Cul-de-Sac
Page 50
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WHEN it was published a short time ago, the report on roads by the Select Committee on
Expenditure received a certain amount of criticism from road transport interests, but none of them seemed to appreciate fully how dangerous the report is and how much it betrays an attitude of mind comfortably and hopelessly remote from the real problem of the roads.
Coronation traffic has emphasized the problem. An out-of-date highway system is rapidly becoming totally inadequate for the work it is supposed to do, and any extra burden leads to a traffic jam that should serve as warning of what will be the normal state of affairs if nothing is done to improve the roads. The task of construction and maintenance is in the hands of local authorities and of the Government through the Ministry of Transport, but the rates and taxes allocated for the purpose are but a tithe of the sum paid in special duties by road users.
There is a job to be done and there is money to pay for it. The road user is reminded of this every time he looks at the state of his vehicles, or investigates the time taken for a journey, or examines his fuel bill. The problem is so much of a commonplace to him that he finds it hard to understand the persistence of other points of view. The Select Committee's report would mike salutary reading for anybody who imagines that the obstacles in the way of building the better roads so urgently needed will be removed once the irrefutable logic and sweet reasonableness of the arguments in favour have been brought to the notice of the men at the top.
Little Without Money
For one thing, it is not easy to decide who are in fact the appropriate men at the top. Nominally, the Minister of Transport is responsible for roads, and he would no doubt like to see something done, possibly by way of implementing such optimistic legislation as the Special Roads Act, 1949. He can do very little, however, without money, and the line of responsibility therefore takes us back to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Treasury.
As individuals, the men at the Treasury know very well the case for better roads. It has been impressed upon them year after year by indefatigable deputations of road users, and they are no doubt aware of the frequent speeches made in both Houses of Parliament by Members who see the light but cannot reach it. In the course of his evidence before the Select Committee, one of the Treasury officials went so far as to say: "Roads are a piece of the industrial equipment of the country which must be maintained, and the State, as the owner of • these roads, is no more free than an industrialist not to maintain his plant. If we do not maintain the roads certain very unpleasant consequences follow. We actually waste money."
This might almost have been culled from Me of the publications of the British Road Federation, and no doubt it would be accepted as the view of the Government. But as Civil Servants, the man at the Treasury must aim at preventing the unnecessary spending of money. Each year they go through a series of 16 calculations which invariably results in a figure as near as may be to £70m, for expenditure on the roads, and the local authorities are expected to provide a little less than half of the total from their own resources.
Small as the figure may be, one would not be safe in assuming that it would never be Teduced. Some of the county and urban district councils suggested to the Select Committee that it would be helpful to have a guarantee of the grant they would receive over the next five years for maintenance and minor improvements.
The objection of the Treasury was that an absolute commitment to make certain sums of money available for a given purpose over a period of years would restrict both the right of Parliament to vote expenditure year by year and the freedom of the Chancellor to draw up his annual Budget. With this argument the Select Committee had, a little reluctantly, to agree. It did not occur to them, or perhaps they considered it outside th6r terms of reference to speculate, that there was something wrong with a system which prevents road-making authorities from planning their work for more than 12 months ahead.
Seeing Eye to Eye
It would be misleading to infer that the Select Committee always saw eye to eye with the Treasury. For example, the Committee criticized a statement to the effect that the Treasury were satisfied "as long as the permitted expenditure remained in the region of from 65 per cent. to 75 per cent. of that allowed in 1938.'• From what follows, however, it is plain that the Committee did not necessarily regard the percentage as low, but rather censured the Treasury for not scrutinizing every penny. The consequent recommendation is that "the Ministry of Transport and the Treasury should re-examine the procedure at present used in the framing of estimates for expenditure on roads, and seek to devise some method which, while causing the minimum of inconvenience to highway authorities, would furnish the Ministry with a more precise picture of the condition and the needs of the roads for which the taxpayer and the ratepayer is asked to provide."
Within its lunatic framework it all sounds plausible, until one asks why the road user who pays so much into the Treasury is entirely dependent upon authorities over which he has no control for the safety, comfort and even practicability of the journey he wishes to take.
There must be general agreement that public money should be spent carefully and wisely, and that its disbursement should be kept under the control of Parliament. What is equally true is that the Treasury and the Ministry of Transport, while keeping strictly to these highly desirable principles, can nevertheless slowly strangle the road transport industry. • For any committee which get down to examining road finance, the most urgent task is to decide whether it is any longer right that the people who use the roads as an essential part of their business equipment should have no say in the building or upkeep of those roads. While any influential section of public opinion continues to take it for granted that the roads are a burden on the taxpayer that should be kept as light as possible,,the road problem will steadily become more acute: