Community to bear losses
Page 31
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THE social losses involved in the present Atransport policy are to be put "where they belong"—on the shoulders of the community.
This was forecast in the Commons by Mrs. Barbara Castle, the Minister of Transport, when she opened a debate on the Transport Finances Bill this week. This would give the railways realistic operating targets which they could be expected to achieve, she added.
And when she was asked, "which shoulders of which community?" the Minister replied that she would deal with that in the debate on the White Paper she is about to bring out.
A new realistic financial basis had to be found for the railways, said Mrs. Castle, and until then they could not allow the transport services to come to a full stop next month because they had run out of the revenue deficiency grants. .
The Bill she was putting before the House raised from £450m. to £800m. loans to British Railways to meet deficits and also allowed loans to London Transport to rise to £16m.
Mrs. Castle spoke of far-reaching measures to make public transport operate more smoothly in the London area.
She accused Conservatives of playing politics with Britain's transport system with the disastrous effects that were having to be dealt with now. Beeching plan or no Beeehing plan the deficit had shown no sign of melting away.
Opposition transport spokesman, Mr. Peter Walker, said that it would be very irresponsible for MPs to agree to her demands before seeing the White Paper on the subject which, he expected, would be more concerned with her Socialist theories than the problems of transPort.
Edinburgh transport 'crisis'
TWO Edinburgh MPs have told the Chan cellor of the Exchequer that the Corporation's transport department is facing a major crisis because of the heavy burden of fuel oil tax and that the question of giving some relief is more urgent than ever.
The total fuel tax paid by the department in the past 10 years amounted to £3,608,815. In the year to end on May 28 the estimated amount will be £372,120.
Excise Duty Concession
THE weight of demountable bodies is to be
excluded when computing unladen weight for the purpose of vehicle excise duty as from September I, 1966. This proposal, contained in Clause 7 of the Finance Bill published this week, is welcomed by the TRTA as a concession to their representations on this matter.
Nearly 13m. vehicles DURING the September quarter of 1965,
12,872,000 vehicles had licences current. compared with 12,306,000 in 1964 and 11,384,000 in 1963. . . . Mr. Stephen Swingler in the Commons.