Tories attack PTA 'burden'
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MR. PETER WALKER, Conservative Shadow Minister of Transport, called the passenger transport proposals "an enormous extension of nationalization" using Whitehall controlled PTAs as the instruments of Mrs. Castle's policy.
He said: "Under the threat of the PTAs, through the Transport Holding Company, Mrs. Castle is endeavouring to nationalize the biggest single free-enterprise operator.
"Now by giving the PTAs the power to compulsorily take the best routes of the remaining private operators, she threatens all private operators with nationalization.
"Mrs. Castle endeavoured to suggest that this is only a small factor. In fact, even if Mrs. Castle succeeds in nationalizing the bus companies of BET, the remaining private bus operators carry in the course of a year more passengers than the whole of British Rail. All of these passengers can expect the usual steep fare increases that follow from nationalization."
Mr. Walker said the White Paper confirmed all the worst fears—a gigantic transfer of powers from local authorities to Whitehall, no compensation for municipal services taken over, and a heavy additional burden on the ratepayers.
"The Conservative Party will strongly oppose the additional burden on the ratepayers, the unnecessary addition through public ownership and the immense loss of power to the democratically elected local authorities", he said.
And he added that one would have hoped, with the rising railway deficit and the chaos on the railways, that even Mrs. Castle would have been embarrassed to have announced the creation of yet another new nationalized organization, the National Bus Company.
Washers compulsory
REGULATIONS making it compulsory for all vehicles to be fitted with windscreen washing systems will be made shortly. Mr. Neil Carmichael, Parliamentary Secretary, MoT, announced this in the Commons, pointing out that the draft regulations had been considered by interested organizations.