M.O.W.T. Wins on 60-mile Limit Order
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Captain Strickland Withdraws his Annulment Motion Following Mr. P. J. Noel
' Baker s Spirited Defence of the M O.W.T. Proposal AFULL discussion on the new M.O.W.T. Emergency Powers
• Regulation, limiting, journeys of road vehicles to 60 miles, except under licence, took place in the House of Commons last • w e e k. , Captain Strickland moved a prayer for the annulment of the Regulation. He said that it would give to the Minister great power over a certain class of road vehicle which, up to the present, had not come immediately within his purview.
He, the Minister, would be ahle to prevent any goods'vehicle "Tram travelling more than 60 miles unless by the direet sanction of the Minister or one of his officers. The purpose's of the scheme were described in the official memorandum as being to save fuel and labour, to have a reserve of long-distance vehicles, and to make full and effective use of road transport in times of stress. .
Did the Minister intend to use the new Regulation to coerce the concerns which had declined his invitation to become controlled? There -was apprehension amongst the smaller, operators that the 'Regulation might be used to enable the larger controlled concerns to capture their business, so that, when the control terminated at the end of the war, their customers might have ' been , absorbed by the controlled operators, and their goodwill destroyed.
Another aspect' of the Regulation was the position of the trader or manufacturer who ran his own transport under a C licence. He .would be equally liableto prosecution under the Regulation although he was in no way concerned with the control of longdistance traffic under the scheme,
Waste of Petrol . .
There were thousands of gallons Of petrol being wasted every week. by empty running of Government vehicles, which could be stopped. The administration of the Department had .not been sufficiently • brilliant, to warrant. the House giving the Minister the extra powers he sought under the Order.
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles seconded the motion. ' He did not believe., he said, that the new Order would save rubber, fuel or labour, but that its effect would be to. make the small man lose his goodwill, his customers and his business.
Mr. W. J. Brown said that there were approximately 20,000 vehicles operating under the contrpl of the M.O.W.T. They were owned by about 600 controlled undertakings, and 2,700 individuals, It was over the second field that the Minister waa asking for more power. The controlled undertakings provided one • or more unit centres from • which vehicles .operated, and the strength of a unit • might be from 50 'to 100 vehicle's. In full control of each one of the units was. a man taken from the trans
port industry. Not -one. of the unit controllers was either a permanent or
a temporary civil servant. If all the criticism Of inefficiency was well founded, it would merely, prove that the transpert industry did not ktIOW its job.
Control was Inevitable
Mr. P. J. Noel-Baker, Parliamentary Secretary,M.O.W.T., said that the Government was convinced that it must have this Regulation, and must have it now.. He had read the Memorandum, sent out by the industry' to. some Members, with some surprise, for two reasons. He had no doubt that. control would have been established over road haulage, as with the railways, at the beginning of the war but for the way in which the industry was run —400,000 road vehicles, of -which 150,000 operated with A and 'F1 licences, and there were 60,000 owners.
• That fact, and he believed that fact,, alone, led the Government to try to control road haulage by. the system of fuel rationing. He did not exaggerate when he said that that system never
succeeded. In. 1940 great difficulties aroSe,, particularly at the ports, in moving urgent traffic. Those difficulties led the Minister's Road Haulage Consultative Committee to decide on the recommendation that a real Government control should he set bp. The Consultative Committee had a Government. chairman, but -14 members were chosen by the S.I.C. and by the trade unions. In December, 1940, they declared, unanimously, . that fuel rationing was 'not enough and that, for all road haulage, a real Government road haulage organization was imperatively required.
The House would, therefor e% understand that he was surprised when he read the S.J.C.'s Statement, made in March, 1944, when conditions were so much more difficult in every. way, that nothing but fuel rationing was sequirecl. His second reason for surprise was that, after that resolution had been adopted., it had been ixnplemented to a certain extent when the meat pool vehicles, 1,400 of them, became, in the words of the recent pamphlet of Associated Road Operators, a brand-1'0f the Ministry and—again in the words of the pamphlet—were an outstanding -success.
On the rest of the control, and of the Organization that was needed, . the S.J.C, changed its mind. To try to meet its wishes the -Minister accepted a • different plan, based on what was called the prin -iple of partnership between the industry and the Department Unfortunately, circumstances
changed. Fuel and rubber shortages grew very acute, and it was quickly plain that this plan of a Government.. chartered fleet, and a road hauliers' national traffic pool, unlike the meat pool, was outstandingly unsuccessful.
S4imething new was needed.; so 'the Minister, in October, 1942, decided to implement the resolution of 1940 and to set up the organization which now existed. There were now 21,000 vehicles, 15,000 of them long-distance, under the Ministry's control. They represented roughly 90 per cent, of the long-distance lorry capacity, The M.O.W.T. learned with surprise that the S.J.C. had sent out a memorandum marked " strictly private and confidential," in which it opposed the Regulation and justified its opposition by an attack on the whole organization to which, in public, only three months ago, it pledged support. It was a basic economic and.transport fact that traffic generally waS unbalanced; there was more in oue direction than in another.
Questions on 6,600 Vehicles ' Therefore, there must be empty running by road, rail and canal in one direction. Up to date, Captain Strickland and other Members, bad asked him Parliamentary questions about the movenients of more than 6,000 vehicles. In three cases only— three individual lorries—had he had to say that he was not fatisfied with the operation. The mistakes were made by unit controllers, whom some people said were not up to their work.
He thought that was a libel but, in any case, they had been chosen by the industry—every one, without a •single exception, by the controlled concern itself. Secondly, they were under the direction of road haulage officers-54 of therri in every area. There were only two in 54'who did not come from the industry. The' area officers were under the control of divisional officers-16 of them, and all from the industry, and many recommended to the Ministry by the S.J.C. itself.
Those men had done extremely well hut, until they got this Order, they could not follow-up their job. The purpose' of the Regulation was not to force outside concerns to come in: They were still able to carry traffic up to 60 miles, and excluded traffic, smalls and so on, and long-distance traffic, it they could show that it was in the national interest that they should do ,so. The Regulation was not intended to oppress the C-licensees. They were getting protection.
The negative control of traffic, by fuel rationing, was utterly inadequate to our .present needs. The Minister was resolutely and firmly of the view that the Regulation -was needed. It . would not cause difficulties for trade as had been suggested.
In view of the Minister's comprehensive statement Captain Strickland withdrew his Motion..