The right man for the job?
Page 38
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
THE MERGING of the Ministry of Transport into the newly-formed gigantic Department of the Environment would never have been popular with the transport industry. It was always inevitable that it should be seen as an indication that Whitehall and Westminster did not see transport as being in the first rank, and felt it did not warrant its own voice at the Cabinet table.
The merger in 1970 coincided with the first major anti-lorry onslaught of the environmentalists. This caused many people to believe that, had a separate Ministry of Transport continued to exist, no one would have heard of lorries as blots on the environmental horizon.
Closer examination of the circumstances reveals this belief to be mistaken; as was shown elsewhere in these pages recently the real assault started six months before the death of the MoT, with the publication of the Civic Trust's onslaught in June 1970. But, at the time, the infant DoE was seen as responsible, with — inevitably — its first secretary of state Peter Walker as the chief villain of the piece.
Many voices were heard between 1971 and 1973 urging that transport should belong to the Department of Industry, though these voices were unaccountably stilled when Tony Benn took over the Dol in 1974.
Now, however, the industry must be tempted to wish that Peter Walker were once more in charge of its destinies, instead of being Minister of Agriculture. For there is no doubt that he has shown himself an energetic