has been carried out and continues to be carried out on the asset, but funding discussions continue to take place with the UK Treasury. There is an acknowledgment of the historic underfunding of infrastructure on our railways in Wales, and there is acknowledgment that there have been historic growth costs that need to be addressed. But also, as this process is nearing a conclusion, as I say, I am confident that with bids from three world-class operators we will have an operator for the next franchise that will deliver a step change in the services that people are able to experience. And whilst this is a new process that we're following for a rail franchise, it's not a new process in its complete entirety. Indeed, we used this process for the procurement process for Superfast Cymru, and that proved to be, given that we now have more than 650,000 properties connected to superfast broadband, or with the potential to be connected to superfast broadband, it's proven to be extremely successful.