Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 2:07 pm on 2 March 2022.
Over the last 20 years, Llywydd, for 12 of which the Conservatives have been in power in the UK, where rail infrastructure is not devolved, Wales has received less than 2 per cent of the £102 billion that the UK Government has spent on rail enhancement. We have 20 per cent of the level crossings across England and Wales, we have 11 per cent of the stations, we have 11 per cent of the rail track, we have 5 per cent of the population, and yet we only get 2 per cent of the funding. Forty-one per cent of the rail track in England is electrified, 2 per cent of the rail track in Wales is electrified. What's made it worse is that the Department for Transport comparability factor used for Barnett formula calculations for Wales has dropped from 89 per cent to 36 per cent. This means there's less money for Wales, despite significant increases in rail spending for England. That is fundamentally wrong, something that the Conservatives on the Welsh affairs select committee have recognised, and in a cross-party effort have said the UK Government needs to make sure that HS2 spending is Barnettised properly across the UK, and Wales gets its 5 per cent share. I've heard nothing from the Conservative benches, despite me asking several times for a cross-party effort on that, and I would still welcome it, instead of making cheap shots and not directing blame where blame is. [Interruption.] Llywydd, it is an unacceptable intervention from the Conservative benches, and it's a shame I have to draw attention to it. Despite that, we are investing £800 million on a new fleet of trains that will serve 95 per cent of passenger journeys across Wales from 2024. The first of those are already being tested, and will begin serving passengers in north Wales this year.