The architect of Wales’ £14bn rail vision on his hope of transforming the way we travel

Wales transport minister denies Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s big announcement was an admission he hadn’t gone far enough last year

16:57, 24 Feb 2026

There was much fanfare when the Prime Minister arrived in Taff’s Well to announce the UK Government backing for a 43-strong list of rail improvement projects for Wales.

Keir Starmer’s promise was very simply full backing for the Welsh Government’s rail wish list for the next decade and a half. It would mean a total of around £14bn of spending over the years leading up to 2040 at around £1bn a year.

If all of the 43 schemes in the vision document backed by Mr Starmer happen by the end of that period, it would very simply transform the rail network in every corner Wales from Pembroke Dock to north Wales.

The catch is that Mr Starmer’s announcement will make no difference immediately. It was only a promise to support these plans in future spending reviews, many of which are likely to take place when he is no longer Prime Minister.

We spoke to Ken Skates, the transport minister in the Welsh Government who has been a key force driving the creation of the vision document – grandly called ‘Today, Tomorrow, Together: A vision for rail across Wales and Borders’ – to ask whether the Prime Minister’s big announcement really was just an admission he’d missed a chance to do something more meaningful to right the long-term underinvestment in Welsh railways in last year’s multi-year Spending Review.

In the last year, WalesOnline has run a series of campaign pieces calling on the UK Government to use the spending review and its upcoming rail legislation as a once-in-a-generation chance to rectify the wrongs of rail funding in Wales.

Was Mr Starmer’s £14bn promises really an an admission that Rachel Reeves’ spending review in June 2025 – when she announced just £445m for rail in Wales over 10 years – didn’t go far enough.

Mr Skates denied that. “We weren’t ready at that point,” he said.

Should you have been, I asked: “No, well, there’s two things here. First of all, rail infrastructure is a UK Government responsibility. They’re not going to back something that they inherit or hadn’t inherited from the previous government.

“So industry had to work on this very carefully, and there’s no way that any sensible Treasury Minister would support something that isn’t detailed, that isn’t comprehensive.

“So they weren’t ready and as a result, we weren’t ready to provide them with anything because rail is is non-devolved, so it did take time to build up this whole package,” he said.

If that Transport for Wales vision document had been ready in the autumn, as intended, would it have helped secure more funding then.

“Possibly not, because the spending review will only commit to what can be delivered in that period.

“But what we did get in the spending reviewing, which hasn’t really been discussed that much, but is hugely important now, is the development funding because with the development funding, you then have the resource to actually take that pipeline to the point where it’s shovel ready,” he said.

The development funding Mr Skates was referring to was the £90m included in the total £445m figure which was allocated to the Welsh Government over the next 10 years to develop future rail plans.

If Labour is voted out at Westminster, will it make Mr Starmer’s promises meaningless?

Mr Skates said: “It depends on a number of factors and this is why I think it was so important that we have the commitment to the full package.

“It depends, first of all, on getting cross-party support for the rail projects, the 43 projects, because if there’s cross- party support, no matter what the outcome of any future UK general elections, this will be taken forward and that was the case with HS1, it’s the case with the Elizabeth Line,” he said.

That is why he will move a Senedd statement on it soon, and hopes one will follow in the Commons.

“We’ll see what opposition parties say. If they object to a £14 billion package of enhancements right across Wales…I mean, you look at the map, it is every part of Wales that will benefit from this. I would be astonished, but let’s see what opposition parties say,” he said.

“I would be amazed based on rail projects the length and breadth of the UK, if any future government was to pull the plug on projects already underway.

“With rail projects, they span electoral cycles, and for the most part, they are all delivered in line with the original vision,” he said.

There is no cost estimate yet for the building of the five new stations on the south Wales mainline, known as the Burns stations, which are integral to the Welsh Government’s hopes of reducing traffic on the M4 by giving commuters the option of travelling by rail.

It will, he said, depend on the final designs and specifications. The planned new station in north Wales at Deeside, he said, will be cheaper but he said £90m has been used as a maximum estimate for each station.

“It will amount to significantly more than the allocation that was provided for this specific spending period,” he said.

He could not put a figure on how much the current administration would need to commit to take the projects far enough that they are past the point of return, he said. “We won’t know exactly what projects are going to be prioritised until the Wales Rail Board decide on which to take forward first,” he said, that will come in the next few months.

Following that, an estimate of the prioritised stations will go to the UK Government.

“The PM was very clear last week in saying that he wants these delivered. So we’re looking at how we can reduce timescale for delivery of as many projects as possible. With rail it can take a lot longer than you want, and cost a lot more than you anticipate but people never regret it once it’s built.

“The key for us now is making sure that we spend every penny of the money that was allocated in this spending period, that we get as many of the 43 projects to the point of being shovel ready in the next few years and that that will then enable us to secure as much money as we possibly can of that £14 billion in the spending round,” he said.

The next spending review would likely be in summer 2027, he said, and cover the period to the end of this parliamentary term, he explained.

But the schemes will not, he says, be impacted by whatever the result of a Senedd election would be, he said.

“They’ll all be completed because this is UK government money that’s paying for it,” he said, “Network Rail working with TfW,” he said.

Could it be changed by the UK Government? “Not now, because we’ve got a Labour government that in all likelihood is going to be there for another three years.

“In two years time, so much progress would have been made that if the plug were to be pulled on half finished stations I think it would be pretty devastating,” he said.

He expects the new Deeside station could be built by the end of 2027 as it would be built via modular methods and says Newport and Undy will be the first to be completed in south Wales.

He said: “The work is going to commence on all of them at the same time, but Magor and Undy, the crucial thing with that is that it’s less complicated because far less work has to be undertaken on the actual track alignment.

“We’re hoping that that one, and it all depends on the capacity and the ability of industry to deliver for us, but we would hope that that would be delivered fully within this spending period, up to 2029,-2030, that’s our aim,” he said.

The other four stations in north and south Wales, require more complicated track alignment work, he said.

“The other four, requires work to be carried out and that track alignment work is related to the, again, the comprehensive spend and review commitment for the relief lines.

“That work is already taking place in upgrading relief lines to enable these stations to be used.

“We don’t know yet when the end point is likely to be for all of these stations.

“What we can say that typically new stations of the type and the size and the cost that the other four are, typically take between four and five years from the point they’re at right now.

“The fear I have with the delivery of these stations relates to planning consent and consenting given that they are either on the edge of or within triple SIs,” he said, saying they may well end up being decided by Pedw.

“I’m keen to make sure that we can reduce as many barriers to the consenting process as possible and get these built,” he said.

Operation Thunderball – as the project was billed – was, he says, a closely guarded secret.

“It began back in 2024 before the general election, when I entered into discussions with Jo Stevens in regard to how we were going to get agreement on addressing historic underfunding of Welsh rail and the HS2 matter, should we win the 2024 general election which we subsequently did.

“So the first objective was secure an agreement on a shared ask of UK Government to address both of those challenges.

“That happened at the end of 2024 when we had a meeting comprising Jo, Peter Hendy, Heidi Alexander, and officials from both governments.

“We agreed what priorities we needed to put to the UK Government and they were the priorities based on the most advanced work at that time. So, the Burns stations, North Wales Main Line, Wrexham to Liverpool line. From there, we then had to secure money to take forward those immediate priorities, which we did., in the spending review.

“Off the back of that, we agreed to establish and launch Network North Wales as a precursor to a bigger package of rail enhancements.

“Quite a few people aware actually of the bigger portfolio of enhancements, but it never got out, thankfully it never leaked out.

“We were estimating it to be £10bn,” he said.

“We launched Network North Wales, we got the support for it from rail ministers, transport ministers, UK government, and that was vital because pretty much all of the £2 to 3 billion of investment required was UK Government money.

“That then enabled us to commence work on a document that would allow us to showcase the broader package of enhancements that TFW and Network Rail were working towards.

“They produced what was called an industry document during its development. It was delayed slightly, we were looking at launching it last autumn, that winter. It came into the new year because we were getting more than we were expecting in terms of agreement.

“We secured the UK government support, which was vital. They told us they were going to support it and endorse it and then the final stage which came over Christmas and into the new year was the commitment to fund it as well.

“It was a very careful operation, it began in 2024 and it’s just a huge relief that it’s reached the conclusion that we were hoping for,” he said. Ensure our latest news and sport headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source. Click here to activate or add us as Preferred Source in your Google search settings

The day-to-day political events did, he admits, put the whole thing under pressure. “Events can certainly unravel things,” the minister for transport and north Wales said.

“I’m sure Anas [Sarwar] in Scotland had no idea what we were about to do on February 18. But that mini crisis that took place,” he said. Suggesting that if the Prime Minister had been ousted, it would have ended the scheme.

There were also other more local rows which added pressure, he admits, but said the group involved was limited.

“It is a very small number of people that were aware of this,” he said. “Collaboration and keeping this piece of work as tight as possible was so important,” he said.

“Design by committee takes forever, so sometimes you’ve just got to accept that if you’re going to get an outcome, you’ve got to have a single designer or a very tight board of designers rather than have it thrown open to everybody,” he said.