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Lords Clash Over London's "Hiring" Clause
Page 57
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FROM OUR PARLIAMENTARY CORRESPONDENT
LONDON 1RANSPORTS job was to .1—i run the passenger transport services in that area where it had a monopoly— it had no business to be running bus services all over the country-or to points distant from London, declared Lord Chesham, Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, last week. He was commenting on an unsuccessful Labour attempt in the Lords to amend the Transport Bill so that the new London Board would be able to run services outside its area without the Minister first having to be satisfied "that there are exceptional circumstances which make it desirable that the Board should carry passengers."
The intention was to preserve the services which London Transport ran under the 1947 Act, and to have power to adjust them where exceptional circumstances came into play. In his view these exceptional circumstances would be mostly where the Board was approached to operate some kind of on-demand service, for instance to diversionary airports when these served airports in the London area or were adjacent. This power might be used for bus services in substitution for railway services where these were suspended due to accident, landslide, major repairs, or something of that kind, went on Lord Chesham. It would normally be a temporary contingency upon which the Minister would exercise these powers.
Moving his amendment, Lord Stonham said the Government's insistence on the words "exceptional circumstances" seemed to be a sort of device for holding the ring, as far as it could be held, for private enterprise companies. It seemed that an unbusinesslike restriction was being put on the London Board. It would be very stupid to ask permission to run a service for which there was either no demand or insufficient 'demand. The London Board would be proposing to extend its service to meet a demand, and he would have thought that was a highly desirable thing.
From Lord Teynham came a warning that the release of many London Transport surplus vehicles on hire would almost overnight destroy the equilibrium of the whole of the private hire industry in and around London, and would put large numbers of private operators out of business.
He was speaking in support of his amendment (which he later withdrew), which would have deleted from the Bill the subsection which empowers the Board to let out buses on hire. "Nothing could be more ruinous to independent operators of private hire fleets than to have London Transport vehicles let loose on them," he declared.
"If. this was merely a matter of a central stage carriage service little harm would be done and no outside operators would object. But what is involved here is excursions and tours, almost wholly pleasure traffic, which is very much a buyers' market, and in which competition is already of the cut-throat variety."
There was nothing to stop a company from actually being formed for the purpose of operating hired vehicles from London Transport during, say, the weekend, he claimed, adding that London Transport had a considerable surplus of vehicles at the week-end.
Opposing the amendment, Lord Shepherd said that London Transport had a vast number of vehicles which it was forced to keep and operate for five days a week. It was wrong to restrict the Board as to the use of those vehicles on Saturday and Sundays.
What Lord Teynham was really afraid of was that among the private operators, and particularly on the contract service, there were a number who were operating on a shoe-string, maintained Lord Lindgren. Reputable private hire organizations would prefer to go to London Transport.
Lord Grenfell said there could be no doubt that tinder this subsection private hire firms could be heavily undercut by London Transport.
The Earl of Swinton pointed to the subsection which says that London Transport must not have more vehicles than are needed for the ordinary transport purposes, and asked who was going to ensure this.
Lord Chesham replied that Lord Teynham's conclusions mere, if anything, over-exaggerated. His 'case would have been perfectly right and a good one if it was the fact that the London Board was going to be empowered to operate these services itself. But that was not so.
He pointed out that any unused London vehicles could go only to other operators, and go only on demand. He did not think it justifiable to say they would be let out at very, low-cost prices ---the London Board had a duty to make whatever it could, as best it could, for the public purse, and was under a duty to conduct its affairs with efficiency, economy and safety. If it were not making what it should be able to make, then it was transgressing against its duty to act in the interests of economy.
Replying to a point put by Lord Teynham, Lord Chesham said he did not think the Holding Company could set up a company to operate buses on hire from London Transport, but when doubts were expressed, promised to double-check.
To Lord Swinton he said that the obligation was on the Minister to see that the Board did not have more buses than it required for its services, and ensuring that it was not keeping a hire fleet specifically for the purpose.
This clause was justified and necessary in order to enable the Board, if it was going to act more like a commercial body, to make the best use of its assets.
MINISTER'S VIEWS ON USE OF HEADLIGHTS
'THE Road Traffic Bill will enable the I Minister of Transport to deal with the "very bad practice" of commercial vehicles being driven on the open road with only their sidelights on, plus one spotlight low down on the left-hand side of the vehicle, near to the kerb. This was stated by Mr. John Hay, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry, during a Commons debate on headlights.
This is an extremely dangerous practice because, often, one of the sidelights will go out and other drivers do not then realize that they are approaching a very large commercial vehicle," explained Mr. Hay.
Powers sought by the Minister under the Bill would enable him not only to prescribe technical requirements for headlamps, but also to make regulations governing their use in various circumstances. He would also' be able to deal with the problem of driving with dipped headlights on urban roads. • But any regulations dealing with dipped headlights had to be considered in detail, because very many technical and other complicated matters were involved. The Ministry would have to look into the matter over a slightly longer period than that suggested by the M.P. who had opened the debate; Mr. Leonard Cleaver.
190m. ON ROADS NEXT YEAR THE Government plan to , spend £90.5m. on roads in England and Wales next year. Mr. Marples, who gave this figure, added. that 'motorways would receive £46m., trunk roads £20m. and classified roads 124.5m.-In addition, local authorities were expected to • spend £.9.9m. on classified roads during the year.
The Minister said that over the ,five years 1962-63 to 1966-67 central government expenditure on new road construction and major improvements was estimated at 040m., and local authority spending on classified roads at about £73m.