Commons talk buses
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IF THE TRANSPORT BILL brings Freddie Lakers into the bus industry, it will be an outstanding success, according to Transport Minister Norman Fowler.
He was speaking when the Commons debated the Bill this week, and added: "What Laker was about should be what all transport operators are about providing services the public wanted and could afford."
The present legislation was 50 years old, and had been introduced to protect operators at a time when conditions were entirely different. Bus use has halved since 1959, he said.
On his proposals for deregulating long-distance coach services, he said these would open the way for developments like Greyhound coaches in the United States. Mr Fowler also revealed that around 10 county councils had shown "considerable interest" in participating in totally deregulated stagecarriage operation. There would, he said, be "two or three" trial areas.
Opposition spokesman Albert Booth said the Minister's measures would cause irreparable damage to bus services in many parts of thE country.
Services based on competition between private operators existed only in a "Tory dream world," and he added that many new road-service licences had been issued under the present system.