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Page 217
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Road building tender
REPORTS from royal commissions, unlike those from some other bodies, usually lead to legislation. But it will be at least five years before the proposals in Lord Redcliffe-Maud's report can be put into effect. What is promised then is a complete revolution in the structure of local government.
Passenger vehicle operators will be more directly concerned than hauliers. The proposed metropolitan authorities would take over from the new passenger transport authorities which would barely have got into their stride. The eight provincial councils would present a far more formidable challenge than the PTAs to the power of Whitehall and the Government.
The councils would have control over a wide sector of transport as well as planning and development in general. They would not be responsible for building roads. This would be the task of the metropolitan authorities and the so-called "unitary authorities". Their range would be much greater than the areas covered by the present local authorities and this could hardly help being an improvement.
Road planning Road planning on a national scale must remain the function of a national body. It is only a few months since the most serious criticism to date was levelled at the suitability for the purpose of the Ministry of Transport. The Maud report with its accent on decentralization should provide new matter for the contention by the British Road Federation that responsibility for roads should be hived off to a national roads authority.
One can understand the Minister, Mr. Richard Marsh, feeling a little embarrassed in drawing up his reply. He must have been aware of general agreement with the BRF in deploring the way in which, although road taxation goes up steadily and rapidly, road expenditure fluctuates almost at the whim of Chancellors of the Exchequer. Any system which allows road expenditure and road building to expand in accordance with some kind of coherent plan, must seem preferable to this.
Finding the money presents the least of the difficulties. Each year more and more revenue comes in from road users. All that is needed is to sequester an agreed proportion of that revenue and give the national roads authority permission to raise loans. If the Chancellor still wants his contribution from road users this can be treated as a separate issue.
No Minister or Ministry willingly abdi cates one iota of power however uncongenial its exercise may have seemed. Mr.
Marsh was bound to reject the BRF proposal and most of his counter-arguments were predictable.
He could hardly show a triumphant and uninterrupted progress in road construction over the past two decades. He could at least squeeze whatever little party political advantage there was from claiming that the rate of building was much faster under the Socialists than under the Tories. He was reasonably safe in thinking that the BRF chairman, Lord Chesham—out of politeness and for other reasons—would refrain from reminding him that the bad old days under the Conservatives might soon return.
On safer ground the Minister objected that "hypothecation" of some part of the present fuel and vehicle licence duties to road expenditure "remains unacceptable in principle to this Government as to its predecessors". There would have to be an outstanding public advantage as a result and he could see no such advantage.
If any Government decided to allocate more for roads, said the Minister, they would need no change in the present system to allow them to do so. The creation of a new semi-independent body to take over some of the highway responsibilities now exercised elsewhere would cause serious administrative problems.
The points of view of the Ministry and the BRF are irreconcilable. It is possible to understand both of them and even to some extent agree with them. A national roads authority would give the continuity that is now lacking. Plans could be made for seve ral years ahead without the fear that an economy drive would bring them to a halt at any time. The construction industry would be encouraged to invest in expensive road building equipment. The momentum of their progress would be unimpeded.
Comparison On the other hand the authority could acquire a bureaucracy and an inertia of its own. In an understandable anxiety to reassure the Minister that the proposed body would still be subject to his control the BRF compared it with other "nationalized industries". The comparison might appeal to the Minister but not necessarily to a large section of road users.
In spite of ultimate Parliamentary sanction the authority would still have wide powers. It could tend to favour one type of road user at the expense of the other. The rift, for example, between the commercial operator and the motorist has so far successfully been kept narrow. One cannot be certain what influences might widen it.
Unlike the "nationalized industries" the Minister is exposed to continual Parliamen tary probing. Earlier this month he was brought to book on a complaint by the BRF that out of 37 road building schemes which were supposed to commence in 1969 18 had been delayed by an average of six months.
The Minister had his answer ready. Schemes issued to contractors for forward planning purposes with estimated starting dates were not intended to make up a firm programme. The explanation may not be entirely satisfactory. What is interesting is that the Minister had to make it.
Political breeze Nevertheless, the defect remains that he is at the mercy of every political breeze and can never be confident that even his most definite plans will be carried through. Cuts in local expenditure last year included a reduction of 10 per cent in road maintenance and there was nothing the Minister could do to help local authorities. He was driven into an anomalous situation where he was compelling operators to spend a good deal more money to make their vehicles safer while local authorities in cutting down on their own type of maintenance were presumably making the roads more dange rous.
The BRF will not let the matter rest where the Minister has left it. It is unlikely to have believed that the citadel would fall at the first attack. At least the Minister, forced to argue that no change is needed in the present system, has been placed on the defensive.
Lord Chesham has not hesitated to take advantage of the situation. He has spoken of the "staggering complacency" shown by Mr. Marsh and the Government towards the problem of managing and financing the road programme. He went on to give his opinion of the Minister's Green Paper, Roads for the Future. It is, said Lord Chesham, "a hotchpotch of road schemes which flounders in talk of comprehensive strategy and route appraisal but which steers its way round the one real question that needs to be answered: When?"
One may prophesy that for a long time to come little that Mr. Marsh does will be found satisfactory to the BRF. The sharpening of the knives may have a good effect. It may stir him to more positive action in the direction that all road users as well as the BRF would approve.
He has spoken recently of the need for adequate facilities for parking commercial vehicles and for feeding and accommodating the drivers. He may now think that he ought to follow up this initiative and urge . action on the local authorities who alone are in the position of being able to do something about it. His influence and help would also be useful where operators are faced with the refusal of planning permission for their workshops and garages.
All too often the operator is left, or imagines he is left, to fight alone with an unsympathetic local authority. The Minister can at least make his opinion known and this may often be sufficient to swing the balance. Whether implementation of the Maud report will make any difference here remains to be seen.