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The recent railway funding “announcement” from the UK Government did look, at first glance, to be good news – until we realised that it represented no new money. It was smoke and mirrors instead: a rehash of projects already announced, and a vague backing of an idea for more to come in the future, maybe – but with nothing guaranteed.

What’s more, Jo Stevens MP, who acts more and more like Westminster’s voice to Wales, rather than the other way around, has again made clear that devolving powers over railways was not a priority for ministers in Westminster (despite numerous commissions, experts, and even her own colleagues in the Welsh Government arguing for these powers). I challenged the First Minister in the Senedd this week on the issue to provide clarity.

Because Wales deserves that clarity, and not headlines that hide the truth.

I asked whether Wales will actually receive the £14 billion contained in that supposed announcement from Starmer, or whether it would be dependent on the budget choices of future UK Governments (which might, of course, have different priorities). 

It was clear from the First Minister’s answer that no guarantees exist. The money exists in no budget plan: we are simply being expected to take it on trust that Westminster will deliver on these projects at some unspecified time in the future. That simply isn’t good enough.

How can we trust anything this Westminster government has to say to us on rail, when they’ve denied us the billions we’re owed from HS2? When they designate projects that are demonstrably in England only (like the Oxford-Cambridge line) as “England and Wales” projects? We lose out on billions as a result. 

Scotland and Northern Ireland get billions in consequential funding from these projects, but Wales doesn’t – because of a trick in the Treasury. It’s a scandal that it’s allowed to continue – particularly as Labour used to criticise the Tories in the strongest terms when they did the same.

Of course I would welcome investment in our railways. I’ve long campaigned for the railway line between Nelson and Ystrad Mynach to reopen, and the spur to Abertillery. There will be examples across our area, and across our nation, where communities could be better connected if we had the billions we’re owed. 

But giving us a glorified “I.O.U.” won’t cut it, and that is essentially all the UK Government has done with its latest “announcement”. They are taking all of us for fools. Wales, and our communities, deserve so much better than that.  

This is an issue which, I know, matters hugely to many people in our area. I promise I will keep campaigning on it.