4. Statement by the Minister for Economy and Transport: A Railway for Wales

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:50 pm on 24 September 2019.

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Photo of Ken Skates Ken Skates Labour 4:50, 24 September 2019

The Member makes a really important point, actually, about how we assess where money should be invested and, at the moment, we have to assess that on the basis of the formula and the criteria that the UK Government Department for Transport utilises. In the future, as I've said, in the document that's been published today alongside the written statement and alongside this oral statement, I would have wished to adopt a different model to determine investment in stations across the network, based on some of the unique criteria that we've developed here in Wales, including, for example, the Welsh transport appraisal guidance system of appraising investment opportunities.

I think the Magor walkway station proposal has enormous potential and has great support from across the Chamber and from within the community. At the moment, we are constrained by the model that's adopted by UK Government for investing in stations, but, of course, if we had devolution of the responsibilities and the funding, we could adopt a different set of criteria for assessing programmes. Indeed, it may well be that if we had such a resource available to us we could include several more projects on the list that I've published today.