"This is a Siniste r Move " M.P.
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rl A N approach to the Minister of Trans
port for information on a new set-up in the Scottish passenger road transport arrangements is to be made by Mr. Harry Gourlay, M.P. for Kirkcaldy Burghs.
He said last week: "With no Parliamentary intimation at all, and with virtually no publicity, apart from a small paragraph in a trade paper, the Scottish bus group has been carved up into smaller units for some mysterious reason.
"The alterations may have no immediate effect on the travelling public, but the new set-up is well worth watching. Considering the present trend in Government polity, this may very well be the first step in a move to sell the entire group back to private ownership."
Mr. GourIay added: "This new cornc2 pany is no infant in size because it has taken over all the shareholdings of the British Transport Commission in the Scottish Bus Companies, including the three Alexanders Units, Scottish Omnibuses, Ltd., Western S.M.T., Central S.M.T., Highland Omnibuses, Ltd., and the S.M.T. Insurance Co., Ltd.
"This move is apparently designed to simplify control of the group, but what in my opinion is much more sinister is that it also simplifies the selling of the companies en bloc or even individually, back to private ownership."
But Mr. James Amos flatly denied any ulterior motive in the Scottish transport reorganization. He said: "The reconstruction is a perfectly simple operational matter not involving policy at all."