WALES IS NOT A WESTMINSTER PRIORITY

The news that the £50 billion pound HS2 rail link will not be extended to Scotland, as the team behind the project has found there is “no business case” for the undertaking, does not surprise me. For sometime HS2 has been focused on reducing journey times from London to Birmingham to 49 minutes, before it splits into lines to Manchester and Leeds over two phases.

However, it was always hinted that HS2 would still ultimately reach Scotland, so commuters could travel from Glasgow and Edinburgh to London in three hours, against about four-and-a-half hours today. Back in 2009, when the then New Labour Transport secretary Lord Adonis launched, he claimed it would be “the union railway, uniting England and Scotland, north and south, richer and poorer parts of our country, sharing wealth and opportunity”.

Clearly these dreams and aspirations are no more. The announcement by the team behind the project means that HS2 will now not be extended to Scotland is of some importance, as it leaves leaves England as the only part of the UK set to benefit from the multi-billion pound development.

Any claim of a business case for HS2 that would benefit Wales have long been demolished by official KPMG figures which showed that the project would wipe millions from the Welsh economy each year. As HS2 is to be an England-only project then Welsh taxpayers should not be forced to foot the bill for a development set to be built entirely in England and to the detriment of the Welsh economy.

Plaid Cymru has led the campaign for Wales to receive a faire share of funding from HS2. Estimates show that this would bring in a vital £2-4bn that could be spent on revolutionising Welsh roads and railways, which are crying out for investment. HS2 must not be allowed to entrench inequality throughout the UK by concentrating investment on projects to benefit London and the South East while Scotland and Wales are ignored.

AT THE END OF THE LINE…

The proposals for a High Speed Rail 3 (HS3) link between Manchester and Leeds should be welcomed. The announcement could be taken to suggest that finally (if somewhat belatedly) Westminster has realised that non-road related transport infrastructure needs to be seriously invested in. While I recognise the importance of the proposed HS3 link in the north of England, however it is spun, it is yet another example of a large scale all England infrastructure project, once more our country runs the risk of being left behind. 

HS3 will take any alleged benefits for Wales from HS2 even further out of reach. Our railways are in desperate need of electrification and have been for decades, yet the UK government happy to force Welsh taxpayers to foot part of the bill for the England-only HS2 project which is expected to cost anywhere between £40-80 billion pounds. Rather than relying on cross-border links to get from one end of our country to another, Plaid Cymru wants to see a country-wide approach to transport investment where people can travel all around Wales with ease. 

Plaid has actively campaigned for the electrification of the Great Western mainline, the North Wales Main Line, and the valley lines, yet both Labour and Tory governments have made minimally slow progress. Our country needs a transport infrastructure that is fit-for-purpose - this is vital to create jobs and to help our economy grow. It is ludicrous that the HS3 project, if goes ahead, is being labeled as an UK-wide project when it will clearly not benefit Wales. Wales should receive its fair share of investment in our own transport system so we get Wales moving again.

PERHAPS NO COINCIDENCE?

Mainline railways in Wales

The news that the plan to redouble part of the north-south Wales rail between Wrecsam and Saltneyconnection is under review (by Transport Minister Edwina Hart and Network Rail), and the news that the promised hourly train service on the CambrianLine has been ditched as the Transport Minister has now suggested that the provision of an hourly service was now a matter of ‘if’ rather than ‘when’ is not good. This when combined with the lack of movement on the final link between the Ebbw Vale line into Newport (back in 2005, the Welsh Government promised to deliver phase 2 of the Ebbw Vale rail project, with direct trains from Ebbw Vale to Newport and an extension of the line towards Ebbw Vale and Abertillery by 2009) may be ominous. 

The re-doubling of the line between Wrecsam and Saltney (single track since the 1980s) was scheduled to have been completed by 2015, would have enabled trains to travel up to 90mph (114km/h) in some sections, and improved journey times between the north and the south. Previously the promised hourly service on the Cambrian line had been a ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ and was only being held up by the need for infrastructure improvements. The final link into Newport would give commuters the opportunity to travel to work in Newport and Bristol without having to drive or go to Cardiff Central and would also allow services to be run between Abergavenny and Ebbw vale, potentially adding extra off peak services for passengers.

Now back in February, the Western Mail (28th February 2013) revealed that road schemes will provide scant benefits for our economy. It also went on to list six far more beneficial rail schemes which appeared to have been quietly kicked into the long grass:  

• Aberystwyth (Bow Street): new station outside the town with car parking (with an estimated cost between £1.5 and £2 million (2011)).This could have provided a welcome boost to commutes into and out of Aberystwyth and reduce road congestion.
• Abertillery: new station and 1.5 miles of new track to link Abertillery to Ebbw Vale line at Llanhilleth (with an estimated cost £16.7 million (2012)). This could have provided a key rail link for Abertillery to Cardiff (and possibly to Newport).
• Bridgend: new station at Brackla, upgraded track and signals at Tondu (with an estimated cost £12 million (2005)). This could have meant that the train service from Maesteg to Cardiff could have run every 30 minutes.
• Llantrisant: new railway line (on old track) and new stations at St Fagans, Talbot Green, Llantrisant, Gwaun Meisgyn and Beddau (with an estimated cost £37 million pounds (2011)). This could have provided a rail service into Cardiff. 
• Nelson: new stations at Nelson, Trelewis and Bedlinog (with an estimated cost £7.9 million (2011)). This could have boosted rail services into Caerphilly and Cardiff.
• Newport and South Monmouthshire: new station at Llanwern, extra parking at Chepstow and extra parking (and road link to M48) at Severn Tunnel Junction (with an estimated cost £43 million (2011)).  This could have help with the provision of trains from Chepstow into Cardiff every 30 minutes and cut congestion on the roads.

Now to be honest this could be a serious of unfortunately timed coincidences, rather than the Labour in Wales Government (in Cardiff) choosing to focus on roads over rail and east – west communications (including the grossly expensive and environmentally damaging M4 Relief Road) rather than focusing on all of our country. Yet perhaps it is no coincidence at all, the real issue is that Labour in Wales and much of the higher levels of the civil service; simply don’t believe in Wales or the devolution project. This has resulted in the quiet undoing of much of the constructive all Wales approach to transport infrastructure that was developed between 2007 and 2011 by Ieuan Wyn Jones, the then Deputy First Minister in the Plaid driven One Wales Government.

A QUESTION OF PRIORITIES?

At the end of the day it comes down to a question of priorities, two different issues bankers bonuses and the bedroom tax may well clearly define this Conservative dominated coalition government, and show that its priorities are at odds with those of most ordinary voters. David Cameron and Boris Johnson defence of pretty indefensible bankers bonuses and their strident criticism of European Union attempts to curb them is all too typical of a Westminster based political party that still reveres the City.

DC on a sticky wicket after the Eastleigh By-election?

This is not I suspect simply a Conservative position and that  this defence of bankers bonuses would also probably be made by the Labour Party if it was in power.  The EU has brought in a reasonable cap on bankers bonuses, seeking to limit them to no more than a year's basic pay, with an option for shareholders to agree to double it. I suspect that many voters along with many economists blame excessive bonuses in the financial sector for encouraging the risky irresponsible behaviour that brought on the 2008 financial crisis.

Top bankers and financial traders earned bonuses multiple times their base salaries, generating public anger over bonuses especially following the huge publically funded bail-outs of banks. Dave and Boris’s defence of the bankers and the Labour Party’s relative silence on the issue may, in my option have more to do with future job prospects for former Westminster politicians than it does with any heartfelt ideological love of the free market.

The other issue that will help define this Con Dem Coalition Government is its desire to bring in the "bedroom tax” (or housing under-occupancy penalty) which will hit on some of the society’s  most vulnerable people - including pensioners, people will disabilities, separated families and families of service personnel. The Con Dems are seeking to penalise those who are in receipt of housing benefit while having one or more spare bedrooms in their houses. Even the Department for Work and Pensions' figures show that 63% of the 660,000 claimants affected by the bedroom tax or their partners are disabled.

Plaid Cymru, the SNP and the Greens (and even the Labour Party in Westminster) have put pressure on the Con Dem Government to think again. The bed room tax is an ideologically driven exercise to save money at the expense of some of vulnerable people – potentially it could force around 400,000 disabled people and their partners out of their homes and is wrong both in principle and in practice.

This Conservative dominated coalition has defined itself by failing to tackle tax evasion to recover lost tax, by failing to deal with excessive profiteering by the big six energy companies and failing to curb the bankers excesses. Instead this Con Dem government is going after those who can least afford to be taxed and is actually going out to bat for the City and standing up for bankers bonuses.