A SENEDD member who represents the Monmouth area has called for a debate on the funding for rail after Wales lost out on half-a-billion pounds of funding.

Plaid Cymru MS for south Wales east Delyth Jewell took to the floor on the Senedd last week (November 30) to call for a public debate on funding for rail infrastructure in Wales in response to the Union Conectivity Review.Following the review prime minister Boris Johnson has underlined the importance of better connections - on both local and national transport networks - to bring all UK countries within closer reach of social and economic opportunities.Ms Jewell said: "The disastrous underfunding of our rail network has been highlighted by the UK government’s union connectivity review, which recommends, astonishingly, improving links with England, even though it was the UK government itself that reneged on its promise to electrify the south Wales main line. Wales Governance Centre research, Trefnydd, shows we lost out on £0.5 billion worth of rail funding over 10 years, due to rail infrastructure not being devolved, and HS2 will make that worse."She added: "The UK Treasury’s decision to set the comparability factor for Wales at 0 per cent means we’ll get nothing from HS2 expenditure. Scotland will get around £10 billion, Wales will get zero, and this when our trains are already crammed, too often late, and unreliable. So, Trefnydd, I think Members across the Chamber would welcome an opportunity to discuss this crisis and what can be done about it, before we are, in the words of Will Hayward from the Western Mail, condemned to another century of second-class rail."Monmouth residents - in particular - might express frustration at the state of rail in Wales. Monmouth Troy railway station was permeninenatly shut down in 1964 leaving the town without a rail connection, but more recently, previous Monmouth MS Nick Ramsay made efforts to get Monmouth on the metro map for Wales, but with no success. Current MS Peter Fox expressed pessimism at any rail plans for Monmouth, on the political panal at the Monmouth Climate Future Festival, he said ’Monmouth isn’t getting a metro’.