DON'T INCLUDE US IN RHA CAMPAIGN, SAYS THC
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By H. Brian Cottee
ADESIRE to reassure the Minister of Transport—and the public—that the State-owned THC is playing no part in the open opposition to her licensing proposals is an obvious motive for the detailed disclaimer issued at the weekend. But, while publicly washing its hands of any involvement in the Road Haulage Association's campaign, the Transport Holding Company has made it very clear that it nevertheless values RHA membership highly.
The THC's wish not to jeopardize its relationship with the rest of the haulage industry—a position that took time and patience to establish—is well known. There have been suggestions that Mrs. Castle was pressurizing THC to leave the RHA, but I think these can now be discounted.
Certainly the statement—which we print in full below—very firmly clears the air. And I understand that no similar statement about the Tilling Association's relationship with the Public Transport Association is considered necessary; although the PTA has come out against the Minister's PTAs plan, it is felt that the situation there is—at present, anyway—more clearcut, and that there is not the same risk of misconception.
The THC statement reads:—
"The Transport Holding Company wish to make it clear that they are not associated with the Road Haulage Association's campaign against certain aspects of Government policy on road haulage licensing. The arrangements under which their subsidiary companies engaged in road haulage have become special-contract members of the Road Haulage Association specifically dissociate them from such campaigns. '
"By clause 10(i) of the agreement covering their membership these companies are not associated with, nor do they provide any money for, those activities of the Road Haulage Association which may be regarded as political in nature, or as designed to support or oppose the interests of any political party, or to oppose any action to be taken by the Government for the time being in power. "By clause 10(ii) the Road Haulage Association, on the other hand, are not inhibited by the fact that their membership includes the road haulage subsidiaries of the Holding Company on this specialcontract basis; they are naturally free to promulgate their views on such matters as the Minster's proposals on road haulage licensing.
"The views of the Holding Company on aspects of transport policy affecting their interests are always communicated to the Minister direct through the appropriate channels.
"On non-political matters there is obviously very great value to be had from the close contact between operators in national ownership and operators in private ownership, and both the Road Haulage Association and the Transport Holding Company set great store by the inclusion of the road haulage subsidiaries of the Holding Company within the membership of the Association; on political matters the position that could arise was adequately foreseen and safeguarded from the outset, as explained above, and as an examination of the text (attached) of the relevant clause of the Agreement of 1964 makes quite clear.
"The Road Haulage Association have seen this statement and have agreed to it being issued."