John Leech MP helps announce doubling of rail cash

12.18.40pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 6th Aug 2007

John Leech MP is working with local Councillors to improve rail services. The Lib Dems have promised a £12bn investment in our railways over the next 5 years.

Lib Dem Transport Spokesman John Leech MP, has helped to announce a doubling of investment in rail services across the country.

The Liberal Democrat scheme aims to discourage people from taking short domestic flights by charging a £10 levy, which would go into helping improve trains and rail infrastructure.

The announcement comes on the day a cross-party group of MPs and Lords slammed the government for not taking tough decisions to reduce the growing impact of air travel on climate change.

"We have to provide an incentive for people to choose less-polluting forms of transport and I think this is the perfect way to do it," said John Leech MP. "Britain lags behind so many other countries in Europe for rail services. We want to create a high-speed, efficient and attractive rail network by investing an extra £12 billion over the next five years."

"Train services have been run down by successive Tory and Labour governments while the airline industry still receive large tax breaks. This certainly isn't the way to deal with the growing threat of climate change."

<<ENDS>>

The Liberal Democrat policies on rail investment include:

• Introducing a distance charge on road freight, related to weight and emissions, as an incentive to shift freight to rail, raising at least £600m a year

• Establishing a new 'Future Transport Fund' to fund a programme of investment on our railways; removing bottlenecks, providing more trains and reopening lines

• Backing new North-South and East-West high-speed rail lines to the best European standards to replace internal flights

• Toughening new legal limits on the average emissions of new cars sold in the EU, to be reinforced with a steadily declining total that reaches zero by 2040

• Introducing a new 'Climate Change Charge' on internal flights, except life-line routes, starting at £10 per ticket to help fund the 'Future Transport Fund,' which will generate at least £150m a year

(http://www.libdems.org.uk/news/story.html?id=13042&navPage=news.html)

To read the All Party Climate Change Group's findings, please go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/02_08_07_draftclimatereport.pdf