Rail infrastructure investment in Wales: MPs to question experts’ views

• Watch the session on Parliament TV
• Inquiry: Railway Infrastructure in Wales
• Welsh Affairs Committee

The Committee’s Railway Infrastructure in Wales Inquiry, for which this is the first oral evidence session, is examining how levels of, and decisions about, rail investment in Wales are made and how the UK and Welsh Governments can work together to improve services.

Rail in the UK is undergoing reform as the UK Government ends the franchising model used since privatisation began in 1994. Meanwhile, the UK Government’s commitments to levelling-up and to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 could provide further opportunity for rail enhancement across the country, however there is considerable uncertainty about the potential medium to longer term impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on rail investment and services.

Among the topics likely to be discussed at this evidence session are:

• the current state of rail infrastructure in Wales;
  
  
• the effectiveness, and clarity, of the current division of responsibility for rail infrastructure between the UK and Welsh Governments;
  
  
• the implications of the end of the franchising model for operators; and
  
  
• investment levels since privatisation and how funding for rail projects is allocated.

Witnesses

Thursday 21 January 2021 via Zoom

From 2.30pm

• Professor Stuart Cole, Emeritus Professor of Transport, University of South Wales;
  
  
• Professor Mark Barry, Professor of Practice in Connectivity, Cardiff University;
  
  
• Julian Glover, former special advisor at Department for Transport.

Further information

• About Parliament: Select committees
• Visiting Parliament: Watch committees

Image: © M J Richardson (cc-by-sa/2.0)