Cameron pledges change of track on transport

However, David Cameron told Yorkshire Post readers that he could offer no guarantees on transport spending, but said he would recognise its importance.

Mr Cameron said: "We're going to free up money and allow people to

spend it if they've got good schemes to improve transport and cut carbon, rather than making them go down the route of congestion charging.

"We're going to take off some of the restrictions on spending and also examine some of the things like the Leeds super-tram that the Government has canned."

Mr Cameron also denied that his party was committed to a "bonfire of the quangos" but said it was drawing up a list of those which would be scrapped or scaled back

He singled out the Environment Agency as one organisation which would be significantly scaled back, saying it needed to focus on regulating rivers and waterways. Teams of policy people and communications experts could "either be got rid of or folded back" into the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The Tory leader also said the manifesto would contain a commitment to business rate relief . But he said he was unable to offer promises on the issue of relief to firms based in the port of Hull facing backdated business rate bills, following a question from Richard Kendall, of the area's chamber of commerce.

Mr Cameron denied that his shadow cabinet had been sending out mixed messages on regional development agencies and appeared to suggest that Yorkshire Forward may escape the axe if he is elected to power.

"In Yorkshire, if local authorities want to keep Yorkshire Forward with its economic role, then they should be allowed to do that. Let's not treat every part of the country the same way. But I think we should give every part of the country the opportunity to see if they want to drive these powers down to a lower level. But when I come to Yorkshire, and I suspect also the North East, you get quite a lot of enthusiasm for the Regional Development Agency."

However, he added that he felt RDAs had become too political and said he would strip them of any powers concerning housing.

The Tory leader also laid out a clear priority for bolstering Britain's farming industries, including praising the Yorkshire Post for the Clearly British campaign which has highlighted a loophole in the law where products can be marked as British even if they are not from this country. He said: "Everything we can do to get accurate food labelling we should do."

He was quizzed over the role that Yorkshire can play in carbon-capture schemes, an industry he said he was keen to promote, describing it is "essential". Current projects include the development of a major carbon-capture and storage network across Yorkshire, which it is hoped will one day slash the region's CO2 emissions by enabling polluters to bury their emissions beneath the North Sea.

Mr Cameron pledged that no more coal-fired power stations would be created without carbon-capture elements and said that Britain had the capacity to be a world leader in the sector.

WHAT LEADER TOLD READERS

n Pledged to re-examine "canned" transport projects including Leeds super-tram

n Identified Environment Agency as a quango which will be trimmed down, but said local authorities would decide on future of Yorkshire Forward

n Said "it's labelling, labelling, labelling" to help farmers as he backed our campaign for clear country-of-origin labels on food

n Backed Yorkshire trials of carbon-capture and storage technology and said he would go further and faster than Labour

n Told right-to-die campaigner Debbie Purdy he would carry on "trying to get my head around" the issue but doesn't believe in becoming a "euthanasia country"

n Wants well-off students to be encouraged to pay back student loans earlier to fund 10,000 extra university places

n Told pensioners they would not be forced to sell their homes to pay for their care – but he will not back Labour's compulsory "death tax"

n Refused to reveal what he would do if there was a hung Parliament, but said country needs a strong, decisive government

n Wants to give more information on gas and electricity bills to "nudge" rather than "smack" people into getting the lowest price for energy