I've learnt a lot about trains since being elected as AM. I used to do what most people do—just get on a train. It would, hopefully, get me to where I would want to go, roughly on time, hopefully, and that was it, really. But I've learned that making that happen is a pretty complex matter.

One of the things I learnt early on as a member of the Enterprise and Business Committee in the last Assembly is that just getting a train is problematic in itself. Trains are hard to come by, quite often—a problem that has been particularly acute in Wales, much of that, again, down to the abysmal specification of the last franchise. 'Cascading' sounds almost romantic—the idea of cascading trains from one user to another. It means passing on your old stock to another user, possibly doing it up a bit on the way, passing it on to another one, passing it on to another one—I should say 'cascading' it on to another one. Wales, more often than not, was at the bottom of the cascade, with second, third, fourth hand, decades-old trains in many instances.

It is exciting that there is a programme of delivering new rolling stock in years to come, although it is way, way overdue, of course. The rolling stock companies, by the way, the ROSCOs, were set up by the Tories to take over the previously publicly owned rolling stock. It was discovered that they could make much more money, not by renewing rolling stock, but by overcharging for ageing, cascaded stock. So, we've suffered the blunt edge of that here in Wales.

But, as we move towards the end of this year, the trains that we have now, the old, cascaded stock, a lot of it, have to go because of PRM-compliance issues, the need for accessibility on all our trains. Now, we've known this was coming for some time, and we've also known that we have a problem with procuring rolling stock. We, as a committee in the last Assembly, warned Welsh Government, 'Even though there are years to go until the end of that franchise, you have to be planning for new rolling stock to take us into the next franchise.' Now, with the PRM compliance issue in particular, we now know that Welsh Government did not act quickly enough to seek a dispensation to continue using non-compliant trains after the end of this year, when it became clear that new trains wouldn't be available on time.

There are serious consequences to not getting that dispensation. The removal of non-compliant Pacers from service would result in a loss of nearly half the rolling stock used for Valleys lines. There are also several other trains that are non-PRM compliant that would be grounded, along with the Pacers, should the necessary dispensation not be in place by 1 January 2020, including—it's not just Valleys trains—some trains currently used for the Holyhead service. Services could be axed on other parts of the network—for example, Fishguard, Wrexham, Holyhead—in order to maximise the rolling stock available for use on the Valleys lines, those busy, busy commuter lines.

Now, at a recent drop-in session in the Assembly, Transport for Wales said that they would be using a two-car Pacer train coupled to a PRM-compliant Sprinter to ensure the trains are compliant, even if parts of the train are non-compliant, and I think Transport for Wales have been saying that on Twitter too. A recent press release, though, stating that they'll be using the Pacers predominantly as four-car sets on the Rhymney line, seems to contradict the information coming from other Transport for Wales sources. But the fleet data would suggest that there aren't enough compliant sets, there aren't enough Sprinters, in order to enable even that plan, and that Transport for Wales would have to run some trains as Pacer only.

Now, it's not only Wales that has been unable to get new trains on time. Northern Rail were also in a similar position, but they got the dispensation, and our concern here is that Welsh Government, even though, as our motion states, they were warned years ago about the need to plan for changes in rolling stock, to plan for a future in that context where we know rolling stock is hard to come by, but where there are serious procurement issues. Welsh Government did not act until it was too late, and I have not yet heard from Welsh Government an assurance other than that they are in active discussions with the Department for Transport and the UK Government, and that these discussions are ongoing.