Government acts on lemocratic control of PTEs
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rom our Parliamentary correspondent 1 The control which Passenger Transport .uthorities will exercise over PTEs when 'cal government is reorganized has been rengthened by Government amendments ) the Local Government Bill.
These changes, introduced into the !ommons last week by Mr Keith Speed, hider-Secretary DoE, were made after onsiderable criticism that the Bill did not o far enough to ensure full democratic ontrol over Transport Executives.
The amendments give, writes our 'arliamentary correspondent, the Authories more control over the Executives by emovina or adding a few words to the ,ocal Government Bill, words which could ave a vital bearing on the relationship etween the two types of bodies.
As it stood. the Bill added to the 1968 'ransport Act -whibh described who does /hat in these regional transport rganizations — clauses which gave more ower to the Authorities. One of them mpowered Authorities to give the )cecutives "general directions" about what they should do. But, as Mr Speed pointed out, the "general direction" has come to mean just one thing nowadays — an order by a Minister to a nationalized industry.
So, to make things absolutely clear, the word "general" has been taken out and now PTAs will give "directions".
The other change in this section of the Bill alters the matters which can be covered by those directions. As drafted, the Bill said the Authorities could give orders to the Executives in relation to matters "appearing to the Authority to affect the carrying out by the Authority of their duty".
The amendment removes this apparent limitation and makes it clear that directions from the Authority may refer to matters affecting the Executive's general duty as well.
The Government believes that these alterations will ensure the full democratic control over Passenger Transport Executives under the new local government set-up which MPs on both sides of the House have been demanding. Certainly, Mr Denis Howell welcomed them on behalf of the Opposition and he thanked the Government for meeting MPs' wishes so generously.
Mr Speed pointed out that the Executives were responsible for the day-to-day administration of extremely large commercial organizations and in certain parts of the country they would become even larger. This would happen at the West Midlands PTA when Coventry Corporation transport was assimilated into it.
There had been criticisms that the existing provisions covered by the 1968 Act were not anything like tight enough to ensure the democratic control that everyone in the Commons wanted.
But, noted Mr Speed, it could not be argued that this was exactly like a normal sub-committee or committee of a local authority and he could not give that undertaking as such.
Provisions were now much tighter and would meet many of the complaints which had been quite rightly raised about democratic control over the PTEs.