EXTROVERTS AND INTROVERTS
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The Conservative Ministers who succeeded him found most of their energies taken up in reconstituting the structure that he had knocked down.
It was left to Mr. Marples to commission a series of reports with the intention of bringing them into a composite survey in which his own plans could take root. Hall, Beeching, Rochdale, Smeed, Buchanan and Geddes were the names linked to the successive studies.
When the time came for Mr. Marples to leave office only the Geddes report was incomplete, and he had already gone along way towards sketching an outline for the future based on freedom of choice; freedom for each form of transport to develop its full potentialities; and effective co-ordination between the various forms of transport.
No luck
Mr. Tom Fraser, the first Labour Minister after Mr. Marples, had no luck with the reports produced during his term of office. He asked Lord Hinton to investigate the prospects for co-ordination. The subsequent report was not published. The obvious inference was that it did not match Mr. Fraser's own philosophy and in fact strongly advocated competition as the right policy.
A further blow came with the publication of the Geddes report which could not so easily be suppressed. It went to the extreme with a recommendation that the licensing system should be abolished and competition in its purest form be injected into the transport industry.
Perhaps there were sound reasons for Mrs. Barbara Castle to move away from the precedent of outside inquiries whether by a committee or by an individual. She preferred to bring the experts within the Ministry.
There are advantages in this. When there is legislation to be drafted the people concerned can all work closely together and the Minister is in the most favourable position to co-ordinate their efforts. The advice and assistance of outside organizations and experts can be sought at any stage and there is no bar against accepting It.
On the other hand a committee of Civil Servants guided by a politician can make a strangely introspective combination. There is a tendency to pursue theory at the expense of what is best for the community, or at any rate for that section of the community chiefly concerned.
The Ministry of Mr. Alfred Barnes produced the extraordinary Bill which he proceeded to steer through Parliament to its destined end as the Transport Act, 1947, in the teeth of opposition not only, as might be expected, from hauliers and the railways, but from practically the whole of trade and industry.
Sensible concession The one sensible concession wrung from Mr. Barnes was the excision of the clause which would have required C-licenceholders in the same way as hauliers to obtain a permit from British Road Services for journeys outside a certain radius.
The general opinion is that Mr. Barnes was influenced by industrial concerns which had links with his Party. The consequence was to extinguish any hope that the British Transport Commission would at least succeed in avoiding losses. There were few regrets among transport users who found the BTC in practice even less to their liking then they had feared in anticipation.
Mrs. Castle resembles Mr. Barnes in that she is pursuing her policy with an almost heroic disregard for the people that it will affect. Her road safety measures, mostly excellent although somewhat draconian, are a development of the work of her predecessors, and do not bear so distinctive a stamp of her personality as the recent proposals on drivers' hours and on licensing.
Before issuing her statement on hours she invited observations and suggestions from the interests concerned. It must have been clear from these that for the most part neither the employers nor even the workers were enthusiastic about drastic reductions in the maximum permitted number of hours. In spite of this there is no evidence that she greatly modified her ideas on the subject.
Her licensing proposals might well have been drafted with the sole intention of pleasing the railways. Strict application of the plan for quality licensing will certainly make it harder than it is now for many traders to be granted the right to carry any goods, let alone their own; will certainly made it harder for many hauliers to remain in business; and will probably make it harder for newcomers to enter.
Quantity licensing has no purpose other than to compel traders and manufacturers to send by rail all the traffic that the railways are allegedly capable of handling.
What Mrs. Castle has taken to greater lengths than most Ministers before her is the concept of the working party often set up to deal with a technical problem so that her officials aan have the advantage of professional advice and at times hold the ring while the rival experts battle it out.
On major issues such as licensing she has preferred an arrangement whereby each interest can be seen separately. This does not prevent them forming a mutual protection society outside the Ministerial circle.
The working parties are legion. On safety measures alone they have recently been considering such matters as the lighting and marking of the rear of vehicles, particularly goods vehicles, rear reflectors and reflecting number plates; direction indicators which can operate as a warning signal; distinctive lights on vehicles with very wide loads; and the improved marking of projecting loads. They have also been dealing with the prohibition of the carriage of passengers in trailers; rear bumpers for larger goods vehicles to prevent underrunning by small cars; and side guard rails for long vehicles to reduce the danger of cyclists and pedestrians falling under the rear wheels.
Complete review In some cases the same working party will be considering several different subjects. The ultimate aim will be a complete review of all the regulations concerning vehicles. In general terms this cannot be a cause for discussion.
Mrs. Castle's working parties have probably helped to secure the support of transport operators for at least some of the provisions of the Road Safety Act, 1967, and the related legislation.
This is in some ways surprising in view of the extra effort and extra expense in which many operators will be involved when the rules for braking, plating, inspection and so on start to come into operation at the opening of 1968.