Tories would wield the hatchet
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RAILWAYS, the National Freight Corporation and the ports would all suffer cuts under a Conservative Minister of Transport, Eldon Griffiths M.P. told the Freight Transport Association last week.
Speaking at the ETA Anglia division lunch, Mr Griffiths said that cuts in the railways would benefit both East Anglia and industry. "It makes no sense to be pouring away an admitted £500m a year to meet British Rail's yearly deficit," he said.
"This nation just cannot go on sacrificing the transport interests of the majority of its people who drive cars and get their goods by lorry to a poorly managed, overmanned — though still lovable — railway system."
Mr Griffiths hit at the NFC and said they should work by the principle that all classes of goods vehicles should pay their way, and the money come from the customers and not the taxpayer.
He told the FTA that the NFC was "a generally wellrun body under an excellent chairman." But he warned that "prudence demands that its losses should cease to be subsidised." Cut number three would be reductions in subsidies to the ports. "If Felixstowe can operate profitably as a private port I see no reason why the nation should go on pouring millions into propping up less efficient operations, and far less willing workers in the public sector."
"But unprofitable and unpopular as road haulage may be, yours is one of the most hardworking efficient and competitive industries in Britain," he said. Haulage was indispensable and the Government and Parliament had a duty to support it.