HS2 announcement “crumbs from the table for Wales” say Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru have hit out at the UK Government, branding news that £1 billion will be spent on the electrification of the region’s mainline as “crumbs from the table for Wales”
Plaid Cymru’s Westminster Leader, Liz Saville Roberts MP, was speaking after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak confirmed the long-rumoured axing of the second leg of HS2, with funding instead being promised to hundreds of other projects.
The prime minister used his speech at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester to announce that he will halt the remaining phases of HS2, terminating the high-speed rail link between Birmingham and Manchester.
Instead, he argued, the HS2 project would be replaced by a £36bn investment into hundreds of other projects, including the electrification of the North Wales Mainline, which runs from Chester to Holyhead.
Despite HS2 not touching Welsh soil, UK Government say the benefits would, with the planned improvements in North West England hoped to benefit travellers to and from North Wales. Significantly it had been designated as a joint project between England and Wales by the UK Government.
As a result Wales won’t receive additional transport funds, in contrast to Scotland and Northern Ireland.
According to the Welsh Government’s calculations, if the project were reclassified as exclusive to England, Wales would be entitled to approximately £5bn, based on its population size.
This supplementary funding would come via the Barnett Formula, which determines the financial allocations the devolved governments receive from the Treasury.
Responding to the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s speech to the Conservative Party conference, Plaid Cymru’s Westminster Leader, Liz Saville Roberts MP said: “High-speed rail for London, crumbs from the table for Wales.
“Electrifying the North Wales Main line is said to receive around £1 billion. Plaid Cymru will not accept that this pledge replaces the more than £2 billion Wales should have already received in Barnett consequentials for the first phase of HS2.
“It’s only thanks to Plaid Cymru’s decade-long demand for Wales to receive our fair share from HS2 that Rishi Sunak now feels pressured to give empty promises of the most modest of benefits to Wales.
“We cannot believe a word the Conservatives have to say on electrification. For years, the Tories promised electrifying the south Wales line between Cardiff and Swansea, before it was scrapped.
“HS2 isn’t just an England-only scheme, it’s a London-only scheme. Wales should therefore receive full compensation for funding spent on the first phase so far, just as we did for Crossrail.
“The billions in funding that we’re owed would revolutionise our deteriorating transport infrastructure, restore our bus services, and significantly improve north-south connectivity in our nation.
“The only way to resolve this saga is to fully devolve rail infrastructure to Wales, transferring the billions owed through the Barnett formula. That would allow the people of Wales to choose how to invest in our nation.
“With Keir Starmer’s Labour Party refusing to make that commitment, only Plaid Cymru speaks for Wales.”
The First Minister Mark Drakeford was equally unimpressed, “Any claim that HS2 is an England and Wales scheme is over. It is clear that HS2, or the remnants of it, is an England-only scheme.
“The UK Government now needs to step up and give Wales the money we are already owed from this failed project”
