Transport Bill Through Lords
Page 43
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T.HE Lords this week accepted the Transport Bill—but with reservations. or in this final look at the controversial neasure by the Upper House there were varnings from Peers of all shades of iolitical opinion that great difficulties lay .head.
Lord Stonham put the Opposition view vhen he spoke of the -basic faults" of he measure. The transport ideology put orward by the Government was opposed ry the people who were mainly affected ,nd, as far as his experience went, by :very organization interested in an :fficient and progressive transport service or passengers and freight, he said. He )elieved that when the Bill came into meration and its implications were fully inderstood, the people would reject it. Lord Stonharn asked whether an estinate had been made of the public cost )f the roads that would be needed to carry he extra traffic when railway lines were dosed. If this were done the Governnent would have to look again at the aiteria used to decide which railway ser/ices were uneconomic, he claimed. Conservative Lord Hawke wondered vhether the traffic commissioners might equire some new interpretation of their luties, in view of the ever increasing :ornpetition created by private enterprise
which, he said, was quite sufficient to keep any form of public transport on its toes.
The Minister should encourage the bus companies, whether wholly or partly owned by the Holding Company, to be invited at an early stage into regional studies of passenger transport needs.
Some of these services might have to have specially designed vehicles, suggested Lord Hawke. For instance there did not appear to be any buses with a proper luggage compartment in the interior, which would take the place of that on the train.
For the Government, Lord Chesham, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, pointed out that there had been no convincing arguments against the basic purpose of the Bill. The Government, he said, were convinced that the transport problem was too serious, that transport services were too important to the country for them to be tackled in any other way than by making a new approach based on the practical needs.
They realized quite clearly that where it was ultimately discovered that road transport could serve the public better than rail there would have to be consequential adjustments of the roads in many cases.