WESTM NSTER HAUL
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INVETERATE observers of the Westminster scene have this week noted MPs going about their business at an unusually high level of tension for the time of year.
June is the month when Government legislation continues its long haul through the furthermost. reaches of Parliamentary procedure (on Thursday, June 19, the Transport Bill was unexcitingly beginning its Lords' Third Reading).
What then has been causing the kerfuffle?
The consuming topic, not surprisingly, has been that of MPs' pay.
But several MPs did try to get the loose ends of the White Paper on roads tied up, serving to confirm that Britain must motor on for the rest of the Eighties with a road system appropriate to its position in division two of the economic league.
MPs on the Commons Transport Committee must have been put out to find so few of their colleagues paying attention to their verdict on the EEC's proposals for a transport infrastructure fund.
Westminster MPs pay little regard to Europe. They are far less well-informed about the world about them than are metropolitan counties, for example, about the national interest. European MPs are. cold-shouldered when they seek access to Commons facilities.
But now and then an MP lifts the siege. Meriden MP lain Mills recently asked the Transport Ministry about tyre laws in Britain
and Europe. Parliamentary Secretary Kenneth Clarke, a brisk Midland barrister who
happens to be a strong European, told him there were no plans to harmonise maintenance standards for EEC vehicles.
To the long list of tips to those venturing abroad (spot fines, warning trangles, tacho graphs and so on), Mr Clarke added another. Drivers should take care to observe the laws applicable to foreign visitors in the countries in which they drive, he said.
In acknowledgment of that advice from Parliament, one might reasonably offer some in return.
It is that our MPs should pay sufficient regard to Europe to look at its own Transport Committee's report more carefully.
The report pointed out how Britain could suffer if the Brussels plan for an infrastructure fund for transport was not used cor rectly. It could pour money into the central areas of the community at the expense of roads in Britain. Everyone knows the sorry story of the Common Agricultural Policy. It could be repeated with transport.
This column will applaud any MP who puts a Halt sign in the path of such an inequitable idea.