Janus comments

3rd May 1968, Page 94

3rd May 1968

Page 94

Page 94, 3rd May 1968 — Janus comments

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Almost a Confession

EVER SINCE the Government's proposals for freight transport were published hauliers and traders have insisted that quantity licensing is not merely wrong but also impracticable. This is self-evident to them as practical operators but they have had little success in persuading politicians of any party that it is true.

Conservatives, Liberals and even some Labour MPs have attacked quantity licensing for a number of reasons. They consider it unfair or likely to cause hardship or to lead to inefficiency. It seldom occurs to them that it simply will not work.

Obviously the point cannot easily be explained. Operators may refer to this, that or the other consequence if the Transport Bill is passed in its present form. Their objections can too easily be dismissed as hypothetical. The Government spokesman will reply that what is feared cannot possibly happen and that the Licensing Authorities and other officials can be trusted to make sensible decisions.

Last week the new Minister of Transport, Mr. Richard Marsh, and the Minister of State, Mr. Stephen Swingler, held two meetings with large gatherings of representatives of the Traders Road Transport Association and the Road Haulage Association. Even on occasions such as this operators found it difficult to pin the discussion down to the feasibility of the kind of system that will be created.

What Mr. Marsh had to say may be described as a counsel of imperfection. The careful listener could not completely avoid the impression that if Mr. Marsh had studied the Bill more carefully in advance he would have asked the Prime Minister for a different post.

Best of a bad job

Having been stuck with the Bill he was determined to make the best of a bad job. In the process he was prepared to instruct operators how to learn to live with the guillotine and how to learn to live with quantity licensing.

On the subject of the guillotine Mr. Marsh was a little ingenuous. He admitted that it was natural for operators to seek support from the parties in opposition but suggested that the representatives from those parties on the Standing Committee in the House of Commons had served the cause ill by playing politics and wasting time with the result that the main controversial issues in the Bill had not been properly discussed.

There is more than one answer to this. It was the Government and not the Opposition who imposed the guillotine and the size and scope of the Bill made this inevitable. In spite of a certain amount of idle chatter the main issues have not altogether been left out of the debate.

To suggest that this has happened almost amounts to a confession that some items could have been much improved if more time had been made available for them. Quantity licensing would come at the top of the list. On this subject Mr. Marsh, who had defended himself with ease against criticisms of other sections of the Bill, seemed less sure of his ground. Concessions had already been made by the Standing Committee. The onus of proof when a special authorization was sought was no longer to be on the applicant. The Licensing Authority would be able to give his decision without bias on the evidence before him. The criteria of speed, reliability and cost would be interpreted very broadly.

Other factors might be taken into account when the rival claims of road and rail were evenly balanced. The Licensing Authority might in those circumstances consider the disadvantage which refusal of the application would cause to the consignor or even to other traders who might be planning to use the services of the haulier on the return journey.

Although welcome, these changes are concerned with details. No hope was given of amendments which would completely alter the character of quantity licensing or even remove it from the Bill.

It was necessary, the Minister insisted, as a means of helping the railways. Vast sums of public money were being invested in them. Their modern freight services required a "fillip". In the initial period this would help to overcome the admitted prejudice against them.

Quantity licensing threat

One would have thought—with the words of Mr. S. C. Johnson, British Railways chairman, to support the impression —that the mere threat of quantity licensing had more than doubled whatever prejudice trade and industry may have had and that it would grow rather than diminish when quantity licensing began in earnest.

Even without this doubt no estimate has been made of the possible financial gain to the railways from quantity licensing as compared with the certain loss and disruption caused to hauliers and traders. If no more than a temporary stimulant is required to help the freightliner over its teething troubles a direct financial contribution for a definite period would have been preferable to the profound disturbance which quantity licensing will create in the road transport industry.

The argument is that with the passage of time the railways will become more efficient. To that extent their objections to applications by operators, whether for new licences or for renewals, will also become more effective. Ideally the Bill ought to aim at precisely the opposite result. With the revival of the railways their opportunities to do mischief to their road competitors ought to be curbed.

On other problems the Minister had no convincing answer. The railways must be helped; quantity licensing was the way to do it; if this meant fundamental changes in the operating methods of hauliers then these changes would have to be made.

Award of merit

Mr. Marsh did his best to suggest that the fears were groundless. He failed to appreciate the key part played by sub-contracting. To his mind a special authorization would be an award of merit which only the operator to whom it has been granted should be allowed to display. He could not pass it to somebody else who might not be worthy of it.

The logic is faultless. Once allow special authorizations to be bandied about and the whole system of quantity licensing collapses. One might suppose this to indicate something fundamentally wrong with the system. This the Minister could not accept. As a consequence he found himself weaving fantasies about operators seeking special authorizations for traffic which might or might not be sub-contracted to them in the , future and about other operators telephoning the Licensing Authority at all hours of the day and night.

The administration and paper work would multiply indefinitely. All kinds of anomalies and absurdities would arise. Even the operator whose special authorization had been granted automatically because no objections had been forthcoming would not be allowed to pass the traffic to an anauthorized colleague in case the railways or the National Freight Corporation had a mind to bring the latter before the Licensing Authority.

Operators who had formed themselves into groups might introduce additional complications. Presumably each would have to prove his case separately to carry whatever affected traffic any of the other members of the group might be offered. The unsuccessful applicants would be lame ducks; their more fortunate companions would find more traffic than ever coming their way; and whoever had the benefit it would not be the railways or the NFC. As a weapon in the hands of State-owned transport quantity licensing may prove completely useless.

The arbitrary distinction between the container carried to a port for transhipment and the container sent on a roll-on roll-off service shows up another anomaly in the Bill. It may prove equally ineffective. Traders who wish to use road transport for their export traffic will find no difficulty. The ferry services at least should find a welcome increase in custom but it is nowhere stated that this is one of the purposes of the Bill.