MULHOLLAND CALLS FOR GOVERNMENT TO COME CLEAN ON SUPERTRAM

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 30th Jan 2006

Greg Mulholland, MP for Leeds North West, has called on the Government to come clean about the decisions made about the Leeds Supertram scheme. Mr Mulholland and Liberal Democrat Transport Spokesman Tom Brake have asked the National Audit Office to examine whether public funds were appropriately spent by Ministers.

The request was made in light of information revealing a string of meetings held between Ministers and Officials and FirstGroup from January 2005, to discuss a potential bus rival to Supertram, months before the decision to axe the tram had been made public.

Commenting, Greg said:

"The Government needs to give some answers about Supertram. The way they treated the people of Leeds is totally unacceptable. It is quite right that local tax payers should know how their money was spent and whether this was spent wisely. In total, the Government spent an astonishing £39 million on Supertram and we have nothing to show for it. This is a poor use of tax payer's money.

"The way the Government came to make this decision is unacceptable, leaving people in Leeds hanging on for months. It now seems that the Government has serious questions to answer about the whole process of how it made the decision. It has now emerged that a year before a decision was finally given to scrap the scheme, the Government was already meeting with FirstGroup, just months after the final payment of a £6 million sum spent on the scheme that year. If the Government were seriously considering giving the Supertram scheme the go-ahead, why was it speaking to bus operators about alternatives to the scheme? And if they weren't ever committed to Supertram, why the protracted charade of taking months to axe the scheme?"

"In the future, it looks like Leeds will be facing gridlock while the Government twiddles its thumbs over public transport."