Congratulations to Siltbuster Ltd in securing a contract with England’s £96 billion HS2 rail project.

That is genuine good news for a deserving local firm.

However, the Press coverage (with David TC Davies prominent) failed to inform readers of the more sinister politics behind this announcement.

By labelling the scheme an ‘England and Wales’ project, the UK government cynically denied Wales compensatory rail funding, despite Scotland and Northern Ireland qualifying for this.

Not an inch of HS2 is in Wales so Wales should have qualified for about £5 billion.

In a car crash interview on BBC in October 2022, Mr Davies, as Welsh Secretary, failed spectacularly to justify this political spite, which the UK Treasury itself estimates will cost the South Wales economy over £100 million a year as our railway network falls even further behind that of the rest of the UK.

He even suggested we should be grateful for HS2 because Welsh firms could bid for contracts on HS2, “including one major company in my constituency”.

So, no surprise then to see our ‘Welsh’ Secretary eager to celebrate a local company’s success to deflect from this political embarrassment.

However, the bigger question is how many other excellent Welsh companies (including Siltbuster) could have bid for contracts on schemes transforming our own railways with the funding we were so cynically denied?

Mr. Davies continues to be a willing apologist for this current Government which treats Wales appallingly but which has rewarded him handsomely.

Peter Williams

Trefynwy