180 LIBERAL AMENDMENTS
Page 18
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TO TRANSPORT BILL by E FIRST STEPS to amend the Transport Bill have come from the rLiberals. Scarcely had the Second Reading ended before Mr. Peter Bessell and fellow Liberals presented 180 amendments, with a warning that there might be another 800 or so to come.
A shudder must have passed through those MPs who suspect they will be appointed to the committee to consider the Bill. The massive Tory onslaught is to come when the House reassembles.
The Liberals' intention, they say, is to show by their amendments the type of Transport Bill they would introduce if they were in power.
While it is their undisputed right to do so as an opposition party, the amendments most eagerly awaited are those of Mr. Peter Walker and Co., through which the trade and the interests most vitally concerned will seek to blunt Mrs. Castle's determination.
The Liberal attack falls on three fronts. First, they seek to scrap Passenger Transport Areas in favour of Passenger Transport Regions. Second, they try to remove what they call "the elements of nationalization" from the Bill. Third, they reshape the goods licensing proposals because "they deny freedom of choice to the user and will create a vast new army of Civil Servants and increase the overall cost of transporting goods".
To deal with PTAs the Liberals propose the designation of Passenger Transport Regions for Scotland, Wales, Greater London, Northern Ireland, and Cornwall plus those other regions already in being under current Government policy.
They want the Transport Minister to have nothing to do with the nomination of any members of the Authorities, or to have a say in the appointment of chairmen.
They do not favour the proposals which would give the Passenger Authorities powers to remove independent operators, and seek to eradicate the powers proposed for the Authorities to subsidize their losses from the rates.
The Liberals are also opposed to new transport authorities, however formed, indulging in such things as providing car parks and garages, selling petrol and spare parts, or manufacturing and repairs.
The National Freight Corporation, they say, should have its trading terms altered in important respects. In particular, the Liberals seek to amend the statutory duty to secure that, in the provision of properly integrated Services, "goods are carried by rail whenever such carriage is efficient and economic".
The Liberals want this part of the Bill carefully reworded so that it reads: "To secure that, in the provision of those services, goods are carried by rail if, in the opinion of the users, such carriage is the most efficient and the most economic."
And in the criteria for carrying this out, the Liberals add the word in italics to the following quote from the Bill: "To have due regard, as respects all those' transport and other services and facilities (provided by the Corporation), to efficiency, economy, speed and safety of operation."
The Liberals oppose the transfer of Freightliners to the Corporation, to the consequent Freightliner and freight sundries subsidiaries, and to the Freight Integration Council. They propose a new clause specifically making the Freightliners the continued responsibility of the Railways Board.
The purpose of their amendments seems to be to give the NFC no responsibility for running railway services.
On road goods licensing and taxation, the Liberals propose that quality licensing should, at the discretion of the Minister, not apply to owners, operators, or hirers of large goods vehicles within the development areas.
On quality licensing, they propose that it should apply to vehicles over 20cwt unladen (instead of 30cwt as proposed).
They seek to amend the criteria on which applicants for operators' licences shall be judged so that they exclude consideration of financial resources. They propose that these details shall only be required if the applicant is an individual trading on his own account, not being a limited liability company, and only if he has been trading for less than five years.
On the thorny problem of whether or not quantity licences shall be granted against opposition, the Liberals propose that the licensing authority shall be told to take proper account of the "entire cost of transportation, including such contiguous costs as may be properly apportioned and related to the transport cost".
On the bus grants, the Liberals want them paid on used buses as well as new ones, and for a final word, they want the increased bus fuel tax rebate to be paid from last Monday —i.e. January 1 1968 instead of January 1 1969.