Devolution, my arse! – a Budget 2026 post on rail in Wales

Professor Mark Barry

As you all know, rail in Wales is non-devolved and has suffered billions of pounds of relative underfunding by UK Governments over the last 25 years!

This has also meant that, to progress rail schemes like the South Wales Metro, the Welsh Government has had to use funds from its block grant meant for health, education, etc., to make up the shortfall.

My last report for the Senedd Research team is worth a read: Hey, Andy, time to devolve rail to Wales!

This week’s Budget was an opportunity for the UK Government to begin to address this long-standing issue with some serious capital commitment to Wales’s rail network. What we have is £30m towards Cardiff Parkway station (yes, welcome), which will cost at least £60m. This takes the current UK Government commitment to rail enhancements in Wales in the current Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) period to 2030 to approximately £350m. This contrasts with approximately £34bn committed to rail enhancements in England over the same period.

PS: I may have got that wrong. It now seems the Cardiff Parkway £30m announcement is just to confirm that this station is part of the Burns stations’ scope, and no extra money has yet been allocated compared with what was set out in the CSR… so just £305m for Wales in this four-year period to 2030. They must be laughing at us in Whitehall… and most in Welsh Labour are suffering from Stockholm syndrome! (As manifested in the exchanges during oral questions to the Westminster Transport Minister at 10am on October 29, 2026.)

Seriously, does anyone think this is good enough – especially those in Welsh Labour who used to vociferously make the case for change? The oft-talked-about £14bn does not exist on any HM Treasury spreadsheet and is the rail equivalent of the Emperor’s New Clothes.

If the UK Government were taking this funding inequity seriously, it would have acted on at least some of my proposals here: Wales Rail Enhancement Priorities for UK Government, October 2026.

Just £30m tells us all we need to know. What about more funds for the schemes already announced in the CSR, which will cost over £700m (not £305m), more funds to begin detailed scheme development for the first phases of Swansea Metro, further work on Borderlands/Merseyrail integration and the North Wales Main Line (NWML)… and, yes, of course, fixing Metro in Cardiff? But no, nothing! Waiting for politically compromised Westminster largesse is never going to work for rail in Wales!

To make matters worse, sources tell me that there has been little or no progress on improving Wales’s position regarding the current GB Railways Bill.

Unsurprisingly, most of the obfuscation is coming from the rail industry ecosystem in England, which can’t bear to give up “their” train set – forgetting, of course, that they are custodians of a public asset in Wales!!

This entirely predictable situation reflects the patronising and dismissive attitude we in Wales often face when dealing with Whitehall bureaucracy. It is not helped by Westminster politicians from Wales, who generally don’t understand, or are not inclined to engage with, the relevant details.

With Andy Burnham talking up devolution, one could be forgiven for thinking that we would see much more progress as far as Wales is concerned. However, disappointingly, I think Jim Royle (a famous Manchester resident whom I am sure Andy Burnham is familiar with) would put the current situation most appropriately: “Devolution, my arse.”

My advice to the Welsh Government is to stop playing nice with the UK Government and refuse to recommend legislative consent for the rail bill in the Senedd. My advice to Welsh Labour is to “grow some”!

Wales needs nothing less than a fully devolved and fairly funded settlement for rail infrastructure. Like Jim said, anything else: my arse!

PS: What the UK Government could have done…

Said…

“You know, we should really have funded all of the South Wales Metro, given that rail funding is a reserved matter… so here’s another £500m to help. Sorry about that funding dysfunction.”

“You know, we should probably fund Cardiff Crossrail Phase 1a in full… and make a start on 1b and Phase 2… here’s £300m.”

“We’d also like to accelerate work to deliver four trains per hour on Borderlands and integrate with Merseyrail, AND accelerate line speed and capacity upgrades on the NWML. How about £200m to get going?”

“Oh, and another £500m to make progress on Burns stations and services (you need to order some more rolling stock, don’t you? Best not delay that) – we might be able to get four or five of those delivered by 2030.”

“… And we could start detailed design and development in Swansea for its metro… here’s £50m, so we can start implementation work in 2030.”

“Oh, and I think, yes, you are right: Wales also deserves a vertically integrated and simplified rail ecosystem like the GBR Bill will deliver for England via GBR. So yes, we’ll amend the bill to fully devolve rail and then align GBR Cymru with TfW.”

Etc.

But they didn’t… and they probably never will. This ought to get ugly!

This article was first published on Mark’s blog