TRANSPORT secretary Lord Adonis urged voters in Harrow West to back their incumbent Labour parliamentarian during a visit to the constituency.

The cabinet member dropped by North Harrow Tube station on Monday evening to show his support for both Gareth Thomas, who is fighting to retain his Harrow West seat, and other party members contesting local council seats.

Lord Adonis said he had worked with Mr Thomas when he was schools minister to secure £25million funding to introduce sixth-formers to Harrow's secondary schools, citing it as 'a really good example of public services under Labour and of an MP working hard to make a difference to his constituents'.

He also attacked the Mayor of London's record, saying: "Boris Johnson is proposing to more than halve the opening hours at North

Harrow ticket office and reductions in ticket office opening hours elsewhere in the constituency. We are strongly opposed.

"We have given Transport for London £40billion over a 10-year period and expect him to maintain a decent standard of service, and I don't think it's acceptable at stations which have high numbers of passengers like North Harrow.

"And Boris wants a cut in the number of police officers - more than 450 fewer officers in the next three years."

Mr Thomas added: "Britain's most senior elected Conservative reneged on three election promises in two years. That's what the people of Harrow can expect if the Conservatives are elected."

Lord Adonis defended the planned expansion of Heathrow airport.

He said: "We're being honest with voters in that we have said 'extra runway capacity in the south-east of England should go to Heathrow where there are thousands of jobs and businesses dependent on being able to provide more capacity'.

"The Conservatives have not said where they would put extra runways and Boris is committed to a six-runway airport in the Thames estuary.

"I want to see as much domestic air traffic as possible moved to high-speed rail and, in particular, I would like to see most traffic between Scotland and London moved to high-speed rail and that's the reason we're proposing High Speed Two.

"However, 90 per cent of flights are medium or long-term, a longer distance than served by high-speed rail."

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