Half an Answer
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A STATEMENT made in the House of Commons last week by Mr. G. R. H. Nugent, Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of .Transport, cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged. He said that the erosion of rural transport facilities could not be arrested easily and would continue. What he did not say was that the problem had been created solely by fiscal policy and could be solved in the next Budget if the Chancellor of the Exchequer wished to do so.
It will continue just as long as road passenger transport operators have to pay a fantastic rate of fuel tax, and no amount of ingenious argument by Members of Parliament and Ministers will alter economic facts.
Mr. Nugent was good enough to defend bus operators, although, as the Administration that he represents must accept much of the responsibility for the deterioration of rural bus services, he could do no less. It is, however, a poor reflection on public relations in road passenger transport that Mr. Nugent should have had, in a Parliamentary debate, to disabuse a Member of the notion that "private bus undertakings will not operate unremunerative services." No Member should be in such ignorance of the facts of bus operation. As the Parliamentary Secretary pointed out, about half of rural services are unremunerative, but operators are not allowed to withdraw them at will. Traffic Commissioners judge each case on its merits and demand full cost figures before they will agree to the discontinuance of a non-paying service.
If the formalities of licensing were specially simplified for the benefit of taxi and hire-car operators who wished to run regular services at separate fares, the system of control might gradually be undermined and the existence of many essential bus services would be placed in danger. Operators who take the rough with the smooth are fully entitled to protection and there can be no short cuts in licensing. The system is, however, sympathetically administered and it need cause no undue difficulties for small operators.
Members of Parliament who feel strongly about the diminution of rural transport facilities have the remedy in their own hands. They must for ever urge the Government to reduce the tax on commercial-vehicle fuels. If finally they succeed, their grievance will be removed overnight.