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Penny for the Guy
SPARE a thought for the licensing system, pre-war model. Nobody is prepared to say a good word for it. Even the hauliers are constrained to keep quiet in case they are accused of a vested interest. It will disappear from the transport scene sooner or later whatever happens in Parliament or outside. Even a change of Government would also mean a new licensing system although the Conservatives would scrap the present Transport Bill for one of their own.
Lack of support for the present system from any quarter has given the Government a debating point which was used time and again during the discussions on the committee stage of the Bill in the House of Commons. Mr. Stephen Swingler, the Minister of State, found it particularly helpful in filling out his replies to the numerous demands for specific exemptions from quantity licensing.
For more than 30 years, he pointed out, the Conservative Party which was in power for most of the time "tolerated, even upheld, a quantity licensing system applying to at least twice the number of vehicles to which we are applying it". The Conservatives made no attempt, said Mr. Swingler, to give a special dispensation for fish, or timber, or whatever.
The argument appealed to him so much that he introduced it when opposing an amendment to exempt from quantity licensing vehicles to be used "by a person solely for the carriage of goods for or in connection with any trade or business carried on by him".
Playing with words
Technically these vehicles are covered by the present system and require C licences. It is playing with words to suggest, as Mr. Swingler Nx ould appear to be doing, that they do not already enjoy the same freedom as the amendment was intended to preserve for them.
This is a particularly striking example of the fallacy in Mr. Swingler's reasoning. He assumes that one form of quantity licensing is much the same as another and accuses his opponents of hypocrisy when they seek to free from his proposals traffic on which they themselves had imposed restrictions.
Application of the guillotine may have prevented the Conservatives from making an effective reply. They would have had no difficulty in showing up the difference between what is now in operation and what is proposed.
The problem of the C licence holder is not capable of the easy solution which the supporters of the amendment may have hoped to provide. There is a strong case for saying that if the difference between own account operation and road haulage is to disappear under quality licensing it cannot be retained under quantity licensing.
The trader's privilege would be almost absolute. He would be able to carry his own traffic anywhere he chose and within the 100-mile limit compete with hauliers who in many cases would be confined entirely to that limit.
The quantity licensing system would break down even earlier than is likely under the proposals in the Bill. Rather than face the wearisome and even damaging procedure before the Licensing Authority whenever the railways objected to an application for a special authorization by a haulier the trader would certainly prefer to run his own vehicles.
Here is one of the points at which it is most apparent that the Bill will not work. The unstable structure designed solely to protect the railways must involve telling the trader that he has no right to carry his own goods. There must be something wrong with a proposed system which has this principle as an essential ingredient.
Except for the use of the same terms there is no resemblance between what is proposed and what is now in operation. The fact that some passages of the Bill are taken word for word from its predecessors merely emphasizes the fundamental differences.
For example one of the reasons for which a Licensing Authority may suspend or revoke a special authorization is that the operator "made or procured to be made for the purposes of his application" or for the variation of his licence "a statement of fact which (whether to his knowledge or not) was false, or' a statement of intention or expectation which has not been fulfilled". Another reason would be a material relevant change "in any of the circumstances of the holder of the authorization" since it was granted.
Familiar point
The first point is familiar to all operators and especially the holders of A licences who have made a declaration of normal user. They would prefer its deletion even from the present legislation while acknowledging that there must be some safeguard against the man who declares his intention to do certain work and proceeds to do something else.
They have learned to live with the normal user problem even to the extent of keeping the Licensing Authority informed of changes in their circumstances and activities. His ultimate acceptance of new traffic and new customers and of their incorporation in the terms of the licence has not been difficult when it is clear that the customers, by giving their work to the haulier, have shown a preference for his services.
Within the context of the Bill the wording is much more menacing. No operator is likely to be given a normal user which will entitle him to carry any traffic other than that specified in his special authorization. It is even possible that a trader will be told he can carry some of his long-distance traffic himself and must hand the remainder over to the railways.
In principle a single unauthorized journey could render the operator liable for the revocation of his licence. Whenever he is offered new traffic he must run the gauntlet of possible railway objections. The wishes of his customer will be irrelevant.
Clear distinction
Even without these textual comparisons the distinction between the present system and the Bill is clear. Mr. Swingler himself has a favourite statistic intended to be reassuring. The provisions in the Bill, he has said, will do no more than transfer to rail some 10 per cent of the ton mileage of traffic at present carried by road. This, he indicates, is a vital accretion for the railways but is no more than two to three years' growth for road transport and will quickly be made up.
In other words the two systems are poles apart. If road transport were left alone under the much-maligned present system it would continue to achieve the very satisfactory growth of five per cent per annum. When the Bill is passed there will be a decline of the same order. That a healthy growth will be resumed after so substantial a blood-letting is Mr. Swingler's hope rather than a certainty.
In the light of these figures his accusation that the Tories "tolerated, even upheld" the present system becomes almost a commendation. The Opposition may not have chosen to see it in this light or even to have welcomed it.
They could have pointed out that their own views, or the views of many of them, are not greatly different from the conclusion by the Geddes Committee that a licensing system of any kind was at best superfluous. It is more than likely that had there been no change of Government the Conservatives would themselves be introducing liberalizing legislation.
Unfortunately for the present system this leaves nobody in the political field with an interest in defending it. As a consequence it has to bear the blame for everything that is considered imperfect. Even the bad maintenance records of operators who are called before the Licensing Authority for expiration are somehow or other regarded as the effect of the system.
That it can be greatly improved it would be impossible to deny. This is not the same as saying that it should be abolished and replaced by something entirely new. Perhaps there were merits in it that deserve closer consideration. This it is unlikely to receive. It is too convenient as an Aunt Sally for the Government and the Tories are reluctant to identify themselves too closely with it.