Rail Services in South Wales

1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd on 22 May 2018.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Vikki Howells Vikki Howells Labour

(Translated)

3. Will the First Minister set out the Welsh Government's key objectives for improving rail services in south Wales? OAQ52223

Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 1:53, 22 May 2018

Yes. Our future objectives and priorities for rail across Wales and the borders are outlined in the 'Rail Services for the Future' document that was published last year.

Photo of Vikki Howells Vikki Howells Labour 1:50, 22 May 2018

Thank you, First Minister. You may be aware that, in response to my campaign, Arriva Trains Wales have announced an extra four Sunday train services from Aberdare, with a first service that now reaches Cardiff before 10.00 a.m. This is great news for commuters from the Cynon Valley. What assurances can the Welsh Government give that these services will be carried forward and included in any future timetabling under the new franchise?

Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 1:54, 22 May 2018

Well, first of all, can I congratulate the Member for what she has done? I know, in the press release that was sent out on 24 April, Arriva Trains acknowledged the work that she had done to get the services running on a Sunday. There will be an announcement tomorrow, of course, on the rail franchise, but, as part of the work that's been put into that, we would want to see enhanced Sunday services.

Photo of Paul Davies Paul Davies Conservative

(Translated)

First Minister, I'm sure that one of the key objectives of the Welsh Government is to upgrade the current infrastructure in order to improve the passenger experience. It's crucial that all parts of Wales feel the benefits of any investment by the Welsh Government, and, since you’ve been First Minister, I’ve raised the case of Milford Haven station, which needs substantial improvement. Now, unfortunately, this station isn’t on the Government’s list of stations for improvement, and I understand that there are specific criteria used to decide which stations should receive investment, but there are concerns that these criteria aren’t appropriate, considering stations such as Milford Haven are left behind. Given the circumstances, are you as a Government willing to look at these criteria to ensure that all parts of Wales receive the investment that they deserve?

Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 1:55, 22 May 2018

(Translated)

Well, there are examples where stations have received capital investment in both rural and urban areas. I’m not aware of anything that falls outwith that and would mean that the station in Milford Haven wouldn’t get the investment. Perhaps, if the Member would write to me, I could consider the matter to see whether there’s anything that can be done to move Milford Haven up the list.

Photo of Adam Price Adam Price Plaid Cymru 1:56, 22 May 2018

(Translated)

First Minister, there’s been a great deal of concern in the Neath area on the possible proposal to exclude Neath station from the main line as a new line is built. Now the Petitions Committee has confirmed to me in an e-mail that the reason a petition on this proposal has been judged to be valid is because it’s the Welsh Government that has commissioned the initial scoping work on this particular proposal. Is the Petitions Committee right in that regard?

Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour

(Translated)

Well, from what I can see, this came from something that was said by an individual who had no connection to the Government, is not a member of Government and not a civil servant of the Government. As I said in this Chamber last week, Neath is an exceptionally important station and there is no kind of threat to the services in Neath.  

Photo of John Griffiths John Griffiths Labour 1:57, 22 May 2018

First Minister, you will be aware of the great deal of frustration at the lack of progress in establishing a Newport to Ebbw Vale passenger rail link train service. That's been the case for quite some time and there's a great deal of concern in the area. Given the long-standing economic, social and cultural links between Newport and Ebbw Vale, do you understand those concerns and is there anything you can say today that would give comfort to those with these concerns?

Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour

Our aspiration remains to have two trains an hour operating along the Ebbw line from 2021. We want to see trains going into Newport, but it's a matter for Network Rail, an organisation that we can't even direct. That's part of the problem we have with the current settlement. The Scots can do it; we can't. That said, we want to work to make sure that the service is introduced in the near future and to work with Network Rail to identify the technical solutions needed in order for that to happen.  

Whoops! There was an error.
Whoops \ Exception \ ErrorException (E_CORE_WARNING)
Module 'xapian' already loaded Whoops\Exception\ErrorException thrown with message "Module 'xapian' already loaded" Stacktrace: #2 Whoops\Exception\ErrorException in Unknown:0 #1 Whoops\Run:handleError in /data/vhost/matthew.theyworkforyou.dev.mysociety.org/theyworkforyou/vendor/filp/whoops/src/Whoops/Run.php:433 #0 Whoops\Run:handleShutdown in [internal]:0
Stack frames (3)
2
Whoops\Exception\ErrorException
Unknown0
1
Whoops\Run handleError
/vendor/filp/whoops/src/Whoops/Run.php433
0
Whoops\Run handleShutdown
[internal]0
Unknown
/data/vhost/matthew.theyworkforyou.dev.mysociety.org/theyworkforyou/vendor/filp/whoops/src/Whoops/Run.php
    /**
     * Special case to deal with Fatal errors and the like.
     */
    public function handleShutdown()
    {
        // If we reached this step, we are in shutdown handler.
        // An exception thrown in a shutdown handler will not be propagated
        // to the exception handler. Pass that information along.
        $this->canThrowExceptions = false;
 
        $error = $this->system->getLastError();
        if ($error && Misc::isLevelFatal($error['type'])) {
            // If there was a fatal error,
            // it was not handled in handleError yet.
            $this->allowQuit = false;
            $this->handleError(
                $error['type'],
                $error['message'],
                $error['file'],
                $error['line']
            );
        }
    }
 
    /**
     * In certain scenarios, like in shutdown handler, we can not throw exceptions
     * @var bool
     */
    private $canThrowExceptions = true;
 
    /**
     * Echo something to the browser
     * @param  string $output
     * @return $this
     */
    private function writeToOutputNow($output)
    {
        if ($this->sendHttpCode() && \Whoops\Util\Misc::canSendHeaders()) {
            $this->system->setHttpResponseCode(
                $this->sendHttpCode()
[internal]

Environment & details:

Key Value
type senedd
id 2018-05-22.1.90105
empty
empty
empty
empty
Key Value
PATH /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
PHPRC /etc/php/7.0/fcgi
PWD /data/vhost/matthew.theyworkforyou.dev.mysociety.org/theyworkforyou/www/docs/fcgi
PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN 0
ORIG_SCRIPT_NAME /fcgi/php-basic-dev
ORIG_PATH_TRANSLATED /data/vhost/matthew.theyworkforyou.dev.mysociety.org/docs/section.php
ORIG_PATH_INFO /senedd/
ORIG_SCRIPT_FILENAME /data/vhost/matthew.theyworkforyou.dev.mysociety.org/docs/fcgi/php-basic-dev
CONTENT_LENGTH 0
SCRIPT_NAME /senedd/
REQUEST_URI /senedd/?id=2018-05-22.1.90105
QUERY_STRING type=senedd&id=2018-05-22.1.90105
REQUEST_METHOD GET
SERVER_PROTOCOL HTTP/1.0
GATEWAY_INTERFACE CGI/1.1
REDIRECT_QUERY_STRING type=senedd&id=2018-05-22.1.90105
REDIRECT_URL /senedd/
REMOTE_PORT 37476
SCRIPT_FILENAME /data/vhost/matthew.theyworkforyou.dev.mysociety.org/docs/section.php
SERVER_ADMIN webmaster@theyworkforyou.dev.mysociety.org
CONTEXT_DOCUMENT_ROOT /data/vhost/matthew.theyworkforyou.dev.mysociety.org/docs
CONTEXT_PREFIX
REQUEST_SCHEME http
DOCUMENT_ROOT /data/vhost/matthew.theyworkforyou.dev.mysociety.org/docs
REMOTE_ADDR 18.117.233.156
SERVER_PORT 80
SERVER_ADDR 46.235.230.113
SERVER_NAME matthew.theyworkforyou.dev.mysociety.org
SERVER_SOFTWARE Apache
SERVER_SIGNATURE
HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING gzip, br, zstd, deflate
HTTP_USER_AGENT Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)
HTTP_ACCEPT */*
HTTP_CONNECTION close
HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO https
HTTP_X_REAL_IP 18.117.233.156
HTTP_HOST matthew.theyworkforyou.dev.mysociety.org
SCRIPT_URI http://matthew.theyworkforyou.dev.mysociety.org/senedd/
SCRIPT_URL /senedd/
REDIRECT_STATUS 200
REDIRECT_HANDLER application/x-httpd-fastphp
REDIRECT_SCRIPT_URI http://matthew.theyworkforyou.dev.mysociety.org/senedd/
REDIRECT_SCRIPT_URL /senedd/
FCGI_ROLE RESPONDER
PHP_SELF /senedd/
REQUEST_TIME_FLOAT 1731046415.4158
REQUEST_TIME 1731046415
empty
0. Whoops\Handler\PrettyPageHandler