Transport Secretary Lord Adonis has given Labour's backing to a new 335-mile London to Scotland HSR network which would drastically reduce rail journey times.

Running from Euston in London, the first part of the route - from London to Birmingham - would start in 2017, cost between £15.8 billion and £17.4 billion.

It would cut the journey time between the UK's two biggest cities to between 30 and 50 minutes.

Lord Adonis said the Government supported a Y-network of lines, with routes north of Birmingham running either side of the Pennines to Manchester, the East Midlands, Sheffield and Leeds as well as to Liverpool, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

He said the Birmingham city centre for the HSR network would be at Curzon Street and there would be interchange stations with the cross-London Crossrail project west of Paddington in west London and near to Birmingham airport.

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