Guillotine for Transport Bill
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HE Government acted this week to speed up the passage of the Transport Bill. In applying the guillotine, they have ensured that it will be out of committee by April 6-less than one month from now-and into the Lords before Easter, writes our Political Correspondent.
Last week-end, when the Government's intentions were made known, the committee was still haggling on Clause 14. With 77 clauses and 11 schedules still to go, the sub-committee which is working out the details of the remaining stages will have quite a headache.
The guillotine motion specifies that the Bill must be reported back on the floor of the Commons on or before April 6, and that the Report and Third Reading shall not take more than two days. It is virtually certain that the Lords will be around second reading stage by the time of the Easter recess at the end of April.
The only alternative to guillotining the Transport Bill would have been to drop it, Cabinet sources pointed out. Needless to say, with vesting date on next New Year's Day and a comfortable majority in the Commons, the Government is showing its teeth.
Air Cleared The decision has cleared the air considerably for the other transport measure -the Road Traffic Bill-which is waiting in the queue for a standing committee. This is now expected to follow the Transport Bill into the same committee, though if Mr. Macleod wants an earlier start, be can allocate it elsewhere.
The Government is hoping that the obviously sensible road safety aspects of the Road Traffic Bill will commend it sufficiently to ease its passage through committee. But Ministers are prepared for a fight and concur that a serious position could arise if dogged opposition comes from the Commons.
This is the second attempt at this measure, and as failure during this year would seriously embarrass the Government, the "chopper" may well descend again.
The Commercial Motor predicted in January that the Government might have to guillotine the Transport Bill. Before taking this extreme step, a speed-up effort was made by increasing the number of weekly sittings from two to three. However, it became plain that the Opposition were pushing their fight to the stage where the Bill was almost in danger of becoming moribund.