Tyne PTA: allegations of bias refuted
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from our Parliamentary correspondent • An allegation that the Government had organized membership of the new Tyneside Passenger Transport Authority with a political bias in favour of local Labour parties was made by Conservative MPs in the Commons on Monday night.
Mr. Bob Brown, Labour MP for Newcastle West, who is Joint Parliamentary Secretary for Transport, had to face a personal attack about his part in arranging membership of the Authority. But the allegations were vigorously denied by Mr. Brown, and the Conservatives did not press their opposition to the establishment of the new organization, so the Government Order was passed without a vote.
The Conservative Opposition was led by Mr. Michael Heseltine, one of the Front Bench spokesmen on transport. He claimed that membership of the PTA had been changed in favour of Labour-controlled local authorities since Newcastle Council was taken over by the Conservatives. Mr. Heseltine said the Labour party had been guilty of blatant horse-trading and had flouted the wishes of the voters. He demanded that Mr. Brown should explain what part he had played in bringing about the change in the composition of the PTA. He asked whether Mr. Brown had attended a meeting of Tyneside Labour Party to arrange the change in membership.
A Newcastle Conservative MP, Mr. W. Elliott, said the latest proposal of the Government differed significantly from the original proposal. While the practice in other areas where PTAs were being established had been perfectly satisfactory, it was only on Tyneside that there was any suspicion of political rigging, said Mr. Elliott.
Defending himself and the Tyneside membership. Mr. Brown said that it was disgraceful and unworthy of the Conservatives to suggest that he had been in
volved in backstairs manoeuvres on the membership. He insisted that there had been no change in the membership originally suggested, and no objections had been received at all from local authorities, except from Gosforth and Castle Ward. Mr. Heseltine's statement, said Mr. Brown, had had a more or less slanderous implication. He admitted that he had been at a meeting with Labour councillors on Tyneside, but this was solely to advise them on the working of the Transport Act. He had held similar meetings with other Labour councillors all over the country, declared Mr. Brown.
The difficulty with Newcastle City Council, he claimed, was that they had not seen fit to approach the appointment of members on a fair basis. They had nominated five Conservative councillors. Their attitude, he declared, compared very unfavourably with that of all other Tyneside local authorities. On a population basis, Newcastle had done extremely well, Mr. Brown continued. and he denied that Newcastle was not going to have a fair representation on the PTA.
Mr. Brown concluded that it was "a load of nonsenseto say that there was a party political plot.