Mark led a debate in Westminster Hall today on high speed rail and called on the new Government to commit from the start to extending the line to Scotland.

He is a longstanding campaigner for high speed rail and sought the debate to test the new Government’s commitment at the earliest opportunity.

To read Mark's speech and the debate click here.

Mark said:

“The last Government showed real ambition in its proposals for new high speed rail and I hope that the new coalition will now make good on the promises that both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats made during the election campaign.

“I want to see a commitment from the start that the line will reach Scotland. The economic and environmental benefits are clear and are greatest where the journey times are longest as between London and Scotland.

“The talk at present is all about spending cuts but this is a long-term project which will generate income and bring new jobs. I call on the coalition at Westminster and the Scottish Executive to work together to make this vision a reality for the benefit of Scotland.”

Independent research estimates that high speed rail would benefit Scotland to the tune of £19 billion creating 64,000 additional jobs.

However, the benefits would not be purely economic. Transport accounts for over 20% of UK carbon emissions and if we are serious in reducing emissions we have to encourage people to use trains rather than planes for domestic journeys within the UK.

Currently the fastest rail journey from London to Edinburgh is 4 hours 20 minutes, however, with high speed rail it could ultimately be as low as just over 2 hours.

According to independent research, if the journey time fell to 2½ hours, high speed rail could capture 80% of the travel market between Scotland and London. That contrasts with the current situation, in which approximately 7.2 million people travel between Scotland and London each year but only around 1 million do so by rail.

For more on the announcement on high speed rail in March by the then Labour Government click here.
 
To read an article that Mark wrote for ePolitix on the debate click here.