00:00 HS2 was supposed to be one of the projects of the last few decades, finally bringing
00:04 real high speed rail to the UK. Now it's a thing of the past, as Prime Minister Rishi
00:09 Senek officially cancelled the second stage of the project due to spiralling costs. The
00:13 line will now only run between Birmingham and London, which though better than nothing
00:17 isn't close to the original plans, and really brings to light some issues with the project
00:21 as a whole. While there are plenty of specific issues with the project and its impact on
00:25 London and Birmingham and Manchester etc, it's easy to forget the impact it has had,
00:30 and may still have, on Wales. That's because the project, which started in England and
00:34 ended in England, and only included passengers travelling in England, was marked down as
00:39 an England and Wales project, implying it benefited Wales somehow. But that is an opinion
00:44 for someone else to make.
00:45 It was never a project to benefit Wales of course, but without that link at Crewe it
00:50 is now beyond any doubt what Plaid Cymru has been saying is right, that this is an England
00:55 only project, improving England's railways at our expense.
01:00 The big news there though is that the section of the line that's said to benefit Wales,
01:04 namely the Birmingham to Crewe section, was never built and now will never be built. That
01:08 totally eradicates the England and Wales badge slapped onto the project, something echoed
01:13 by politicians in the Senate.
01:15 If there is to be no link beyond Birmingham, then the flimsy case for regarding this as
01:24 an England and Wales development collapses completely. And at that point, the case for
01:30 making sure that it's consequential for Wales will be stronger still.
01:36 Wales has already missed out on £270 million as a result of HS2 misclassification in the
01:44 current spending review period. That will only grow beyond that unless and until this
01:51 misclassification is put right.
01:54 So as we can see, the First Minister wants this problem sorted and wants it regarded
01:57 as an English project, meaning it will then be subjected to the so-called consequentials
02:01 that you just heard about. Those consequentials are Barnett formula consequentials and they
02:07 are one of the biggest and most important funding mechanisms for the Welsh Government
02:12 and the other devolved governments across the UK.
02:15 There are countless complexities to this, but at its most basic level, funding in Wales
02:20 is equal to funding in England skewed for population multiplied by impact issues. This
02:25 means that if England had a project worth £1 billion, funding for Wales would then
02:29 be £1 billion multiplied by 0.05 because Wales has roughly 5% of the population of
02:34 England with some extra impact multiplications. Wales would then be awarded somewhere in the
02:39 region of £50 million in funding.
02:43 The Barnett formula is rather notorious in the world of Welsh politics and many people
02:46 advocate for it, while others criticise it for not taking outside factors into account.
02:51 Whatever your thoughts on it, it won't be going anywhere anytime soon and with HS2 funding,
02:55 a massive issue on both sides of Offa's Dyke is something you might be hearing a whole
02:59 lot more about in the near future. James P. Watkins, Local TV.
03:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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