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Road Transport Activities
Page 70
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in PARLIAMENT
By Our Special Parliamentary Corresoondent
The London Passenger Transport Bill.
ON resumption of the proceedings .of the Joint Committee on the London Passenger Transport Bill, a statement was made by Mr. Wilfred Greene, KC., for the promoters, to the effect that the Minister of Transport did not intend that men with specialized knowledge of labour problems should, if they fulfilled the test of ability, be excluded from membership of the Transport Board:
It was proposed to amend Clause I so that it should read :—" The persons appointed shall be persons who have had wide experience and have shown ability in transport, industrial or financial matters, or in the conduct of public affairs."
Counsel understood that in view of this amendment the Transport and General Workers Union would Ivithdraw its opposition. The Chairman (Lord Lytton) said the Committee would accept the proposed words, but as Mr. Neep intimated that his withdrawal on thispoint would be without prejudice to his opposition on other points, the Chairman remarked that in that case the Committee would prefer the matter to be left over until the clause was reached.
A Railway Case.
(NE of the Metropolitan Railway 14„_/ witnesses, Mr. William Cash, F.T.C.A., was then cross-examined, after which Sir Leslie Scott, K.C., stated the case for the Metropolitan Railway Ca. against the Bill. He submitted that the disadvantages of the proposals outweighed the advantages, and that economic soundness was being sacrificed to a political control which would jeopardize improved services.
If the Committee, in view of the settlements which had been reached, passed the preamble and gave those settlements statutory effect, his client would ask to be excluded from any transfer of ownership and would request inclusion in the main-line pooling scheme.
A Difference.
oiR LESLIE SCOTT then pointed 'Clout the difference of a port authority in respect of the fact that it was not subject to the direct control of a Minister, as the London Transport Board would be. With regard to the Central Eleetricity Board, that was not an owning authority, being essentially machinery for ensuring organization.
The real control by the Minister of Transport given under the Bill was one of the most disturbing features, although he recognized that the object of the proposal was to secure due facilities for the public. The power of the Minister to give orders was the
D16 dominant clause of the Bill which made him supreme and created divided authority.
Another Settlement.
AT a later stao it was announced that a settlement had been reached with Hertford County Council. The county council was prepared to negotiate on the basis of taking payments in 44 per cent, stock of the class to be issued, to the London County Council, and as the result of discussion it had been agreed that the Transport Board should issue to Hertford County Council 119,000 of the special 44 per cent. stock.
The ease for the petition of Ilford Corporation was afterwards submitted by the tramways manager, and the committee heard the L.C.C. objections to the proposed composition of the Transport Board.
Taxing Articulated Vehicles.
ANEW clause in the following terms has been inserted in the Finance Bill :—Section 13 of the Finance Act, 1928 (which relates to the licence duty on articulated motor vehicles), shall have effect as if for the words "be treated as if they together formed a single vehicle and that vehicle were a vehicle used for drawing a trailer," there were substituted the words, " be treated as if
" (a) the vehicle and trailer to gether formed a single vehicle ; and " (b) in any ease in which the aggregate weight unladen of the vehicle and trailer exceed 5 tons, the vehicle were a vehicle used for drawing a trailer."
Mr. Morrison explained that the proposal now was that if the weight of the vehicle. was less than 5 tons, it should be counted as one vehicle, but if it weighed more, it would pay the higher tax. The new clause was agreed to.
Amendment of Traffic Act.
TI:LE Government, in accordance with its promise to give some relief in the case of lorries employed for conveying free of charge cricket and football teams and parties of people attending rural sports and other gatherings, has brought in a Bill in the House of Lords to repeal sub-section 3 of Section 61 of the Road Traffic Act.
The sub-section is in the following terms:—" Where a person uses or allows to be used without reward for carrying eight or more persons as passengers in a motor vehicle ordinarily used for the purposes of agriculture, trade or business, then, except where the persons so carried are work-people being carried in the course of or to or from their employment, the vehicle shall for the purposes of this part of this
Act be treated as if it were a contract carriage, and the prayision's of this part of this Act and the regulations made thereunder shall apply accordingly."
Carrying Workpeople.
WIVE( regardto the carriage, of workpeople, therMinister of Transport has decided to make provision for it in the Finance Bill, and accordingly a new clause has been inserted in that measure, in the following terms:— " So long, as a mechanically propelled vehicle for which a licence has been taken out under paragraph 5 of the second schedille to the •Finance Act, 1920, is to a substantial extent being used for the conveyance of goods or burden belonging to a particular person (whether the person keeping' the vehicle or not), then, notwithstanding anyttng in section 14 of the Finance Act, 1922, duty' at a higher rate shall-not become chargeable in respect of that vehicle by reason only that it is used for the conveyance without charge in the course of their employment of employees of the person aforesaid."
Expenditure on Roads.
A SHORT debate took place on the IA_ proposal under Clause 31 of the Finance Bill to authorize the Chancellor of the Exchequer to advance to the Road Pond £9,000,000 in respect of road schemes expedited on account of existing conditions of employment.
The argument advanced by Colonel Ashley was that the nation could not afford these luxury roads and grandiose schemes. Re pointed out that the total estimated expenditure on the five-year programme of 1929 was 127,500,000, ar.d of this the Road Fund would find £12,000,000. Then the trunk-road programme amounted to 121,000,000. Together they amounted to 148,500,000.
On April 24th last the Minister of Labour said that on State-aided road and bridge schemes 48,000 people were directly employed. If this figure were doubled on account of indirect employment there would he 96,000 persons employed by these works. As 11,000,000 in 12 months was calculated to provide employment for 4000 people directly and indirectly, they had the astounding result that• in 12 Months they employed these 96000 ,people, whilst the State spent 124,000,000.
Money Taken from Road Fund.
Ti TR. MORRISON, in his reply, deItLelared that the usual complaint of the Opposition was that they were not spending money quickly enough. The reason for this provision in the Bill was that Mr. Churchill, when Chancellor, took the money from the Road Fund, so that it was not there when they came to develop the road prog,riunme now on hand and the bridgereconstruction programme.
He pointed out that in addition to the 127,500,000 on the five-year programme and £21,000,000 on the trunk roads, there was expenditure on annual schemes, with which the clause under consideration was not concerned. To this expenditure of 148,500,000 the Road Fund would contribute £18,500,000 on the five-year programme and 116.000,000 on the 21-year programme, makin,, a total Road Fund contribution of 134:500,000, leaving only £14,000,000 for the local authorities to contribute,