Some new Welsh train stations will take more than three years
It will take more than three years to build some of the stations that funding was announced for in the spending review, Wales' first minister told the Senedd on Tuesday.Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced £445m of rail funding for Wales last week, some of which will be spent on five new stops along the mainline between Cardiff Central and the Severn Tunnel.Less cash has been allocated for the scheme than the £385m over five years estimated to be needed in a transport review.Plaid Cymru's Rhun ap Iorwerth argued the chancellor's spending review, which covers three to four years of spending, "left Wales trailing further behind".
BBC Wales has been told that the £445m is a fraction of the overall funding needed for the projects as many will need more money in future spending reviews due to the length of time it takes to deliver rail schemes.It has not been announced yet how quickly ministers believe the stations would be built.Speaking in First Minister's Questions on Tuesday, Morgan said the cash was a "good first step to addressing the historic underfunding when it comes to real rail infrastructure".She said: "You can't switch these things on overnight."We've done our job in Welsh government to prepare, to make sure that these things are in place, ready to go."But there was always a recognition that it would take more than three years to build some of those train stations."She made the comments in reply to ap Iorwerth who took objection to claims by Labour sources that the £445m was more than what Wales would have got had the Welsh government received money because of the High Speed 2 rail project.Because the multi-billion scheme is classed as an England and Wales project, there is no knock on additional funding for Wales as a result."It simply isn't true," he said, quoting Cardiff University academics in saying any suggestion that the funding compensated for HS2 was "unsustainable".He argued the spending review "left Wales trailing further behind in terms of the investment needed" with the "worst real terms growth in the capital budget of all devolved governments".
The review gave its support to five stations backed by a review of transport options along the M4 corridor in south Wales - named Cardiff East, Newport West, Somerton, Llanwern and Magor & Undy.To take place the scheme would require upgrades to the south Wales mainline.A total of £300m was earmarked for the schemes in the spending review, as part of a pot of cash that included support for the North Wales Level Crossing, Padeswood Sidings and Cardiff West Junction.Another £38m was allocated for the South Wales Metro project while the remainder is believed to be earmarked for planning rail schemes over ten years.
Experts have warned that the spending review could result in cuts if the NHS swallows extra funding that was announced for Wales.Defending the settlement, Morgan said it saw "£5bn in terms of public spending, that's money that we can spend on the things that matter to the people of Wales".Additional reporting by Gareth Lewis.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
7 minutes ago
- The Independent
Decriminalising abortion is a major step toward giving women full control over their bodies
The vote to decriminalise abortion will herald the largest changes to the law on terminations in decades. While access to abortions is generally available in practice, this legal aspect imposes unnecessary stigma, restricts autonomy, and risks criminalising women and healthcare providers, campaigners say. Removing abortion from criminal law allows it to be treated like any other healthcare issue – governed by clinical guidance, not courts. This decision aligns England and Wales with countries like Canada, New Zealand, and parts of Australia, which have seen improved access and no increase in abortion rates – only safer outcomes. And it has happened as a result of a type of MP that were once quite rare on the House of Commons ' green benches – women. During the debate, Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi said women today were being prosecuted under an 'outdated' law passed by an all-male parliament in the 19th century. 'Originally passed by an all-male parliament elected by men alone, this Victorian law is increasingly used against vulnerable women and girls,' she told MPs. 'Women affected are often acutely vulnerable victims of domestic abuse and violence, human trafficking and sexual exploitation, girls under the age of 18 and women who have suffered miscarriage.' Campaigners have argued that women must no longer be "dragged from hospital bed to police cell" over abortion. The issue has hit the headlines in recent times with high-profile prosecutions of women such as Nicola Packer, who took prescribed abortion medicine not realising she was 26 weeks pregnant. Abortion was legalised in Britain in the 1960s amid a national outcry over women dying as a result of botched backstreet terminations. Afterwards, however, there was a nervousness among UK lawmakers, with many reluctant to tinker with the rules in case hard-fought rights were lost. In recent years there have also been moves by some to try to limit the rights, such as reducing the time limit from 24 weeks. But there has been a sea change in recent years, and it has been thanks to the election of many, many more women. MPs have been freed to come forward with changes to give women more autonomy over their lives, in the knowledge that more of the people who will be voting on the proposed changes to the law are women.
The Guardian
10 minutes ago
- The Guardian
MPs' abortion vote comes as calls for decriminalisation rise – along with number of prosecutions
Calls for decriminalisation of abortions have been growing louder in recent years – in line with a growing number of women being prosecuted for terminating their pregnancies. Until 2022, it is believed that only three women had ever been convicted of having an illegal abortion in the 150 years since 1861, when the procedure was made illegal under the Offences Against the Person Act. But in the last four years, at least half a dozen women have found themselves in the dock of a crown court accused of ending their pregnancy, and dozens more have been arrested or investigated by police. Two high-profile cases in particular fuelled the calls for change. Carla Foster was jailed in 2023 for an illegal abortion, before having her sentence suspended a month later by the court of appeal. And just weeks ago, Nicola Packer was cleared by a jury after spending almost five years facing the threat of prison. Thirteen people, both men and women, made a first appearance at magistrates court charged with abortion-related offences in 2022, according to freedom of information data from the Crown Prosecution Service, compared with four people in 2019 and three in each of 2020 and 2021. Data from about half of Britain's police forces showed at least 11 people were arrested in 2023 on suspicion of child destruction or inducing a miscarriage, including a 31-year-old woman in north Wales 'reported to have taken illicit substances to initiate an abortion'. There are several more known cases of women arrested in the past 18 months that are not included in the data. In the last parliament, Diana Johnson, now a Home Office minister, attempted to change the law by bringing an amendment to the previous government's Criminal Justice Bill, but the 2024 general election meant the legislation never made its way through parliament. Parliament had already seen a move towards more liberal abortion laws. In 2020 telemedicine brought the biggest reform to abortion provision in England and Wales since the 1967 Abortion Act, which set out the current framework by which terminations can be carried out. Instead of women seeking a termination in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy needing to take the first pill under medical supervision, they could receive both pills by post after a remote consultation. Although it was introduced as an emergency measure during the pandemic, telemedicine was made permanent in 2022, with MPs voting 215 in favour to 188 against. The same year, parliament also voted 297-110 to introduce safe access zones, commonly known as 'buffer zones' around clinics, to stop women seeking abortion care from being harassed by protesters. In 2019, Northern Ireland's abortion laws were also modernised, with terminations allowed up to 12 weeks, and later under limited circumstances. In a referendum in 2018, Ireland had also made abortion legal on request up to 12 weeks, and later if the foetus would be likely to die before or shortly after birth or if there is a risk of death or serious harm to a pregnant woman. In both Northern Ireland and Ireland, the culpability for a termination carried out outside of legal time frames lies with anyone who assists a woman procure an abortion, rather than the woman herself. Both countries had also previously had some of the strictest abortion laws in the world, with terminations banned in almost all circumstances. In other parts of the world, change is moving in the opposite direction. In June 2022, the United States supreme court overturned the decision of Roe v Wade, and ruled there was no constitutional right to abortion. Laws are instead now decided state by state, with 19 of them either banning abortion or restricting access. Parliament's latest vote is unlikely be the last on the subject. Medics, lawyers, politicians and campaigners recognise that the 1967 act is in need of reform. Work to establish what a new framework should look like has already begun, but as Louise McCudden, UK head of external affairs at MSI Reproductive Choices, a reproductive health NGO, said: 'Getting abortion law reform right will take time, and we want to make sure we do that in a way that takes into account expert opinion, takes into account women's voices [and] human rights groups.' But, McCudden said: 'The women who are being investigated and facing prosecution and jail can't afford to wait.' And parliament's latest vote means that now there will be no more Carla Fosters, or Nicola Packers.
The Independent
11 minutes ago
- The Independent
MPs vote to decriminalise abortion in biggest change to reproductive rights in decades
MPs have voted to decriminalise abortion in a historic step that will usher in the most far-reaching change to reproductive rights in decades. After an emotional and impassioned debate in the House of Commons, MPs voted by 379 to 137 in favour of decriminalising abortion in England and Wales. The reform is designed to ensure women cannot be prosecuted for terminating their own pregnancy at any stage. In recent years there has been a rise in calls for law reform, coinciding with a growing number of prosecutions of women accused of undergoing illegal abortions. During the debate, MPs had argued that the UK's "Victorian" abortion law was "increasingly used against vulnerable women and girls". But the move faced stiff opposition from the justice secretary Shabana Mahmood who described proposed reforms as "extreme". Under the current law, abortion in England and Wales is a criminal offence but is legal up to 24 weeks, with the sign off from two doctors. It is also allowed under limited circumstances after this time, including when the mother's life is at risk. Women can also be prescribed medication to end a pregnancy at home if they are less than 10 weeks pregnant. The issue hit the headlines in recent months with high-profile cases such as those of Nicola Packer and Carla Foster. Ms Packer was cleared by a jury last month after she took prescribed abortion medicine at around 26 weeks pregnant, beyond the legal 10-week limit. During her trial, more than four years after the police investigation began, she told jurors that she did not realise she had been more than 10 weeks pregnant. The case of Ms Foster, jailed in 2023 for illegally obtaining abortion tablets to end her pregnancy when she was between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant, eventually saw her sentence reduced by the Court of Appeal and suspended, after a senior judge said that sending women to prison for abortion-related offences was "unlikely" to be a "just outcome". Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi said police had investigated more than 100 women for suspected illegal abortions in the past five years "including women who've suffered natural miscarriages and stillbirths". In the Commons she told MPs: "Each one of these cases is a travesty, enabled by our outdated abortion law. "Originally passed by an all-male parliament elected by men alone, this Victorian law is increasingly used against vulnerable women and girls." Labour MP Lizzi Collinge told MPs that 88 per cent of abortions happen before nine weeks and that the change would protect women from 'brutal investigations', which she described as 'intrusive'. But Conservative MP and Father of the House Sir Edward Leigh described the reforms as "not pro-woman" and argued they "would introduce sex-selective abortion". And DUP MP Carla Lockhart insisted "both lives matter", saying the changes "would be bad for both women and unborn children". The latest attempt to change the law follows repeated calls to repeal sections of the 19th-century law, the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, after abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland in 2019. MPs had due to debate similar amendments removing the threat of prosecution against women last year, before Parliament was dissolved for the general election. Earlier this month, a debate at Westminster Hall heard calls from pro-change campaigners that women must no longer be "dragged from hospital bed to police cell" over abortion. But opponents of decriminalisation warned against such a "radical step". The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) urged MPs to vote against both amendments, saying they would bring about "the biggest expansion of abortion since 1967".
