Network Rail denies Drakeford’s claim Welsh staff sent to England
NETWORK Rail has denied sending Welsh staff to run English rail services during the strikes. The organisation was responded after Mark Drakeford accused them of doing it during First Minister’s Questions on Tuesday.
Responding to Welsh Conservative Leader Andrew RT Davies’ query on whether the First Minister supported the rail strikes, he said: “There are no strikes in Wales, there is no dispute between Transport for Wales and the trade union where I am responsible for these things.”
The First Minister continued: “Let me explain to the leader of the opposition why trains aren’t running in Wales. It’s because his government has created a dispute with Network Rail, and Network Rail have removed some of the staff who could have been available to make trains run in Wales in order to keep trains running in England.
“I wonder if he supports that measure which was a decision of his government
Let me explain to the leader of the opposition why trains aren’t running in Wales. It’s because his government has created a dispute with Network Rail, and Network Rail have removed some of the staff who could have been available to make trains run in Wales in order to keep trains running in England First Minister Mark Drakeford
to deny you people in Wales the opportunity to travel where there is no dispute, by removing those workers to look after, which clearly are for them a higher priority than Welsh citizens will ever be.”
However, Network Rail have since responded to these claims, telling the BBC: “No Network Rail staff have been redeployed from Wales to England during this industrial action.
“We’re continuing to work with our partners at Transport for Wales and other train operators to keep passengers moving where we can.”
Disruption to the vast majority of rail routes in Wales is expected, with no services today and Saturday, June 25 because of the walkout by members of the RMT union working for Network Rail.
However, rail bosses say that services throughout this week will be affected because of the walkout and are asking people to only travel if essential.