Northern Powerhouse Rail

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:14 pm on 22 March 2023.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 3:14, 22 March 2023

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.