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Railways strategy outlined to MPs | |
(about 5 hours later) | |
The transport secretary has set out plans to spend billions of pounds to ease overcrowding on trains. | |
Ruth Kelly said £10bn would be invested by 2014 to increase services and make trains longer as she outlined the government's rail strategy to MPs. | |
She said by 2030 she wanted the railway network to carry twice the number of passengers and freight. | |
The Tories dismissed the White Paper as containing "reheated announcements that are years later than promised". | The Tories dismissed the White Paper as containing "reheated announcements that are years later than promised". |
Ms Kelly said £600m would be spent on tackling "bottlenecks" at Birmingham and Reading and there would be 1,300 new carriages to ease overcrowding. | |
Thameslink plan | |
A £5.5bn north-south cross-London Thameslink project was given the go-ahead and Ms Kelly said by 2014, the aim was that 92.6% of trains would run on time - currently the figure is 88%. | |
She told MPs that the government had drawn up "the most ambitious strategy for growth on the railways in over 50 years". | |
"Our challenge today is not about managing decline," she said. | |
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"Instead, it's about how we can build on this solid progress to provide a railway that carries more passengers, on more and better trains and on more frequent, reliable, safe and affordable service." | |
While government money for the railways will amount to £15.3bn between 2009 and 2014, passenger fares are expected to make up £39.2bn in the same period. | |
Ms Kelly also there would be a "radical simplification" of the fares structure with rises in saver fares capped at 1% above inflation. | |
'False dawn' | |
For the Tories, Theresa Villiers said it was another "false dawn" for the £15bn Crossrail scheme - a proposed high-speed rail link from Berkshire to Essex via central London - saying it was "getting more distant by the day". | |
She added that while Ms Kelly had claimed "real acheivements" overcrowded trains were packed so tight "it would be a criminal offence to transport animals in the same conditions". | |
And Lib Dem transport spokeswoman Susan Kramer said the White Paper was a "missed opportunity" to get people out of cars and planes and onto the railways and suggested most of the money outlined had been announced before. | |
And she said it "seems extraordinary" that the government had not made more mention of Crossrail in the paper. | |
Ms Kelly said the government was committed to Crossrail and was currently trying to "pin down" private sector funding, to match government funding. | |
George Muir, director-general of the Association of Train Operating Companies, described the proposals as the "first plausible plan for expanding the railway" in recent years. | |
But passenger groups have been angered that some train companies have raised off-peak prices by up to 20%, and the system of franchising routes has come under criticism. | But passenger groups have been angered that some train companies have raised off-peak prices by up to 20%, and the system of franchising routes has come under criticism. |