• cabinet rift on White Paper
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:ABINET rifts over the ques[on of rail subsidies and plans 3r an overhaul of Britain's arcels carrying system have merged this week as details f the Government's transport Vhite Paper have been leakig out of Westminster.
Plans for a new National arriers service to be called Iomeward and designed to ppeal to the mail order maret have been confirmed by a lational Freight Corporation pokesman who said that the service was in an advanced state of planning for introduction late this year.
He told CM that the service would operate very much along the lines of the present specialist services, Chinaflow and Fashionflow which have so far proved to be successful.
Government plans for the future of the four State-run parcels carriers are aimed at cutting losses said to amount to £70 million last year, and they could mean the end of British Rail's services except for the profitable Red Star and "to be called for" business.
Post Office parcels could also face some form of cutback. They lost £45 million in 1976 and the Carter Committee on Post Office affairs has already made it clear that they want the service to break even.
BR delivery If the cuts do happen, then National Carriers could be hit from the BR end of the market. At present many NC vehicles are employed on collection and delivery work for the BR parcels services.
One idea that has been discussed is the formation of a massive UK parcels corporation to handle the business of all four services, but none of the operators is said to be over enthusiastic about the prospect of a British Parcels company.
On rail subsidies the draft White Paper is said to favour cuts, even if they mean that BR fares go up by another 7.5 per cent which would also mean the loss of around 60,000 passengers a year.
Stories of Cabinet clashes between Environment Secretary Peter Shore and other ministers on the subject have been rife, but there seems no chance that the Government will find extra cash for London commuters, Britain's hardesthit in the event of a fare rise.
TUC support
The White Paper has raised controversial issues that were originally contained in the consultative document published last year, including the idea of a national transport council which is understood to be favoured by the TUC.
But Transport Minister William Rodgers is said to favour the setting up of a transport committee within the National Economic Development Council to handle transport matters.