Parliamentary Poker
Page 47
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CLOSER examination of the debate on the second reading of the Transport (Amendment) Bill shows that, possibly because of Parliamentary procedure, opportunities were lost of clarifying many of the issues raised. Each contribution to such a debate has to be a.set speech, as no member has a chance to speak more than once. Indeed, if an ordinary back-bencher, he may
consider himself fortunate to be called at all, .
The rules of debate make each speaker less inclined to answer the contentions of previous speakers and more inclined to put forward his own arguments, although these may have already been presented more than once at earlier stages in the debate. The listener, or the reader of Hansard, is reminded of an interminable game of cards, where each participant's play is determined mainly by the cards he happens to hold.
On this analogy, the Opposition had slightly the better of it. They held the higher cards and played them more skilfully. Many of the Government speakers appeared to lack conviction. To make tip for the poverty of their hands, they introduced a number of high cards from a pack of their own. It seems on reflection that the Opposition too readily accepted these spurious cards at their face value, and allowed the Government to get away with sharping Practically every speaker on the Government -benches alleged that the Bill would cripple the British Transport Commission. Once allow free-enterprise hauliers to travel more than an hour's journey from their base, it was said, and they would devour the longer-distance traffic like a cloud of locusts. The taxpayer had paid f:70m. to secure the sole rights of the traffic, and the money (or what was left of it) would fly out of the window if hauliers were allowed, in response to the call of the stricken trader, to surge into the highly profitable field lying between the 25-mile and 60-mile radius.
Bogus Trumps
There is surely a more simple and effective reply than that made by the Opposition speakers. They argued that the E70m. was not really payment for a monopoly and that the Commission, if it were as efficient as the Minister of Transport and Lord Hurcomb claimed, ought not to worry about competition. These and similar points sounded well enough in debate, but by taking such a line the Opposition was accepting the Government's bogus trumps without demur There is justification for challenging not merely the arguments of the Government, but the assumptions upon which they rest. The Minister of Transport, anxious to rebut the suggestion of a monopoly, reminded the 'House yet again of the number of C-licensed vehicles and added to them the 56,237 vehicles under A and the 63,123 vehicles under B licences. Although Mr. Barnes did not say so, it is likely that out of the total of 120_000 vehicles in the hands of free-enterprise hauliers, 90,000 are either used for the carriage of excluded traffics, or seldom or never go beyond the 25-miles radius. If the limit were raised to 60 miles, not one of these vehicles would do anything different.
The remaining 30,000 vehicles were engaged mainly within the 25-mile zone before the Transport Act, but an important part of their activities lay outside the limit. Where they are still under free enterprise, it is known in some cases what has happened. A hypothetical example may be a small firm 'carrying 100 tons of traffic a week, 80 tons within the 25-mile limit and 20 tons in the 25-60-mile band. Possibly, the firm has no more than half a dozen customers and the mileage has been dictated by their requirements. Should there now be no permit, the operator may still decide to carry on and his customers to stand by him. As he now carries only 80 tons a week, he looks around for anotlyer 20 tons in the short-distance field and quite likely abstracts it from the Commission.
If the increase to 60 miles were agreed, he would continue as before. He would not start sending his vehicles farther afield just to prove Mr. Barnes right. The bogy that every haulier is aching for the chance to stampede into the lush pastures of the 25-60-mile zone has no substance. Many an original-permit holder did not use his privilege to the full extent during the past 12 months. Presumably he found more suitable work without going beyond25 miles. He can do no more, although the traders in the wide-open spaces call him with the voice of sirens. He has no surplus tonnage and must fight hard to get any from the I.icensing Authority.
Dubious Gain
What happens to the hypothetical 100 tons? The haulier still carries 80 of them. The customers may find another haulier with a more favourably placed operating centre to carry the rest, or may use their own vehicles. Alternatively, they may pass it to the Road Haulage Executive, but as the Commission probably loses an equiValent tonnage to the original haulier in the short-distance field, the gain to nationalized transport is dubious.
The tactics of the Government in the debate on February 23 were obvious. Their object was to make the Transport (Amendment) Bill appear a far wider and more serious measure than it really is. For this reason, the opponents of the Bill brought into the discussion the imaginary disastrous effects upon the Commission, the plight of the railways, the increase in C-licensed vehicles, and even at one stage the rearmament programme. If Mr. Barnes has to produce statistics (and Mr. Barnes's compulsion to produce statistics is every whit as strong as that of the Ancient Mariner to tell his story) it would have been more relevant to say what tonnage was carried beyond 25 miles during the past two or three years by operators not yet acquired: what proportion of this tonnage was now denied to freeenterprise hauliers as a result of revocation of permits; how many vehicles had now been offered to the Commission; how much traffic the Commission had lost, or expected to lose, in theshort-distance field, and so on.
An analysis on these lines might -well show that the extension to 60 miles would benefit the haulier without much harming the Commission, and that Mr. Bevins was therefore thoroughly justified in introducing his Bill as a Private Member's motion. Persistence in opposing it could mean only that the Government was bent on penning the haulier within the 25-mile limit so as the more easily to blot him out altogether.