Glyn Davies
Main Page: Glyn Davies (Conservative - Montgomeryshire)Department Debates - View all Glyn Davies's debates with the Department for Transport
(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
Thank you, Mrs Gillan, for calling me to speak in such a broad debate on road infrastructure. I will not make it too broad because in my constituency investment in road infrastructure is a matter for the Welsh Assembly and the Welsh Government. Montgomeryshire, however, has a very long border with England—Shropshire—and I want to speak specifically about the general principle of how we deal with cross-border road schemes, making reference to two schemes in particular.
Several schemes cross the border between England and Wales, but the two in my constituency are hugely important. The first one that I want to speak about is usually known as the Middletown bypass—you will know it well from your previous responsibilities, Mrs Gillan. It is an 8-mile road between Welshpool and the English border, and the gateway to central Wales. However, it is hopelessly inadequate and a real bottleneck.
The problem is that the cost-benefit analyses are different. The two Governments have to agree for a scheme to go ahead, and the cost-benefit analysis in each of the two countries is different. In Wales it is hugely important that we have access to the market in England, so the cost-benefit analysis in Wales is high and we are keen for the project to go ahead, but of course in England it is not. When I became a Member of the Assembly, then a Member of Parliament, my main interest was for devolution not to have a negative effect on the way in which Britain operates—but it does. In this specific instance, it certainly does.
Two schemes are good examples of this negative effect. The first is the Middletown bypass. It is 90% in Wales and 10% in England, but it cannot go ahead unless the UK Government commit their 10% to a scheme that any cost-benefit analysis would say was not worth while for England. But of course it is hugely worth while, and the scheme would go ahead if we had that agreement between the two Governments. That is absolutely crucial for the way Britain’s economy operates.
The second scheme is the Pant-Llanymynech bypass, for which 90% of the investment would be in north Shropshire and 10% would be in Wales. The case argued locally is often about the environment of the villages of Llanymynech—it is a village, not a town; I do not want to cause any offence—and Pant, and about traffic danger issues, but the key issue for me and for the economy of Wales has always been that the scheme concerns the A483 Manchester to Swansea road, which is a key piece of infrastructure into Wales. Again, the cost-benefit analysis is different on each side.
I conclude with a general point. When the British Government look at investing in roads in England—roads are devolved to Wales and to Scotland—they must look at the benefit to the United Kingdom as well as the benefit just to England. That is absolutely crucial if we are going to make certain that devolution does not have a negative impact, as it currently does, on the two road schemes that I mentioned and on other road schemes between England and Wales. We must look at how such schemes benefit the United Kingdom overall.