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NEW AUTHORITY TO 'RE-INTEGRATE' NATIONALIZED TRANSPORT

4th March 1966, Page 48
4th March 1966
Page 48
Page 48, 4th March 1966 — NEW AUTHORITY TO 'RE-INTEGRATE' NATIONALIZED TRANSPORT
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

FROM OUR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

DLANS to build up the State transport

system into a powerful competitor for the nation's freight have been revealed by Mrs. Barbara Castle, the Minister of Transport. In a speech last Friday, Mrs. Castle announced the creation of a new National Freight Authority to administer the "reintegration" of the nationalized sectors of road and rail goods transport.

The idea of reconstituting the British Transport Commission has been rejected. But, as forecast by COMMERCIAL MOTOR, Mrs. Castle disclosed that the Labour Government has set its face against the Conservative 1962 Transport Act, and a new plan for the railways can be expected if the Socialists return to power after March 31.

Mrs. Castle told her audience in the Midlands that the basis of her new planning was the need to seize with both hands the exciting new technological developments in the handling of freight.

"Everyone knows", she said, "that a lot of the misery on our roads is caused by heavy freight traffic with unsuitable loads that would be far better carried by rail.

"It was the Tory Government which created these conditions when it gave the green light to cut-throat competition between road and rail haulage, broke up the co-ordinating machinery of the BTC and robbed the railways of the profitable traffic.

"Today, the development of containers and liner trains has made the co-ordination of road and rail freight traffic as technically feasible as it was socially necessary. We will only make the best use of them by planning road and rail freight as a whole."

The Minister went on to refer to the millions which would have to be invested in the ports. "When this had been done", she said, "we shall have the basis for a through flow of container traffic by road, rail, port and ship to the ends of the earth."

By appointing the National Freight Authority to bring together the State road and rail system, she was confident that, "we can build up an expanding freight service under public ownership which can compete effectively with private haulage, and help us to make fuller use of our railway services".

Mrs. Castle's plan is of extreme significance when it is viewed against the back ground of the Transport Holding Company's acquisitions in recent months.

But the basic problem of the success of competitive State transport remains where it always was—with the railways. During her speech, she said they had been butchered under Beeching.

"We have got to get away from the unworkable provisions of the Tory 1962 Transport Act", she said. "Under this, British Railways have been given impossible terms of reference.

"They have been instructed to pay theirway on narrow commercial principles ... and if the Beeching plan is carried through to the full we shall be left with only a skeleton system—yet they will still be running at a loss.

"The fact is that the narrow commercial approach to railways simply will not work. I have therefore decided that the time has come for a radical new railway policy."

First, she said, the country had to decide whether it wanted railways. Then the size and shape of the network had to be decided, and third we had to decide how to pay for it. She was now discussing all this urgently with the Railways Board.

Some people wanted to know why Labour was only just producing its national transport plan. The answer was that such a plan could not be produced in a vacuum. To make sense it must form part of a network of other plans. These included the national economic plan, urban renewal, new towns, regional development, and so on.

But already, she said, the main outlines of the transport plan were beginning to take shape. Private cars, for instance, must not be used to carry commuters in busy cities. All the conurbations needed the re-invigoration, extension and improvement of their public transport.

"This then, will be one of the key points of my national transport plan. I intend to set out systematically to strengthen and extend our public transport system, either directly where I have statutory responsibility—as in the case of the railways, nationalized road haulage and passenger services, and London Transport—or indirectly through regional councils and local authorities."

If the Labour Party wins the election, it will be on the lookout for a top-grade industrial planner and economist to head the National Freight Authority. He is not likely to be obviously in favour of either road or rail— and many of the present powers of the Railways Board could be invested in the new Authority by virtue of the Bill which the Socialists will put before Parliament to make Mrs. Castle's proposals work.


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