Geddes at last?
Page 17
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If, as now seems likely, the remnants of carriers' licensing are to be swept away, it will have taken five years—and five Ministers of Transport—to achieve the basic recommendation of the Geddes Committee set up by Ernest Marples. Mr Fraser sidestepped the report's conclusions, Mrs Castle applied much of its spirit in her plans for operators' and transport managers' licensing, Messrs Marsh and Mulley stonewalled on special authorizations, and now it seems that Mr Peyton will rid the industry of both forms of quantitative licensing.
The new Minister is consulting road and rail interests on the proposed ending of carriers' licensing, but as the initiative is his and the two main road transport trade associations are in favour of the repeal, the railways (for whom both proposals are a setback) would have to mount an unimaginably strong case in order to convince the Minister not to take this step. Reactions so far have been predictable: the ETA, whose members have much to gain an.d nothing to lose, is eager to see carriers' and quantity systems removed, while the RHA is understandably cautious about abandoning A, B and C licensing for big vehicles. We are sure there are many hauliers who will view this proposal with alarm; certainly, competitive pressures must be greater if the protection of carriers' licences is removed, but the standards and supervision demanded by 0 licensing are intended to make a sound, fair basis for that competition. This will only be true if the legislation is stringently enforced—and that includes the standards of entry to the industry, upon which some LAs appear to have been taking a rather weak line.
The arguments for ending carriers' Hicensing, with its confusing overlap of 0 licensing, seem to us overwhelmingly strong. But one effect of such a move must surely be to give new weight to transport managers' licensing, whose prospects seem to have weakened under the reign of a Minister apparently intent on reducing legislative controls to a minimum.