UK TRAIN MANUFACTURING

That this House welcomes the Government's plans to introduce an extra 1,300 carriages onto the rail network to ease overcrowding and to procure a new generation of high-speed trains for the East Coast and Great Western Main Lines; considers that these orders represent an opportunity to revitalise UK train manufacturing; believes that the high-skilled, high-value workforce employed in the domestic train manufacturing and wider engineering sector are best placed to build and maintain the new stock; and therefore calls on the Government to promote a public procurement policy which safeguards existing UK capacity, skills and jobs in the train manufacturing and associated industries.