Keir Starmer has refused to guarantee that as Prime Minister he would give Wales' a fair share of HS2 funding or additional money for the NHS.
Speaking to WalesOnline at the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno he said the Welsh Government would get control how money previously coming from the EU structural funds were spent but that there would be no additional funding commitments until a general election campaign had begun.
A WalesOnline investigation demonstrated how Wales was being shortchanged by £5bn over high speed rail as it has been defined by the Tories as an "England and Wales" project despite not a single metre of track actually being in Wales. Both Welsh Labour and the Welsh Tories have called for the project to be reclassified.
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Mr Starmer also said he couldn't promise extra money for the Welsh NHS (which is currently battling extreme pressure and underfunding) and said he would wait until after Wales' constitutional commission concluded before making commitments to large scale further devolution.
In your speech you said you were going to "return Wales to having power over its economic destiny". One key way for that to happen is for Wales to get its fair share of HS2 funding like Northern Ireland and Scotland. Are you able to commit to Wales getting its fair share of HS2 funding?
Well look, the HS2 project is obviously in an even more fragile state now than it was a week ago, given the decision of the government on Thursday. They have completely lost control of the project and lost control of finances. I know what you want is a commitment to exact pounds and pence. I'm not going to make a commitment like that this side of the election. Obviously, we will make our offer when we go into the election, but we will be in a totally different position.
What I was saying in my speech, is the difference you'll have with a Labour government in Westminster, hopefully in 18 months or so, working with a Welsh Government here in Wales. My principle will be that I want resource decision making and power exercised as close to the communities affected as possible and that will be a driving principle.
Why can't you make this commitment for Wales getting a consequential from HS2 funding?
We just don't know what that's going to be and we don't know what the economy is going to be. But I don't want that to detract from the principle, which is a very strong principle for me, which is why I said about structural funds, that decisions about Wales should be made by Wales.
But whatever amount of money is spent on HS2, there is a proportional amount of that is money that Wales should have. The Welsh Government have expressed outrage over the fact that there is no money coming to Wales. This is clearly not an "England and Wales" project, would you at least commit to redefining HS2 as an "England only" project so that whatever is spent on it, Wales get its fair share?
I'm not making a specific commitment today, we will make our commitments going into the election. But the principle that power and resource must go to Wales to make their own decisions is one I subscribe to. It's the heart of what I said about missions, what I said about devolution, at the heart of the Gordon Brown commission and the reason I said today what I said about structural funds.
I'm just just going to ask one more time. You have in the last six months called for a General Election. It's not like it's this nebulous thing far off in the distance. It could happen any time. Why can't we have a commitment to Wales at least getting its fair share of HS2 funding?
I'm not going to make funding commitments at this stage, but we will make them before we go to the General Election. It could be any time but it could be 18 months, if you look at the last 18 months with the kamikaze budget, billions of pounds worth of damage done to the economy. So we need to know the state of the economy we're going to inherit, then we'll be absolutely clear, but none of this undermines the principle that decision making should be as close to communities with skin in the game.
The Welsh NHS has really struggled of late and Welsh Labour have said that is because of a sustained lack of funding...
You're going to go on trying to get me to make commitments. We're not making funding commitments this side of the general election campaign, because we need to understand the state of the economy when we get to the election. But don't misunderstand me. Wales will be transformed when you have a progressive Labour government in Westminster rather than a Tory government in Westminster, where everything is a fight, everything is division, it won't be like that, it'll be a completely different way of working.
On issues such as justice and rail, this is something that the Welsh Government have called for, is that something you'd be willing to commit to?
Well obviously I asked Gordon Brown to look at this. He suggested that things like youth justice, for example, could be a start when it comes to devolution of crime. There's obviously a commission going on here in Wales, which is due to report I think, later this year. We'll look carefully at that. But at the moment, as I say, what Gordon Brown suggested, we have have accepted those recommendations.
Mark Drakeford, who you called the Voice in Britain at one point in your speech, has called for substantial new powers for Wales through "devo max and home rule. Is that something that at the very least in principle you could support?
Well ,in the Gordon Brown report, we were quite careful to say we would wait to see what Mark's Commission says when it comes up with its full report. I spoke to Mark yesterday. I think we're expecting that later in the year. So we'll have a look at what that says.
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