LT Bill is limping on
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A BACKBENCH MP's attempt to legalise subsidies to London Transport cleared the first hurdle in the House of Commons on Tuesday, but it is unlikely to find sufficient Parliamentary time to go any further.
Former Labour Government Minister Douglas Jay (Battersea North) tabled a 10-minute rule Bill, the Transport (London) Act, 1969, amendment, in an effort to allow the Greater London Council to provide revenue support to, LT "to provide or secure the provision of such public passenger transport services as best meet the needs for the time being of Greater London". (CM February 6).
While the Bill received a vote of 205 in favour, against 177 opposed, there is unlikely to be sufficient Parliamentary time for its passage, and Government Ministers have indicated privately that they have little sympathy for the move in any case.
Mr Jay said the Bill was designed to end the confusion which followed last December's Law Lords decision that the GLC Fares Fair policy was against the 1969 Act, and was designed to bring the law into line with what everyone had believed was legal.
Speaking to journalists before his Bill was debated, Mr Jay said that LT services could be threatened if nothing was done to amend the 1969 Act, and he said the Bill had LT chairman Sir Peter Masefield's approval.
Mr Jay said he thought it was "just possible" that the Government might want to extend the degree of subsidy which it is prepared to sanction for LT, in view of its willingness now to provide subsidies for elderly persons' travel and for financing a loan to LT.
But he said the Ministers' hope that his Bill would fail only served to underline the obsession which the Conservative administration has about all activities of the GLC. And he added that, last week, the Government had not seen his Bill.
Opposing the Bill, Conservative MP Neil Thorne (Ilford South) said that 1976 figures showed that Britain devoted 0.25 per cent of its gross national pro
duct to subsidising public transport, whereas France spent 0.21 per cent, Ireland 0.14 per cent, Finland 0.13 per cent, and the United States 0.11 per cent.
He said that, before the GLC changed its policy in May last year, LT was being managed in a "sound and forward-looking way". Now it had been brought near to chaos by a beleaguered G LC.