A LABOUR Government will upgrade the West Coast Main Line that links the North West to London, Shadow Transport Secretary Andrew Smith promised today. And he pledged to speed up work to provide direct services between the region and the Channel Tunnel.

Mr Smith told the Labour conference in Blackpool that the government had failed to deliver its 1994 pledge of direct services between Manchester and the continent.

And he attacked their failure to upgrade the West Coast Main Line.

He pledged a top priority in Government would be: "to look at how every region of Britain can get high speed rail links to the Channel Tunnel including upgrading the West Coast Main Line."

Mr Smith pledged to keep British Rail in public ownership as part of a drive to create a properly regulated and financed public transport system.

He added that steps would be taken to integrate road, rail and air and reverse the fragmentation of transport services under the privatisation mad Tories.

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