The UK Government's transport minister has defended the decision to award £50m to help pay for a new train line in Cardiff but not to give Wales a share of the money being spent in England on High Speed 2 (HS2).
Mark Harper was in Cardiff on Thursday to speak about the second round of projects awarded funds in Wales through the UK Government's Levelling Up Funding. In total, 11 projects in Wales are receiving £208m including £50m to pay for the start of the crossrail project in Cardiff.
Mr Harper MP defended the scheme as a "really important" investment and said it was not fair to see it is a much smaller sum than the £72bn to £98bn being spent on HS2 in England, which Wales is not receiving any consequential spending from - something that WalesOnline has been questioning for years. It's estimated Wales' population-based share of HS2 spending over the next two decades would be around £5bn.
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He told WalesOnline that the project "unlocks a lot of economic regeneration," adding: "Three of the most deprived wards anywhere in Wales will benefit hugely from this investment. It’s an investment both from the UK Government, so £50m from us, but also money from the Welsh Government and Cardiff City Council."
The £50m investment (matched with another £50m from the Welsh Government), will go towards a tram link between Cardiff Central and Cardiff Bay stations, two new platforms at Cardiff Central and several other improvements. The wider Cardiff Crossrail project mooted by Cardiff Council could span from Creigiau in the west to the ambitious (but delayed) planned Cardiff Parkway station in the east.
Asked about the HS2 funding, the transport secretary said: "On the share of the Levelling Up fund, if Wales got the Barnett consequentials percentage [a population-based share], it would have been about 5%. It's actually been about 8.69% over rounds one and two. So actually, Wales has been punching above its weight in terms of Levelling Up funding.
"On rail generally, the amount of money that goes into rail per passenger mile in Wales and Scotland is getting on for double what it is in England. So I think actually, the UK Government investment in rail in Wales is very significant."
Mr Harper also called the £5bn figure "slightly misleading," saying that HS2 money would be spread over "a long period of time," whereas the £50m figure is for a project that could be delivered by 2025.
He added: "Some of the HS2 spending, we're not seeing the benefit of until 2040. So taking all those years of money and rolling it all into a single figure and comparing it to a project was going to be delivering in a few years time, I don't think is a very fair comparison."
WalesOnline's figures suggest that if the £50m was spread across 2023, 2024 and 2025 - if, in fact, the tram project is completed by then, comes out to around £16.7m per year. If Wales received a £5bn HS2 consequential today, it could spend £277m a year until 2040 (the approximate planned completion date for HS2).
But Mr Harper doubled down on the UK Government's line that HS2 is an England and Wales project, citing an improvement in journey times for people in north Wales travelling via an interchange in Crewe - a response he has in common with Welsh secretary David TC Davies.
On whether the rest of Wales is missing out on investment, with no other local authorities receiving rail funding in the announcement, he said: "Well, there were a range of projects funded today. But the other thing that was announced today is there's going to be a third round of the Levelling Up fund and other complementary investment schemes.
"So my message to those local authorities that have attractive bids would be to have a go in the third round. And as we can see from today, there has been more than a proportionate share going to Wales. So I think there's every opportunity for other parts of Wales that weren't successful in round two Levelling Up."
The other projects included an engineering campus in Blaenau Gwent, cycle routes through Conwy Valley and a restoration of Porthcawl's Grand Pavilion. You can read about the full list of projects here. But none of them were rail projects, and some local authorities missed out on getting any funding.
Ceredigion MP Ben Lake said: "The idea that Wales should be grateful for arbitrary and ad-hoc Levelling Up funding is frankly insulting... Ceredigion is among eleven Welsh local authorities that do not receive a penny in today’s ‘Levelling Up’ round."
The Plaid MP added: "Some of the beneficiaries are among the wealthier areas of the UK, casting serious doubt over the appropriateness of the methodology used to allocate the funding."
The £50m funding, £100m when combined with what the Welsh Government has pledged, will just cover the Cardiff Central to Cardiff Bay leg of the project. Mr Harper insisted that the Levelling Up fund would benefit some of the "most deprived" communities in Wales.
The track passes through the Cathays and Butetown council wards, and one area of Butetown (a section between Lloyd George Avenue and Dumballs Road ranks among the 10% of areas in Wales with the worst levels of deprivation, according to the 2019 Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation.
But eight of the 10 areas of the Ely council ward in the west of the city are in that top 10%. One area, just north of Highbury Road, has the worst levels of deprivation in Cardiff.
Ely would be one of the areas served by the full Cardiff Crossrail project proposed by the council. For the transport secretary to say the £50m will help "three of the most deprived wards anywhere in Wales," doesn't it have fund the tracks that actually pass through them - or just pass through more than two wards in the first place?
Mr Harper refused to commit to this funding, and said: "The thing we got this out this afternoon from the council leader was a very clear sense that the transport opportunities here help unlock and support some regeneration and some economic developments, which he said would benefit three of the most deprived wards in Wales, which is really important, obviously, for him, and for the UK Government. And clearly, there'll be further phases of this project. And I'm sure there'll be opportunities for the UK Government to work with the Welsh Government and Cardiff city region to fund those in the future."
Cardiff Council leader Huw Thomas welcomed the investment, saying: "The announcement of this funding package is a ringing endorsement of our plans to regenerate Cardiff Bay and Atlantic Wharf. This new route will finally see Butetown properly connected to the city centre via Cardiff Central.
"It will not only serve visitors to the Bay and to the new Cardiff Arena, but it will also begin to make real the Council's ambitions for a Crossrail tram service which will run from the north west of the city all the way to the east of the city connecting with the proposed Parkway station. We look forward to working with UK Government and Welsh Government - which is match-funding the Levelling Up contribution - to deliver the scheme at pace."
But on Twitter, he added: "There is surely a better, more efficient way to secure funding than having to go cap in hand to Central Government (two out of three of our bids thus far have been unsuccessful). Let's empower Councils with the fiscal levers we need to generate this sort of funding locally."
On this, Mr Harper defended the system of councils putting in bids for Levelling Up, saying: "I actually think that, look, having a bidding process so that you know you've got quality bids is fine. And I think actually, partnership working between different levels of government is good. I think this sort of process demonstrates a really good collaborative approach between different bits of government in the UK.
"I think that's certainly what the UK Government wants to see. And I think this has been a good process. I think it's been a really strong bid, which is why we were happy to support it."
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