By Steve Bargeton, political editor

MINISTERS YESTERDAY rubbished suggestions that they intend to scrap plans for trams in Edinburgh to dual the A9 from Perth to Inverness.

In opposition the SNP argued against the £600 million tram proposal and the £650 million Edinburgh Airport Rail Link.

There is strong support among MSPs from both the SNP and other parties for improving the A9.

SNP members maintained the cash for the two projects would be better spent on building the replacement Forth crossing.

However, a strong lobby in Edinburgh backed by the Lib Dems and environmental campaigners is pressing the nationalist Executive to confirm the trams project will go ahead.

It has been suggested that it is politically more advantageous for ministers to dual the A9 as it runs through SNP constituencies like Perth and North Tayside. But yesterday the First Minister’s official spokesman flatly rejected any link between the two.

The trams and A9 projects came from “different budgets with different timescales.” The Executive “is committed to...dualling the A9” but it is a “long term project, not an immediate priority,” he said.

Of the tram scheme, he said, “Cabinet have been looking at the issue. There are serious concerns about the ability to deliver this. People shouldn’t get confused that you can take money from one project and put it into another.”

But ministers were “not moving away” from manifesto commitments, he said.

Asked about the plans for a new Forth crossing, a project supported by all the main parties, he said ministers hoped the findings of preliminary work set in motion by the previous administration could be considered by cabinet before the parliamentary recess in late June.