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The unmaking of David
THERE WERE probably few tears shed in the transport industry last week when the Prime Minister sacked former Transport Secretary David Howell. While there was some personal sympathy for his departure, the general feeling was one of optimism that Tom King would be a stronger and more astute Secretary of State, writes ALAN 'MILLAR.
The sad fact is that Howell was already on his way out when he replaced Norman Fowler in September 1981. While he weathered the traumatic change from the Conservative Party under Edward Heath to Margaret Thatcher's reign, his two years as Energy Secretary do not appear to have been happy times for the Guildford MP.
In addition, his performance in Cabinet was not all that it could have been, and he was made to look foolish when the Government dropped plans for coal mine closures in the face of a national strike threat from Joe Gormley's miners.
On top of that, British Gas's formidable chairman, Sir Denis Rooke, found he could outmanoeuvre Howell when the Government proposed to privatise parts of his business.
The old fear that the Department of Transport was a wilderness of little consequence was borne out when Howell moved sideways (but down) and Fowler went sideways (but up) to Social Services. Once more, the industry felt it was lumbered.
Two years later, many felt the same way, but the haulier who described him recently as a "ninny" was being more than a little unfair. Howell will probably be forgotten very quickly, yet the industry would do well to remember that it was he who had the courage to press on with the lorry weights increase, even when operators were prepared to give it up as a lost cause.
It may very well be that he was trying to recover his own reputation by fighting for a cause dear to the hearts of the industry his department sponsored; and it may also be that he was being naive and took on a task, the true magnitude of which was unknown to him.
But, for all that, while Fowler had procrastinated over the Armitage Report and had sacrificed the 44-tonner when the Labour Party put up a fight, Howell had a White Paper published within three months of becoming Transport Secretary, and he was out on the road publicising the positive aspects of his plans from early 1982.
That hint of possible naivety gained substance as Howell started adding more "negative" items to his package. To a fairly blatant weights increase package (to 34, 38 and 40 tonnes), with height, length and noise limits, and rear under-run bumpers, he was not long in adding sideguards, Government grants for lorry controls, environmental controls on operating centres, stepping up enforcement staff, and proposing more by-passes.
But it was a gamble which could have blown up in Howell's face. He must have wondered who, never mind where, his friends were, the day the White Paper was published and he was savaged by his own back-benchers who could think of better ways of winning votes in rural England.
Those back-benchers proved a hard nut to crack, and it was to take all last year, some high level lobbying by the Confederation of British Industry, the winning over of Mrs Thatcher to the cause of the heavier lorry, promises of hefty tax increases, and the abandonment of plans for 34 and 40-tonners before the Conservatives approved.
It was a very nervous Howell who went to the party conference that day last October, for rejection of his plans then could have seen him on the backbenches far sooner than last week.
It is also worth speculating where Howell and his 38-tonners would have got without the aid of Lynda Chalker, the abler of his two Under Secretaries. She is a cyclist with reputed environmental sympathies who did much to persaude the Party that no environmental ill would come of the proposals. Significantly, she stays at Transport, having earned the respect of many.
While Howell's troubles with 38-tonners were self-inflicted, no one could have expected the battlefield which opened out in December 1981 when the Law Lords ruled that London Transport's heavily-subsidised cheap fares were unlawful. This time, the back-benchers were behind him, united by their distaste for the left-wing policies of the Greater London Council, but he was still the butt of other people's displeasure.
His arguments against high subsidies and low fares sounded weak and contrived and contrasted with the populist utterings of GLC leader Ken Livingstone and his charmingly convincing transport committee chair, Dave Wetzel.
The 1983 Transport Act, the only Conservative transport legislation in the last Parliament which was totally Howell's, was a hasty attempt to curb the ambitions of high spending metropolitan counties and the GLC.
His protected expenditure levels — cash limits by another name — have yet to have any real effect, but the impending extinction of the same councils by 1986 could render much of the Act an unnecessary luxury for Whitehall.
Howell had also to implement some grand schemes invented in the Fowler era. Goods vehicle test station privatisation was put on the statute book while talks dragged on with Lloyd's Register of Shipping, the only private sector operator the industry says it will trust with the stations. Final resolution of that one rests with Tom King.
National Bus privatisation is in a similar state. Howell got it on the statute book last year, but it is a more difficult matter to put into practice.
David Howell has probably been more accident prone than inept, and if there is one reason why he has been removed, it is his public image.
He could have made a better job of packaging the lorry weights changes if he had made it seem less of a string of second thoughts and had sounded more positive.
He could have done better on . fares subsidies if he had been more forceful in arguing for low operating costs. His handling of the Serpell Report on railway financing warrants similar criticism.
In short, he was bad on telly, and that counts at the Department of Transport, even if you think it is a wilderness of little consequence.