Tories ask: Who chooses?
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MAKING his first appearance as the Tories' Shadow Transport Minister, Mr Norman Fowler said in the Commons transport debate that though the economic criterion was not the only one in transport, with the country facing its gravest financial crisis since the 1930s, economic consideration had to be paramount.
He wondered if it would remain the declared aim of the Government to make everyone less dependent on the car—if so, how could that be recon ciled with massive financial support for car makers such as British Leyland and Chrysler?
Mr Fowler said he did not like the term "integrated transport policy," nor support what he took to be the philosophy behind it—seeking to direct people to do things which, left to their own economic and personal judgment they would not do.
The real question was not whether there was to be co-ordination or integration of transport, but who was to do it. To put the choice at its broadest, was transport to be co-ordinated by the customer, with the consumer choosing freely between alternatives, or was it to be done by the State or by public authority invested with powers to impose its decisions by eliminating alternatives?
He believed that the crucial component in this debate was not the lobby for roads or the lobby for rail but the consumer, the traveller, the member of the public. His were the interests which were overriding.