{"id":294568,"date":"2025-07-27T00:18:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T00:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/294568\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T00:18:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T00:18:13","slug":"foi-request-reveals-no-welsh-government-correspondence-over-controversial-east-west-rail-reclassification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/294568\/","title":{"rendered":"FOI request reveals no Welsh Government correspondence over controversial East West Rail reclassification"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Peredur Owen Griffiths<\/p>\n

A Freedom of Information request submitted by Plaid Cymru has revealed that there has been no official correspondence between the UK and Welsh Governments about the East West Rail project\u2019s reclassification as an England and Wales project.<\/p>\n

The response to the submission, which requested \u2018all ministerial correspondence\u2019 on the reclassification of East-West rail, revealed that the information \u2018is not held by the Welsh Government\u2019.<\/p>\n

The \u201cEngland and Wales\u201d designation means that Wales will not receive Barnett consequential funding from the project.<\/p>\n

The UK Government had claimed the cash earmarked for East West Rail came from a pot of money also used to fund projects in Wales such as the redevelopment of Cardiff Central Station.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

England-only<\/strong><\/p>\n

But it later transpired that in the 2020, 2021, 2023, and 2024 editions of the UK Government\u2019s Statement of Funding Policies, the railway line was classified as an England-only project.<\/p>\n

The project\u2019s designation was then altered by the current Labour government at Westminster.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s estimated that the re-classification will see Wales miss out on an additional \u00a3360 million in consequential rail funding.<\/p>\n

Last month, the Welsh First Minister told MSs that those confused about the classification of the East West Rail project that they needed \u201ca little lesson on how the Welsh devolution settlement works\u201d.<\/p>\n

Plaid Cymru\u2019s transport spokesperson, Peredur Owen Griffiths has accused the Labour Welsh Government of prioritising party loyalties over fighting for \u2018the millions of pounds that Wales is owed\u2019.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018Denied funding\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

He said: \u201cThe Labour UK Government have chosen to take hundreds of millions away from Wales by reclassifying East West rail as an \u2018England and Wales\u2019 project \u2013 and this FOI only further confirms that Labour in Wales have chosen to do nothing about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeography dictates that this project won\u2019t benefit Wales \u2013 it\u2019s yet another blatant example of how we\u2019re being denied the funding that we\u2019re owed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were told that two Labour governments would mean a \u2018partnership in power\u2019 delivering for Wales. Yet, when Keir Starmer actively, consciously, takes money away from us, Labour in Wales is silent \u2013 in another case of putting party loyalties and their Westminster bosses before the people of Wales.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt risk of rocking the Labour boat, it appears that Eluned Morgan won\u2019t even send an email to ask for the millions of pounds that Wales is owed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Support our Nation today<\/p>\n

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\n independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by
\n the people of Wales.<\/strong>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peredur Owen Griffiths A Freedom of Information request submitted by Plaid Cymru has revealed that there has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,4884,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-294568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114922331126942026","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}