5. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of the impact levelling-up funding will have on transport infrastructure in North Wales? OQ57985

Llywydd, any impact from levelling-up funding will be dwarfed by the UK Government's refusal to provide Wales with our population share of HS2 investment. The UK Government should provide Wales with its fair share of funding, to allow those decisions to be made here in Wales in devolved areas, by those elected to represent Wales.

Thank you, First Minister. I totally agree with you. I know that you are committed to improving passenger experience on public transport to reduce the number of car journeys to achieve net zero. As part of this, Transport for Wales has invested in new trains for the Wrexham-Bidston line and has recruited new drivers and trained them all up ready.

A levelling-up funding bid was also made to address the Padeswood issue. It included the delivery of Deeside Parkway station as well, and a Penyffordd station park-and-ride facility, so that we can move forward with an integrated rail and bus one-ticket vision. The bid for these vital improvements, along with many others across north Wales for levelling-up funding, was rejected, and I've been told by council officers that the bidding process for structural funds is like going back 10 years. The deadlines are not clear. It's resource heavy and costly. They don't have the time and the resources to put into making these bids, and then they get rejected. Does the First Minister agree with me that the so-called levelling-up funding is entirely unfit for purpose, taking up local authority resources and excluding so many communities in Wales from accessing the investment they need? Thank you.

Llywydd, I'm sad to say that the particular example that the Member refers to is an object lesson in how the fund does not meet the needs of Wales. Transport for Wales had a plan to increase services on the Wrexham to Bidston line to two trains an hour from May of this year, from this month. Now, it will not be able to do so. It's not been able to do so because Network Rail has refused permission for those two trains an hour, because there has been an objection from a freight carrier, saying that two trains an hour would interfere with its day timetable for carrying freight. All that could have been avoided had that levelling-up fund bid gone forward—a bid supported by all the local players, a bid supported by the Welsh Government and, astonishingly, supported by the Department for Transport in the UK Government as well. So, here you have a scheme, supported by every level of government that you can imagine, that failed to get funding by the levelling-up fund, and it now means that Transport for Wales cannot go ahead with the timetable improvements that they would have introduced this May, because the matter remains in the hands of the Office of Rail and Road.

What does this illustrate, Llywydd? Well, it illustrates, to my mind, that in a fund, over which there has been no discussion at all with the Welsh Government, funding that ought to have come to Wales—. Remember that the Treasury originally said that there would be Barnett consequentials of the levelling-up fund, only to change its mind a short number of weeks later. So, here is funding that is fragmented, that is unpredictable, where there is blurred accountability, where the risk of duplication and poor value for money is on the surface of the way that that fund has been constructed. It leads to the perverse outcomes that you've heard from Carolyn Thomas this afternoon and, I'm afraid, it's residents of north Wales who are the losers.