Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:44 pm on 9 July 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:44, 9 July 2019

Well, Llywydd, I'm well used now to the irony-free way in which questions in this Assembly are put to me—questions from the leader of the opposition here about rail travel west of Cardiff from a party that cancelled rail electrification to west Wales. Has he no sense of shame at all in the questions that he asked me, when his party have been responsible for one of the greatest setbacks to rail travel in that part of Wales that we have experienced during the whole of this Assembly?  

What I say to the people who have e-mailed him is this: that this Government has a plan to expand capacity on that line and on other lines in Wales. That is the result of the neglect that was caused by the franchise that his Government signed with the previous operator. That's not going to happen in six months; it's going to happen over the lifetime of the franchise. There are ambitious plans in place so that there will be extra capacity west of Cardiff down to other parts of Wales. We wish we could bring it on faster, but there are constraints in terms of how quickly you can get trains delivered. There are funding constraints as a result of his Government's decisions as well. But, we will use the power of that franchise to bring about those improvements. When will his Government honour their promises to Wales? I don't see a single one, Llywydd. I don't see a single one of the announcements that the Secretary of State made when he was cancelling electrification and set out a string of business cases. I don't see a single one of them coming to fruition. When will we see that for people in the west of Wales?