A new high level team has been brought together to produce a fully developed business case for extending high speed rail links between Scotland and England, Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson announced today.

The economic evidence will be submitted to High Speed Rail 2 (HS2), the company formed to progress UK high speed links, and will be used to press the case for Scotland.

The Minister was speaking at a major conference in Edinburgh today looking at the Scottish opportunity for high speed rail links.

Mr Stevenson said: "High Speed Rail links between Scotland and England present fantastic economic and environmental opportunities for Scotland.

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"Faster journey times could provide significant benefits to Scotland's economy, improving connections and opening up new opportunities. Cutting journey times between Scotland and London to the three hour mark would offer direct competition with air travel and could result in substantial carbon emissions savings.

"The formation of this stakeholder group will allow us to produce a fully developed business case to advance our argument for high speed rail to be extended to Scotland."

Mr Stevenson added that while the Scottish Government supports high speed cross-border rail routes to both Glasgow and Edinburgh, it is vital that any high speed rail network connects with the existing network in Scotland to ensure all parts of the country benefit.

While the first phase of the High Speed Rail project will consider the case for services between London and the Midlands, UK Government transport minister Lord Adonis has asked HS2 to examine the potential for expanding high speed services into Scotland and the north of England.

HS2 will report its initial recommendations for the service between London and Birmingham by the end of 2009. This initial report will attempt to clarify issues such as costs, proposed routes and technologies which would be required to turn the proposals into reality.

(GK/JM)