'Examine State Transport'
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AN attempt to bring nationalized road transport and other State-owned industries within the ambit of the Monopolies and Mergers Bill failed, by 166 votes to [80, when the measure was debated in the ('ominons this week.
The attempt was made by Mr. W. R. van Straubenzee (Tory, Wolingham) who said he believed that in the private sector of road transport—bus services and the like—and in the nationalized sector, such as in London. we should have to be a deal more adventurous in introducing new methods of transport.
Mr. Straubenzee said: " The time will come when we shall look afresh at the licensing system, which was designed for an inter-war period in totally different conditions. The contrast which I draw is that, whereas the private firms are potentially subject to examination under the Rill the great nationalized undertakings, such as the London Transport Board, are not.
In sonic places transport was at crisis point, he continued. His constituency was not the only one where country bus services were closing down because, in part, of the restrictive licensing provision. But in London, whatever examination the State might wish to make of the problem, the bus services were outside the terms of the Bill because they were a nationalized undertaking and were expressly excluded the principal Act.
Resisting the new move, Mr. Douglas Jay, president of the Board of Trade, pointed out that Parliament had given control over nationalized industries to a Minister supplemented by consumers' councils and by the Select Committee on Nationalized Industries. It would be illogical and inefficient in administration and legislation to give power to another public body to intervene.