1. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of the impact on Wales of the UK Government's decision to class Northern Powerhouse Rail as an England and Wales project? TQ746

Thank you for the question. The UK Government should classify Northern Powerhouse Rail as an England-only project, with Wales receiving a population share of this funding. It would be completely unacceptable if the UK Government treats the funding for this project in the same way as it treats funding for HS2. 

I'm grateful to the Deputy Minister for his answer, and I agree with what he has said. As if it wasn't already bad enough for Cymru that Cymru has been denied the £5 billion it is entitled to from the HS2 consequential funding, it is now being suggested that the UK Tories are refusing us a further £1 billion from the Northern Powerhouse Rail programme, labelling it as a so-called England-and-Wales project. Six billion pounds we are now owed. Llywydd, I'm not sure if Members from the opposition here in the Senedd wish to provide the Prime Minister with a map, as it's clear that the Tories in Westminster don't even understand where Cymru is, let alone understand the needs of the people of Wales. Minister, do you agree with me that it is time to get rid of this broken UK Tory Government, it's time for a UK general election, and it's time to elect a UK Labour Government, working in collaboration with this Welsh Labour Government to deliver the infrastructure funding we need and we are owed?

Thank you. I agree with the analysis, clearly. For those listening who are not as familiar as my colleagues are with the way this works, when a project in a wholly devolved area is announced in England, we would expect to get a population share of that funding. So, when a £100 billion project like HS2 is announced, we would expect to get a 5 per cent share of that, some £5 billion, if it only applied in England. If it's classified as being of benefit to England and Wales, then we don't get any funding. The Treasury are stretching all credibility in saying that HS2, which doesn't have a single mile of track in Wales and whose own business case shows it takes hundreds of millions out of the south Wales economy, does benefit Wales. It clearly does not, and certainly with the chopping off of the leg to Crewe, any thin case they had to make has fallen away. It is diabolical. As the First Minister said yesterday, the fact that the Treasury can arbitrarily, on a whim, decide how this funding is allocated shows that the way that we deal with finances within the devolved settlement is clearly broken. 

There have been suggestions that the Northern Powerhouse Rail project will be similarly classified. That is not entirely clear yet. There are two options available to the UK Government: they could classify it as a Northern Powerhouse Rail project, in which case we would expect to get a Barnett share because it is an England-only scheme; or they could classify it as a Network Rail project, which would be outside of the Barnett consequential and we wouldn't get anything. We have not been able to establish which of these is going to happen. But the very fact it is opaque and not clear is in itself part of the problem. I met with the regulator this morning, the Office of Rail and Road, and it's clear right throughout the rail settlement that the decisions are made with an England focus and we then are given the crumbs from that decision. Our needs and our aspirations and our modal shift targets are not taken into account when rail spending across the UK is decided. So, this is yet another example of a broken system that needs to be reformed. And if the Treasury are foolish enough to do on the Northern Powerhouse Rail project the same as they've done on HS2, then they will contine to weaken the case for a sharing United Kingdom, because clearly they are not sharing, and it's an opportunity for them now to put it right.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (David Rees) took the Chair.

On this side of the benches, it's our understanding that there has not yet been a decision regarding Northern Powerhouse Rail being classified as an England-and-Wales project. Today's topical question refers to rail, but the biggest rail story in the news today actually relates to Transport for Wales's announcement that commuters travelling between Pontypridd and Treherbert in Rhondda Cynon Taf will have to use a replacement bus service from the end of April until the start of 2024. This is going to cause huge problems for those trying to get on with their ordinary lives and get into work. This is all whilst the Welsh Government are trying to get cars off the road with the roads review and are cutting support for buses. [Interruption.] It's got a point. Of course we do support improvements in rail infrastructure, but I'd like to ask you today, Minister, why has this announcement been made with such short notice—[Interruption.] 

Can backbenchers give a chance to the speaker? I can't hear her. I'm sure the speaker is going to make sure the focus is on Northern Powerhouse Rail.

Thank you. I'd like to ask you today, Minister, why has this announcement been made at such short notice, and what assessment have you and Transport for Wales made of the disruption and inconvenience that this will cause? You mention the relationship between Westminster, but I'd like to know exactly what you are doing to build that relationship with Westminster if you want to see a change. You can't blame Westminster for everything, Minister. You're going to have to do something yourself to try and make sure that the needs of the people of Wales are projected to our colleagues in Westminster as well.

Dirprwy Lywydd, that's a poor response. I met with the Secretary of State for Transport in recent weeks, actually, and I'm committed to a constructive relationship with him, as our officials are. This is not about building a constructive relationship with Westminster. This is about the UK recognising the needs of Wales and the needs of the infrastructure of Wales. I thought her party had a change of heart and was supporting us in a cross-party case to get funding to Wales from HS2. Unfortunately, Natasha Asghar seems to find it irresistible to score petty points rather than focusing on the big picture.

On the point on which she had a topical question turned down but she's tried to ask anyway, on the decision to close the railway for metro upgrades, this is an example of investment by the Welsh Labour Government in modern infrastructure from within our funding to create a modern metro system for Cardiff and the Valleys. It is going to involve a transformational change of infrastructure for the upper end of the Valleys, which, for the huge inconvenience of the customers, will involve a temporary closure, for which there will be a significantly improved service. If she has engineering advice on how we can completely transform a railway line while still keeping it open, I'm all ears.

Thank you, Jack, for asking this question.

We knew the UK Government was without a moral compass, but the last few days seem to suggest they don't even own a compass. Ethical boundaries evade them; so too, it would appear, do geographical realities as well. Northern Powerhouse Rail cannot be classified as England and Wales. It would add insult to the financial injury of the HS2 fiasco. It would cost Wales, as we've heard, an estimated £1 billion, which is on top of the £5 billion cheque that we are owed from HS2. Wales will not benefit from these projects; it is a lie to suggest otherwise. Could I ask you, Minister—and I take on board what you've already said here—what conversations has the Welsh Government had to date with the UK Government about the possibility of this project being classified as England and Wales? And if they are not more forthcoming in their answer, would you please remind them where the boundaries of Wales actually begin and end?

Thank you for that. As I mentioned, we have been in touch with the Treasury, who simply tell us that this is part of the integrated rail plan that was published in November 2021. It remains unclear whether that will be administered through Network Rail or the Northern Powerhouse Rail project. As I mentioned, the consequences for us depend on that arbitrary judgment, which they don't feel the need to explain or elaborate on. I think that is part of the problem we have; we don't have a system of fiscal devolution and clarity and transparency on how decisions that affect the UK are made. As the First Minister has made the point time and time again, the UK Treasury should be for the UK, but it is in fact treated by the Government in London as a Treasury for England, and we have to suck it up. It's clearly not a sustainable position nor a defensible one. I've very sad the Conservatives in Wales don't see that and instead try and defend the indefensible yet again.

Finally, Alun Davies.

I'm grateful, Deputy Presiding Officer. The crashing irony of the Conservative position on this, of course, is that the reason the Rhondda line is being closed is because it's nineteenth century infrastructure there that needs to be replaced in the twenty-first century. For a century, that line has not had the investment it needs. If anything, it's a condemnation of UK Government policy as regards to Wales. The fact of that closure stands as a rebuke to the current way in which these matters are conducted. The Minister is absolutely right in his analysis and his approach. [Interruption.] I welcome the conversion of the Member for Clwyd West as well to these matters. We very much welcome him. I hope that he will be more persuasive with his colleagues in London than he is with his colleagues on the backbench. We look forward to seeing that.

But can I ask you, Minister, in taking this forward—? Because we can rehearse the arguments. We all understand the arguments. This is a dishonest UK Government putting its hands in the pockets of the people of Wales in order to fund pet projects for their own Ministers and their backyards. It's not the way to govern this country. Will the Minister look to take this matter to the disputes procedure in the inter-governmental arrangements to ensure that this is done in public so that UK Ministers can justify why Wales is now a part of Yorkshire, and can justify why Wales does not have the investment it requires? And we can see if this disputes procedure works for Wales's benefit, or if it's simply broken for the benefit of pet projects in England.  

I think there's an opportunity for the UK Government to take stock of the arguments here. There's certainly a role for the Conservative MPs elected from Wales to make the case in the Treasury to make sure that the tone-deafness is not repeated. Because, as I understand it, the decision does not appear to have been finally decided. If it has, they're certainly not telling us. But let's take them at their face value, that no final decision has been made yet. Here is a chance to put it right, to not repeat the mistakes of HS2, and to make sure we get a Barnett consequential for the investment between cities and towns in the north of England. Nobody can credibly argue that this has any benefit for Wales. The decision to suspend HS2 up to Crewe completely pulls the rug from the position of the Secretary of State for Wales, who argues that HS2 does benefit Wales because of connectivity between north Wales and Crewe. That is no longer a position that can be credibly argued, and there is no credible argument to defend the reports that they're going to make the same mistake twice. Here's a chance for Welsh Conservative MPs to show that they have the interests of Wales at heart, to make sure the Treasury doesn't repeat its mistake.

I have accepted a last-minute request to ask a supplementary question on the topical question. Darren Millar.

You have wholehearted support on these benches for consequentials from the HS2 project and the Northern Powerhouse project coming into Wales. That is our position, and that is very clear. Can I ask you what you're doing to make sure that there's a fair share of investment across Wales, and not just in south Wales, from your transport budget? We already had a discussion earlier on in this Chamber about the fact that £800 million is being spent in the south on the south Wales metro versus £50 million in the north. We know that you're spending a fortune on the Heads of the Valleys road, quite rightly, because it needs to be done, yet you're postponing and scrapping projects in north Wales. When will we get our north Wales consequential that we need?

I appreciate that Darren Millar is committed to his divisive narrative of trying to pit different parts of Wales against each other. The facts, I'm afraid, don't support his position. We do spend investment roughly equivalent to population shares across Wales. We did an analysis of this some years ago and found that north Wales had a fair share.

In terms of the roads review, he also knows the position that the schemes that were altered or postponed fell right across Wales, and he forgets to mention the fact that the M4 in south Wales was cancelled before the roads review began. I know it won't stop him from his tune, because he thinks it plays well to his core vote, but I'm afraid it's not based on reality. He has the opportunity to engage, as I believe he's begun to do, with the north Wales Burns commission, which will set out a programme of work and a programme of investment that will need to jointly come from the Welsh Government and the UK Government to make sure that north Wales has a modern public transport system to match the best in the country. That has to come from both Governments, and I hope that he will put his support behind that too.

Thank you, Deputy Minister.