THE Government has been urged by the House of Lords to back the campaign to keep the Flying Scotsman in York.
Peers yesterday urged Ministers to step in if the National Railway Museum (NRM) lost out to a foreign investor in the bidding war for the train.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester said the Government should defer the export licence to take the train out of the country to give NRM time to match the winning bid.
He also asked the Government's culture spokesman in the Lords, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, to back the NRM's bid for National Lottery Heritage cash.
Lord Faulkner said: "The Flying Scotsman is viewed by the British public as an icon, a national treasure and an extraordinary feat of British engineering. It is almost unthinkable that it could be sold abroad."
Lord McIntosh said he could not influence the decision of the National Heritage Memorial Fund. But he said there was a "good case" for delaying the export licence.
Updated: 14:25 Tuesday, March 23, 2004
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