Subsidies needed!
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TRANSPORT SUBSIDIES are needs, said Kenneth Clarke, Transport, last week — but local money from their own spending William Hamilton (Labour, Central Fife) questioned whether adequate rural services could be provided on the basis of the Tory Party's philosophy of private enterprise motivated by pure profit, with no subsidies. He pointed to the escalating costs of oil and other forms of energy and the "swingeing" increase in VAT and other indirect taxes, and said that rural communities would be hard hit by the measures.
Unless Mr Clarke gave a still needed for specific social Parliamentary Secretary for authorities will have to find the programmes, he warned.
firm undertaking that the Government and Conservative-controlled local authorities were prepared to underwrite transport services with subsidies, rural areas would become deserts.
Mr Clarke replied that there was scope for bringing new forms of transport services into rural areas. For instance the revised policy on traffic commissioners would make it easier for private operators to extend services into rural areas, he said.