King must decide tic
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This will involve using the consultancy and computer studies undertaken for Lloyds, for which the Government is paying it £500,000 in compensation.
Later Mr King revealed that the studies had already produced savings by enabling 12,000 soft of records to be reduced to three filing cabinets by transferring them to computer tapes.
The thumbs-down for privatisation guarantees the future for the 91 existing testing stations, much to the relief of the transport industry.
But the test fees, which have been held down during the negotiations, are now likely to rise.
Mr King acnowledged that the costs Lloyd's would incur entering a field where it had no exper.ience was one of the reasons
Foreshadowed: What CM said June 18.
why the plan had not worke out.
Although it is the first publ failure of the Government's pr vatisation policy, Mr King br lieves that the exercise has bee worthwhile.
"This decision shows the Gm ernment does not approac things in a totally doctrinair way if they don't make goo sense on their merits."
Although Mr King believes i the maxim "never say neve! there is clearly no intention c his part to hunt around fe another operator to take on E the testing stations.
Labour transport spokesma Bob Hughes said that the Opp{ sition had consistently warne that privatisation would pros more expensive.