BIG BILL
Page 57
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IE surprising thing about the new Transport Bill is S size. With 91 clauses and 11 schedules, it is already ot far short of the 128 sections and 15 schedules of ndfather of them all, the Transport Act, 1947, and s a fair chance that• the inevitable Parliamentary Lg will put considerable weight on the new Bill it becomes an Act. It had scarcely seemed possible Le experts could produce such a healthy crop. of ion out of a field that had already been harvested Ly times.
Bill may indeed seem to reveal a large quantity of ;upporting very little meat. Clause after clause deals e setting up of this, that or the other board, company, ., committee or tribunal, or with the complicated il arrangements foreshadowed in the Minister of art's White Paper on the reorganization of the tlized transport undertakings. At first sight, the process seems to involve little more than changing and juggling with money. Only a closer examinatows that the Bill goes further than provide for rat alterations to the Ivory Tower. It entails the destruction of the whole edifice and its replacement iething very different.
later impression will emerge more and more clearly Bill takes its course through Parliament. Road rs must follow its progress step by step, and at each nalyse the likely effect upon their own fortunes. The iment will hardly be allowed to let the measure speak alf. Opposition and criticism will come certainly le Socialists and also from some of the Conservatives. vill demand reasons for each, proposal. Operators amine the replies carefully and ensure that their own is 'made -clear to the Government on any point found to affect then.
extent of official financial aid • for the railways is disturbing. The amount to be written off, coin-or in other words to be absorbed by the taxpayer risen from £400m. to £475m. between publication White Paper in December, 1960, and the publication Bill this month. There may be .a warning here that n will increase still more if Parliament do not pass msure quickly. Nearly £700m. 'of the remaining debt of the railways is to be free from interest or lent obligation for an undefined period.
e is not a great deal operators can do about this, they refuse to accept the statement in the White that "a railway system of the right size is an essen7 ment in our transport network and will remain so long as can be foreseen." If they agree, they must e that there is no point in allowing the railways y on indefinitely with a debt of £2,000m. that they ver he able to service. It is only realistic to allow D cut their losses before embarking on the " purpose
• " to which the Minister referred in the House mons debate on the White Paper.
Bill carries out the promise to free the railways datutory control over their charges except in the a area. The same clause makes it clear that the is can no longer be regarded as common carriers. te moratorium on debts, this is perhaps an inevitable on of the plan to cut the railways down to size. ad operators, and especially hauliers, should at this point have a number of questions to which they would like the official answers.
To a large extent, the ceremonial sweeping away of the ancient restrictions on the freedom of the railways to carry the traffic they like at therates they like may be no more than putting into legal language what is already established practice. For a long time. now . there 'seems to have been little control over railway rates.. All the same, the Bill settles the question beyond doubt: It may be opportune for hauliers to remember that the handicaps now to be abolished provided one of the main_ arguments for the licensing system.If, as a result, the system
ought to 'be Modified, this is the time to say so. An examination of the Bill might therefore be found rewarding by the special committee on licensing recently set up by the Road Haulage Association.
Incidentally, the committee might be encouraged by noting that one point on which the R.H.A. have fought stubbornly, and in the end successfully, is given ministerial blessing in the new measure. There is to be a . statutory right of appeal from the Transport Tribunal to the Court of Appeal or to the Court of Session.
HAULIERS would be justified in seeking some protection—preferably embodied in the Bill itself—against irresponsible rate-cutting by the railways. There have already been complaints that some railway officials responsible for quoting rates show an alarming ignorance on the subject. They seem to imagine that, once a train has been scheduled for a journey, it costs little or nothing to add one or more trucks. The fallacy here is .one that hauliers have at least recognized for many years, even if they 'have not been able to eradicate it 'completely.
" Purposeful slimming" implies that the railways will be giving up certain services and certain traffic. On the goods side they will be allowed to do so without having to ask permission from any person or body. Presumably, the Minister feels that the future fate of the abandoned traffic is no concern of his. The customer will have to carry it himself or hand it to a haulier. In some cases a satisfactory arrangement will not be found possible, and the traffic will lapse.
On the whole, one imagines that the railways would prefer a haulier to have it, and this might be the opinion also of the Government. The satisfactory settlement of discarded traffic might, with a certain amount of stretching, come under the terms of reference of the proposed new Nationalized Transport Advisory Council, and a represen. tative of the road haulage industry 'might be invited to attend meetings of the Council when the subject is under discussion. Even if this is not possible, hauliers should keep closely in touch with what is happening. The progressive shrinking of the railways could have a profound effect on the structure of road transport.
The question of public ownership is bound to arise during the discussion on the Bill. Its main achievement is to eliminate all vestiges of integration, although coordination is evidently to be encouraged. Complete denationalization of road haulage, long cherished by some hauliers and recently supported by the Bow Group within the Conservative Party, seems less likely when profits fram British Road Services are to go to the Exchequer,