Future Of UK Rail Freight Industry
EDM number 480 in 2008-09, proposed by Kelvin Hopkins on 15/01/2009.
Categorised under the topic of Railways.
That this House notes the significant environmental benefits of rail freight over other transport modes; welcomes the considerable indirect Government subsidy provided to the rail freight industry to encourage freight on rail; further notes that this subsidy has and will continue to amount to hundreds of millions of pounds through significant track access concessions, contributions to Eurotunnel charges, the Transport Innovation Fund, freight facilities grants and the Strategic Freight Network; further notes that in 2007, German state national railways, Deutsche Bahn, took over the United Kingdom's main rail freight company EWS and that this company is now called DB Schenker Rail; further notes reports that Deutsche Bahn's acquisition of EWS has resulted in a `visibly favourable effect' on the company's returns helping to contribute to a 37 per cent. increase in revenues to about 2.4 billion euros; is therefore alarmed that DB Schenker Rail plans to make 15 per cent. of its operational workforce redundant, which could significantly impact on United Kingdom rail freight capacity and which in turn will be a huge setback in the battle to reduce carbon emissions; is also deeply concerned that the United Kingdom Government's rail freight policy is being undermined by overseas and commercial interests; and calls on DB Schenker Rail urgently to reconsider its decision and for the Government to press the company for a moratorium on the proposed redundancies until an industry-wide assessment of the impact of such redundancies, which would include the involvement of the trade unions, has been made.
This motion has been signed by a total of 51 MPs, 2 of these signatures have been withdrawn.
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