First Minister Eluned Morgan says rail funding for Wales is 'a sea change from where we've been'
First Minister Eluned Morgan says rail funding for Wales is 'a sea change from where we've been'
'We would have been £6 billion worse of. This makes up £5 billion better off'
Eluned Morgan speaking on Politics Wales on Sunday morning
(Image: BBC Wales / Politics Wales )
Wales' First Minister Eluned Morgan has been speaking about the "at least £445m" announced by UK Labour to help improve the Welsh rail network. The announcement was made by Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, in her spending review on Wednesday, June 11.
There are plans for five new stations in Cardiff, Newport and Monmouthshire as a result, as well as improvements in north Wales. The money includes £348m to be spent between 2026 and 2030, with the rest over ten years.
The money will be spent by both governments because parts of the network in Wales are controlled by the Welsh Government and other parts of it by the UK government. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here
The announcement follows years of criticism from Welsh Labour of underinvestment in the Welsh railway network under the UK Tories.
The funding should mean that there will be a significant sum of funding for rail in Wales that should allow investment in both maintenance and also improvements, but some have questioned whether the cash will go far enough.
Speaking on Politics Wales on Sunday morning Ms Morgan welcomed the news, calling it a "sea change" for Wales' rail network.
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She said: "Well, let's compare to where we have been in the past and had we continued on the trajectory we were under with the Tories.
"We would have been £6 billion worse of. This makes up £5 billion better off - and that makes a difference.
"These are not numbers on a spreadsheet, these are differences in our communities where we can invest in our NHS, invest in rail, we can invest in infrastructure and we can make people more secure.
"It will make a difference and it is a sea change from where we've been in the past."
You can read more about the new station plans here.
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Former Welsh Government deputy transport minister Lee Waters said previously of the extra cash for Wales: 'This is a big number for Wales and is more than the Welsh Government calculates it would have had from a fair share of the HS2 project.
"We now need to make sure we get a change to how funding works for rail so that this is the beginning of a pipeline of investment into the future.'
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