Disruption to Rail Services

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:35 pm on 15 June 2022.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 3:35, 15 June 2022

Yes, absolutely, Andrew. I'm not in any way saying that we can't do better. My answer to the question—I'll just repeat a little bit of it—is that we have asked Transport for Wales to provide as much additional capacity and extra services as possible, alongside absolutely clear advice to customers about the nature of the service and what we're looking at. I completely agree with that. I do not want people standing in lines not having any clue what's going on or anything else. I completely agree with that and I am not in any way sliding away from the fact that we should have done that better last time. We've had stringent conversations with Transport for Wales to maximise that, absolutely.

But, as I also said, we don't run all of the services coming from Bristol, Manchester and London. Those are UK operators, operating to UK rules, and only the UK Ministers can talk to them about increasing capacity and increasing rolling stock. Genuinely, I'm not trying to make a political point. Genuinely, they need to be asked to make sure that Cardiff runs as a destination properly with those other services too. And you on those benches, you could add your voice to that, because that would be helpful. But I am not sliding out of saying that we can't do better. We absolutely can and should do better, but we do need all the services coming—to Cardiff in this particular instance, but as Heledd just said, to all over Wales—to step up to that as well.

I agree that two or three hours is not acceptable, but nor should we be expecting the whole thing to clear in 20 minutes, as it does not in any stadium in any place in the world. This is about some realism, about people planning their journeys properly, about local people being sensitive to how long that's going to take and using alternate means of transport, where that's possible. If it's not possible, then, clearly, they should be relying on public services and everybody being sensible about it. But I cannot emphasise enough that I started this answer by saying that we have had those conversations with Transport for Wales and asked them to provide that additional capacity and extra services as much as possible.