The Guild still wants compulsory TMLs
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• The National Guild of Transport Managers remains confirmed in its opinion that statutory registration of transport managers is an essential part of legislation. Following the statement by the Minister for Transport Industries last week that he needed concrete evidence that the present system was inadequate, the Guild is proposing to present additional evidence.
Last Saturday, the Guild's Transport Managers' Registration Committee discussed the Minister's reply to its proposals for the implementation of Section 65 of the Transport Act 1968. The meeting confirmed that it was essential that a statutory scheme should be introduced. It felt that the voluntary plan, as envisaged by the Transport Managers' Licence Committee, would be ineffective and would provide just another "piece of paper" as an additional qualification for a small percentage of transport managers. This would not, in the committee's opinion, impose any responsibilities on the holder.
The Guild's committee felt that it could still make a strong case to Mr Peyton on the inadequacy of the powers of the operators' licence. It considered that the Minister's reply. as published in the trade Press (CM March 5), was not final but that he had merely expressed an opinion and, as the Guild saw, he had invited further comment.
In his reply to the Guild, the Minister said: "The industry already has to meet the safety standards laid on it by statute in the operators' licensing system. I should need concrete evidence that the disciplinary powers of the Licensing Authorities were inadequate if I were to agree to an extension of the statutory control. I shall, of course, be happy to receive any evidence your Guild wishes to offer on this point."
The Guild was unable to tell CM what concrete evidence it now wished to place before the Minister.
On Tuesday Mr D. H. Joyce, chairman of the TML Committee, wrote to the Minister to advise him that the committee had given particular attention to Mr Peyton's offer to consider any additional views on finance and it had been decided to prepare a further case on the subject, "vital to the successful launching of the scheme, and to submit it to you by the end of the month. We would then hope that you would grant us a meeting so that we might discuss this submission with you personally."