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GettyWales does no longer get its “fair share of rail funding” and the machine will have to be “fixed”, stated a former Labour minister chargeable for delivery.
Plans for a £6.6bn Oxford-Cambridge rail line had been up to now categorized as an England-only undertaking, this means that Wales may have been entitled to extra money.
But the Treasury introduced there was once a “publishing error” in a 2020 file and it will have to were categorized as an England and Wales undertaking.
Lee Waters, the Labour MS for Llanelli stated the “cock-up” highlights the wider factor of the way “unclear” and short of reform the investment machine is.
Rail in Wales isn’t devolved, this means that investment is made up our minds via the United Kingdom govt the use of the Barnett components.
Speaking to BBC Radio Wales Breakfast on Monday, Waters stated: “Is it a cock-up, is it a conspiracy? Who knows – almost always a cock-up in my experience.”
But he stated “it speaks to the broader truth” that “the system needs fixing”.
He stated: “We have not had our fair share of funding, the formula does not work to our advantage.
“It isn’t transparent how the components works and due to this fact we do not agree with when such things as this pop up.”
Waters said only a few weeks ago the Welsh government “needed to dip into our personal coffers” to pay for the national insurance costs, which should be covered by the UK government as per a Treasury agreement.
“We want to reform the Barnett components,” Waters stated.
“We want to have the United Kingdom treasury appearing as a UK treasury for the entire of the United Kingdom, no longer only for whoever occurs to be in govt in England on the time.”
He added that this isn’t “a celebration factor” because “this came about beneath the final govt, it is going down beneath this govt”.
He stated it’s “the federal government gadget” which must be “modified and glued”.
What is the Barnett components?
Joel Barnett was a Labour cabinet minister in the 1970s. It was Barnett who developed the new rules, so the formula was named after him.
The aim of the formula is to maintain the relative spending levels in different parts of the UK.
So if the UK government decides to spend an extra £1,000 per person on something that only covers England, the Barnett formula should mean that the block grant to Wales also goes up by £1,000 per person.
To calculate how much the block grant needs to go up in total, the formula looks at the size of the Welsh population relative to the size of the population of England.
At the moment, Wales’ population is about 5.7% of England’s.
So for every pound of extra spending in England, Wales gets just under 6p.
The formula also applies to spending cuts in the same way.
Waters stated he’s “assured” his London colleagues are ensuring Wales gets more funding, but is “much less assured” they are trying to reform the Barnett formula.
He said part of the issue is there “isn’t a Wales pot of cash for rail, we need to combat our nook within the England and Wales pot”.
Waters stated: “There’s a UK Labour manifesto dedication to create a Wales fund for schemes so there will also be transparency.”
But he stated he’s “apprehensive” about “wholesale devolution of rail with out the additional investment”, because it comes with the responsibility of repair work.
He said: “You can argue we will have to get the additional investment, however it is again to ‘will we agree with the United Kingdom investment preparations to do this?'”
The UK government previously said the “error” over the Oxford-Cambridge line classification “might be amended when an replace is printed on the spending evaluation”.
The HM Treasury has been approached for remark.
