Policy Announcements, Tuesday 05 June

**Government **

• The government has unveiled measures to tackle binge drinking as part of its new alcohol strategy. Tuesday's plans focus on underage alcohol consumption, and include an independent review of the link between alcohol promotions, pricing and the harm caused by excess drinking. It also aims to educate home-drinkers who may be unaware of the physical and mental effects of alcohol consumption.  Public health minister Caroline Flint said the paper was not "a crackdown on middle class wine drinkers per se". "It's about saying if you are drinking over the limit on a daily basis, you could be storing up problems for yourself down the road," she said.
• Rail Minister Tom Harris today announced the award of £44m in new rail freight grants at the Rail Freight 2007 conference. The grants, for carrying freight by rail which would otherwise be carried on the roads, mean the equivalent of more than 2.1m lorry journeys and 631m lorry kilometres will be removed from Britain's roads over the next three years.

**Conservatives **

• A bill which would have tightened abortion laws has been rejected in the Commons. Some 182 MPs voted against and 107 in favour of Conservative backbencher Ann Winterton's 10-minute-rule bill. The proposed legislation included proposals to compel women seeking an abortion to undergo counselling. They would then have to wait for a minimum of one week in a "cooling off period" before the operation was carried out. Introducing the Termination of Pregnancy (Counselling and Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill in the Commons on Tuesday, Winterton said there should be a distinction between whether abortions are being carried out on physical or mental grounds.