8. Will the Minister make a statement on the appraisal process for new railway stations? OAQ53413

Yes. The stage 2 assessment process has taken longer than planned in order to ensure that the right candidate stations are taken forward to the next stage, but the exercise will be completed this month, and it will allow me to make an announcement on the stations that will be considered under stage 3.

I'm very grateful to the Minister for his answer. I'm sure he'll understand that, for example, the residents of Carno in the region that I represent have been a bit frustrated by the continuing delay. I'm very grateful to you for assuring us that the delay is coming to an end. Could you provide a bit of an explanation as to why the delay occurred and why it's taken as long as it has?

Yes—simply because of the volume of work that's been required to be undertaken during the assessment programme. I think it's important to say that there's no point in moving schemes to a detailed business case level unless we are completely confident that there is potential for them to result in a sound business case, and that's why the work has been so extensive. But it is also worth stating that there are no indications from UK Government, as yet, of any new funding streams to introduce new stations on our railway network. I am still fighting for additional resource to be made available, but it will be down to UK Government to make the money available to Wales.

The Minister will be aware of my wish to see a new railway station serving Abertillery and the Ebbw Fach valley in my constituency. I share some of the concerns that were outlined by Helen Mary Jones in terms of the process used to make these determinations. The current model appears to me to give a result that will always be biased towards areas of much higher population in the cities of the M4 corridor rather than allow us to take decisions that will enable us to build and develop new stations and new infrastructure in the small towns in the Valleys, and Abertillery is an example of that. Will the Minister consider revisiting the current model and form of assessment to ensure that all of our communities have an opportunity to demonstrate the importance of having stations that will, in the case of Abertillery, serve the whole of the Ebbw Fach valley in my constituency, and to ensure that these are all linked to the new metro and can become hubs for transport and for employment opportunities?

Well, I'd dearly like to change the funding formula and the criteria, but, as the Member is aware, the extent of benefit-cost ratio is an important factor in determining whether the UK Government would fund a new station, because funding of new stations is in the UK Government's hands, and therefore we have to apply the funding formula and the assessment criteria that will ensure that any stations that are put forward, or any proposals that are put forward for new stations, have the best possible opportunity of success when they reach Whitehall. I do appreciate—particularly as a Member representing a rural area, I appreciate that it is a major issue when it comes to delivering improvements in less-populated areas. Until and unless we have devolution of responsibility for rail infrastructure, and with it a fair funding settlement, we'll have to ensure that we work by the UK Government's formula. If we get devolution of this particular set of powers then, of course, rail schemes can be prioritised against a broader range of measures and objectives and they will be in our hands.