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Swansea rail electrification plan should be reconsidered, MPs say

GWR New GWR trainGWR
Ministers should have been more honest about the decision to scrap some upgrades, Ms Greenwood said

A group of MPs has urged the UK government to reconsider scrapping electrification of the main railway line between Cardiff and Swansea.

Commons transport committee chair Lilian Greenwood said cancelled schemes should be "re-categorised as pending" with more work done on reducing costs.

Days after they were scrapped, funding for Crossrail 2 in London was approved.

She said this "unsurprisingly re-ignited the debate about disparities" in rail investment around the UK.

As well as the £430m Cardiff-Swansea project, electrification schemes in the midlands and the Lake District were among those scrapped last July on grounds of cost.

Earlier this year, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling told MPs that spending hundreds of millions of pounds on the Cardiff-Swansea upgrade was not "a sensible thing to do".

It emerged in a report by the public spending watchdog in March that Prime Minister Theresa May took the decision to cancel the scheme.

Lilian Greenwood said it should be possible to "really bring those costs down"

The committee recommended the programmes be "re-categorised as pending and placed in the Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline for further development and design work with a particular focus on reducing the costs".

Labour MP Ms Greenwood told BBC Wales: "There's no doubt that there were difficulties with the Great Western mainline electrification - those have been well documented.

"But it should be possible in a rolling programme to really bring those costs down, which might mean electrification of those lines in south Wales was possible."

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling defended the decision to MPs in January

She also accused Mr Grayling of a "less-than-candid approach" when the committee questioned him as part of its inquiry.

"We are disappointed he did not engage more openly with our scrutiny of his decision," she said.

"The government should have been more honest with Parliament and the public about the real reason for the decision.

"An announcement made by Written Statement on the last day before summer recess offered limited opportunity for debate and scrutiny."

The Department for Transport has been asked to respond.