'TRANSPORT Minister William Rodgers will be in good company if
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he declines to 'grasp the State Parcels nettle in the soon-to-be published Transport White Paper.
The meaningful integration of the parcels activities of the National Freight Corporation, British Rail and the Post Office Corporation has been urged by informed observers several times in the past decade.
Transport Ministers have lacked the courage to reveal the detailed arguments for and against parcels streamlining.
The issue has been protected from effective public scrutiny with the zealousness associated with State security matters.
. Transport Policy (Command 3057) published in 1966 says — paras 91 and 92 — the Government is considering "'concentrating in a single organisation responsibility for general merchandise and sundries traffic."
In November 1967 "Transport of Freight" — Cmd 3470 charged the National Freight Corporation, in the context of parcels charges, with further "rationalisation, higher productivity and in due course by integrating to eliminate the loss."' It was accepted that this would take some years and there was the promise of an Exchequer subsidy to meet this loss during the early years.
The Consultation document of 1976 designed to focus opinion — and hopefully lead to agreed solutions — says (para 8, 12) one area needing further examination is parcels.
An expert study of the State parcels scene by Lord Hinton, a decade ago, is widely believed to have urged the setting up of a separate Sundries company by British Rail and its subsequent merger with Transport Holding Company .Parcels interests into a single Parcels Authority.
The motives of the Government in suppressing the Hinton