The Story Behind the Appointment That Never Was
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• FROM OUR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
SO it's back to 1.C.I. for Dr. Beechingand relief in road haulage circles that the chairman of the railways will riot be the man to chart the transport "integration" which the Labour Government wants. Announcing Dr. Beeching'.s decision to return to industry six months from now--and the Government's conclusion that he therefore cannot do the job—Transport Minister Mr. Tom Fraser hinted that he himself might take over, with a group of outside experts to help him.
Whichever way the task is undertaken. the survey will be rapid and the aim will be to produce a firm integration plan, to be presented when the next session of Parliament begins at the end of 1965.
The Geddes report on the reform of the road transport licensing system is expected in the coming spring, and its conclusions will be a cornerstone of Labour's plans. But it is clear that this committee's preliminary findings arc already reaching the Government, and they can be incorporated in work of the major survey long before they are published.
The Beeching decision, announced two days before Christmas, ended weeks of speculation which—in the words of shadow Transport Minister. Mr, Enoch Powell--amounted to "a pantomime of disclosures and seMi-disclosures. dragged through the Press ". r
Mr. Fraser admitted they had been embarrassing to him, but added that the speculation had concentrated too much on the man and too little on the job to be .done. He said: "I never had in mind that Dr.. Beeching would become a great supremo or overlord with executive powers over all forms of nationalized transport in the country ".
The Commons announcement killed one of the most cherished hopes which Mr. Wilson took with him to Downing Street on the day he was elected. The Prime Minister's belief was that the railway chairman had unearthed so much information about the railways that he was the best man quickly .to do the same over the whole transport field, enabling him to produce a report without conchs sions that the experts could work upon.
Dr. Beeching was approached about the idea early in the administration, and his response gave hope to the Government that he would agree. As time went on, however, and as the Doctor learned more about Labour's ideas about how the task should be handled, he became cooler and cooler until it seems probable that he finally told Mr. Fraser he did not want the fob.
Mr. Wilson did not accept this at once, and asked Dr. Beeching to think it over again and, as time dragged by up to Christmas, the public was treated to an increasing spate of speculation about what was to happen. Finally, a facesaving formula was devised. and Mr. Fraser was able to tell the House of Commons that the deal was off on the very last day before the recess.
It is probable that the Government would have, over-ridden the serious opposition to allowing Dr. Beeching to handle the survey if he had agreed 100 per cent to do so. But there appears little doubt that this same opposition, which reached into Cabinet circles. caused a revision of the original idea and probably contributed to the Doctor's final withdrawal.
The next stage in the process is for Mr. Fraser to say whether another man will head the small committee of outside experts to plan road-rail-sea-air integration, or whether he will control it himself. Whether he will fall back on N.A.T.A.C. is not yet decided. but Mr. Fraser has given notice that for the present he intends to be the chairman.
One facet of the hidden controversy which appears to be clear is that Dr. Beeching has no desire to soldier on as a State servant under the Labour Party. It is probably true that he and Mr. Ernest Marples spoke the same language to a marked degree, One -reason why Mr. Marples was kept on for a full five years as Transport Minister—and why he was not involved in the famous Macmillan purge—was that the Tory leadership regarded almost with awe his ability to harness the genius from I.C.I.
Now Marples is gone, and Beeching is going. The railway axe is likely to be blunted and the guiding principle of the railways paying their way is likely to be shelved for social considerations.
This could have been one more reason why Dr. Beeching wanted to show a clean pair of heels, not only from the co-ordination scene, hut from the railways as well.
MI Warning Signs THE Minister of Transport is proposing to experiment on a section of M with a simpler fog warning system than that at present in use on M5.
" But this will not be ready for use this winter", he warned, when he told M.P.s about the experiment last week. The signs will be at mile intervals alongside emergency phones, on the southbound carriageway from the A6 junction to A41.
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