§ Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 71A.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That, for the purpose of any Act of the present Session to make provision for the regulation of traffic on roads, and of motor vehicles and otherwise with respect to roads and vehicles thereon, to make provision for the protection of third parties against risks arising out of the use of motor vehicles, and in connection with such protection to amend the Assurance Companies Act, 1909, and for other purposes connected with the matters aforesaid, it is expedient to authorise—
§ Mr. HERBERT MORRISONThis Motion is, I hope, of a non-contentious character as compared with the Instruction which the House has so kindly passed. I am sorry that, in view of the nature of the problem, it is not possible to he as precise as I should like to be as to the exact services and liabilities which are intended to be covered by the Money Resolution: It is intended to cover the whole cost of the organisation of the Traffic Commissioners and their staff, as, for example, the certifying officers and public service vehicle examiners, and the office establishment charges set up under the Act. The whole of that expenditure will, in reality, fall upon the Road Fund, but under Clause 1648 84 of the Bill the expenses are paid in the first instance out of money provided by Parliament, and they appear in the Vote of the Ministry of Transport, while under Clause 100 the expenditure is subsequently recovered from the Road Fund. As, however, the expenditure has to be made in the first place out of money provided by Parliament, the Financial Resolution is needed in order that the Committee may deal with the Bill. Parliamentary control of the expenditure involved is thereby secured.
In the same way, it is provided in Clause 101 that the fines and fees under the Act shall be paid in the first place into the Exchequer, and subsequently, by the application of Section 2 of the Roads Act, 1920, they will be paid from the Exchequer into the Road Fund. In view of the fact that fines and fees pass through the Exchequer to the Road Fund, however, reference has to be made to them in this Resolution. In the White Paper, the estimate of the total gross cost of Traffic Commissioners and their staff is put at £165,000 a year, but the White Paper points out that against this expenditure must be set the receipts from fees for the grant of licences, certificates of fitness, etc., and also that there will be a substantial saving to the local authorities in respect of the staffs at present engaged in the work of licensing the public service vehicles. I am sorry that it is not possible to give any estimate of the receipts from fees, etc., as the fees for public service vehicles' licences, certificates of fitness, and drivers' and conductors' licences have not been fixed. They will have to be fixed under the Bill, but there is no intention on my part to fix any of those charges higher than will be necessary to recover the expenditure involved in administering the new machinery. I cannot be sure that the receipts will meet the costs of that administration, but we have no intention of making a profit out of this new venture.
We have at present no information as to the size of the staffs of local authorities engaged in licensing public service vehicles, so here again, I am sorry that it is not possible to give an estimate of the savings to them, but the staffs must be considerable when one remembers that there are about 1,300 licensing 1649 authorities. I have now given the Committee the information which I think I ought to give. This Money Resolution covers not only the Traffic Commissioners themselves in their 12 areas, but the certifying officers, examining officers, and the ordinary staff for the clerical work of the new administration; and I hope the Committee will be so good as to give me the authority for which I ask.
§ Colonel ASHLEYI congratulate the Minister both upon the brevity of his remarks and the tactful way in which he has spoken for six or seven minutes and said nothing; but this is not a subject which ought to go through without discussion. An expenditure of no less than £165,000 of public money is involved. It is true that some of that expenditure will be saved in other directions, and that the gross additional expenditure of the nation will not amount to £165,000; but in this time of financial stress, when the trade of the country is bad and is worsening, when the figures of unemployment are increasing and when fresh taxation is promised us by a paternal Socialist Government, it is the duty of all hon. Members to scrutinise most carefully any extra expenditure which will be cast either upon the Road Fund—which comes out of the pockets of motorists—or upon the rates and taxes generally. I do not know whether I may take it from the cheers of hon. Members opposite that they agree with me, or whether they are cheering me on to continue my speech; but I am not raising this question from a party point of view, and I ask the House, seriously, to make certain that every possible economy is secured and that not an extra penny of public expenditure is imposed unless it is absolutely necessary.
What is the position at present with regard to the licensing of public service vehicles? The Minister has decided at long last, and after a considerable amount of discussion and uncertainty—which I can quite understand—that on the whole it will be better to sweep away altogether the jurisdiction of local authorities in the matter of licensing public service vehicles and to substitute a system of commissioners who will be semi-independent of the Government of the day and will decide each case on its merits without that local bias which local authorities inevitably have. When I was 1650 considering this question at the time of the preparation of my draft Road Traffic Bill, I rather shirked the issue, because the Bill was not going to be introduced at once; and, when the draft was sent out for discussion, I put out feelers in order to ascertain what were the views of local authorities, motoring organisations, and other people responsible, and to find out what they really wanted. Though there are about 1,300 local authorities who have the power to supervise and license public service vehicles, such as omnibuses and chars-a-banc, yet there are great tracts of the country which are absolutely under no such supervision at all, where people may run public service vehicles at any fares they like and in any condition they like, and where from time to time terrible accidents, involving loss of life and injury to limb, occur, simply because the local authorities in those areas have no power to control those who are running these vehicles.
When I sent out my draft Bill, I proposed that the system of local licensing should remain, but that the number of authorities should be reduced from 1,300 to about 350. Those 350 were to cover the whole of the country, instead of only from a half to two-thirds of the country being covered, as at present. I was not quite sure how the local authorities would take such a proposal, because there were some very considerable authorities among those who were not to have these powers. I left the counties and county boroughs, the urban areas of over 20,000 population and certain urban areas which already had powers as licensing authorities in possession of their powers; but the powers of a large number of urban areas were swept away altogether. Naturally, that is not very popular in a locality, however much the reform may make for efficiency, because local sentiment, always very strong, insists that whatever is done in Puddleton-in-the-Mud must be done better than it would be in Whitehall. I dare say that hon. Members, in speeches in their constituencies, have often played on that string and got cheers by denouncing the bureaucrats of Whitehall.
The scheme was circulated, and I am bound to say that the protests were not of a very serious character, and I think that, if I had had the pleasure and the 1651 honour of introducing the Bill which the present Minister has introduced, I should have come down on the same side as he has done. Whether that is so or not is immaterial, for I repeat what I said on the Second Reading, that I am in entire agreement with the proposal to sweep away, once and for all, all vestige of the system of licensing these public service vehicles through the local authorities in favour of this semi-independent body, with a paid chairman and with a staff, this impartial body which shall decide between Jones and Tompkins and shall also decide between Jones and Tompkins and the municipality of any county or any borough. I think that will be for the advantage of the country. I must say a word on the composition of these boards, and especially on the selection of the chairmen, because on that will depend to a great extent whether they are an improvement on the existing position of affairs or whether they are not. I do not suggest that it will be an easy task for the Minister to choose these commissioners. The choosing of the two commissioners on each board who will be in addition to the chairman will be fairly easy. The hon. Gentleman has adopted the ingenious method of having panels, from which he will choose the commissioners, one panel to be nominated by the counties and another by the urban areas in the districts.
I ought to have mentioned that England is to be divided into 10 areas and Scotland into two areas. I noticed at Question Time the other day that an hon. Member from Scotland was very much hurt to think that Scotland was divided into two areas only, appearing to regard that as a slight on the people north of the Tweed. But, after all, north of Stirling the amount of motor traffic is not so very large, and the towns are not so numerous that one board of three people will not suffice to deal with that area. The chairman in each of the 12 areas into which Great Britain is divided is to be chosen directly by the Minister, and the Minister, in consultation with the Treasury, is to fix his salary. I should like to know what salary is to be paid to these chairmen because on the tact and business qualities of the chairman will depend very largely the success of the experiment. I 1652 beg of the Minister whoever he may choose as chairman, not to choose a lawyer.
§ Mr. CHARLES DUNCANCome over here! [Interruption.]
§ Colonel ASHLEYWe cannot get on without them. Irishmen could not get on without them, because the only recreation of Irishmen, now that the British have left Ireland and they cannot harry them, is to go to law with their neighbours. But, in all seriousness, I do not think a lawyer is the sort of man to choose for chairman, because a lawyer is apt to take a legal view of these matters, to take a sort of pedantic view. We want for that position a broad-minded business man with a great deal of common sense, because he will have to decide where omnibuses shall run and how they shall run. I am sure we shall find that municipal and private enterprise will be ready to join together in order to expedite these matters. It would be an unwise thing to economise too much in regard to the salary to be paid to the chairman, because he will have to be a whole-time officer, and a good salary will have to be paid in order to get a capable and responsible man to take up the office. As to the other two commissioners, they are not of so much importance, but they will have the power of holding inquiries, and consequently they must be men of experience and impartiality. The Minister of Transport proposes to establish two panels from which to choose his commissioners. One of those panels will be nominated by the county boroughs, and the other will consist of representatives chosen from the county councils and district councils, so that all interests will be properly looked after.
When I say that there should be great economy in regard to the administration of this Measure, I mean economy in regard to the office staff, and the Minister of Transport should see that no undue expansion of the staff takes place. I know from experience how these things grow. A county council may start some small side issue involving the appointment of a new committee or some other new activity may be suggested. At first, one officer and a clerk may be appointed, but afterwards these things begin to grow, and perhaps in six months one clerk is not considered sufficient and two are appointed. Perhaps 1653 12 months after that, instead of these officers using public service vehicles, they find that they must have a motor car, and so the expenditure goes up. I want the hon. Member to keep his eye on these new officers, because I am sure, from my own experience, if he does not do that the cost will spring up by leaps and bounds. The estimate for the administration of this Measure is £165,000 gross, and that is not a small matter. It is quite true that there will be savings on the gross expenditure. There will be a saving of the money which has already been spent by the present licensing authorities, and that will amount to a substantial sum, probably £50,000. I am rather afraid that the total extra cost of the new innovation in regard to licences will not be less than £100,000. On this point, I am afraid the figures given by the Minister are rather sketchy.
I should also like to know what sort of salaries are to be paid to the certifying officers and to the public service vehicle examining officers and the office staff generally. I suppose these latter officers will come under Civil Service conditions according to their grade, but I should like to know what the extra cost is likely to be. I understand that these certifying officers are not going to be full-time officers, but that they will be officers who will be paid for each vehicle which they inspect. I think the public service vehicle examining officers should be full-time officers, because it is necessary for them to be on duty day and night to see that vehicles are in proper working order.
§ Mr. HERBERT MORRISONI am not certain whether the certifying officer will be a full-time officer or not, but I think he will be. The examining officers will pay occasional visitations, but it all depends how the Bill looks after it has been handled by Parliament.
§ Colonel ASHLEYI take a different view. I think that the certifying officer should be a part-time officer and that the examining officers should certainly be full-time officers. All the certifying officer has to do is to certify that the vehicle he examines is fit for the road. The public service vehicle examining officers have to make a periodical examination of public service vehicles and see that the specifications sent out by the 1654 Minister of Transport have been adhered to. They have to decide whether a vehicle is of a type that can be approved by the Minister of Transport. The examining officer should not only have power to visit garages and places where the vehicles are kept in order to examine them, but he should also have power to stop an omnibus in the street and examine it to see whether it is in proper order, whether the brakes and the tyres are in a safe condition, and generally to look after the safety of the passengers. Therefore, I would like to know whether the examining officers are to be part-time or whole-time officers.
What is intended with regard to the fees that should be paid to the certifying officer, and what will be the salary to be paid to the examining officer? The safety of the public largely depends on the activities of these two classes of officers. It is no good the Minister of Transport making ideal regulations for safety and giving orders unless he is backed up by these officers. I should like to be told that these officers will be properly remunerated and looked after, and that provision will be made for making proper reports to the Ministry, because I assume that they will be servants of the Ministry. I do not know whether the hopes of the Minister will be realised financially, and it must not be forgotten that the Road Fund is not a bottomless purse. I would like to know if the Minister is quite satisfied that he has enough money in the till to meet all these new commitments.
We have seen articles in the public Press followed by the word "communicated," and we know that the Minister of Transport, in collaboration with the Lord Privy Seal, is asking local authorities to push on with various schemes to provide more employment. All those schemes must prove to be a great strain on the resources of the Road Fund. I should like the Minister to inform the Committee if he is quite satisfied that there is enough money in the Road Fund to meet all the liabilities which are likely to arise under this Resolution. I support the principle of the Traffic Commissioners, and I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the course he has taken in regard to them. I hope he will keep an eye on the expenditure which will be incurred under this Resolution.
§ 6.0 p.m.
§ Colonel HOWARD-BURYI want to ask the Minister only one or two questions with regard to this Resolution. In a very few words he gave us the gist, and most plausibly put the whole ease, but I do not think that we ought to allow an expenditure of £165,000, small though it may appear in a Budget of £800,000,000, to go through without a certain amount of scrutiny. How often are not these Estimates that we get exceeded? It is very seldom. When a new service or a new office is started, we are told that it will cost £165,000, but before the end of the year we are faced with further Supplementary Estimates for £10,000, £15,000, £20,000 or £30,000. Here we are setting up a completely new organisation, and the Minister has been able to tell us very little indeed about what the receipts are likely to be. He has been asked what, for instance, he is going to get from the granting of licences or the issuing of certificates, and he told us that that had not yet been decided. How has he been able to anticipate exactly what the expenditure will be? He tells us that he hopes that a certain amount of money will be obtained, which will cover the extra expenditure, but, surely, his Ministry have already made up their minds roughly as to what amounts are going to be charged as fees for the examination of vehicles or for licences to drive from one area to another. Could he not give us a more definite reply to this question?
Then I do not like to see that there is to be what the Minister calls a small increase in the headquarter staff of the Ministry of Transport. Headquarter offices here in London, no matter what they are, are all on the increase to-day, and one would wish to see at the present time, when money is difficult to obtain anywhere, not an increase, but a decrease in these staffs, and I think that Parliament will have to watch very carefully the numbers of the headquarter staff of the Ministry of Transport to see that they are not unduly increased. Again, we are told that the money from the fines is to help to pay these extra expenses. I understand that it is to be paid into the Treasury, and that eventually it will go to the Road Fund. I can fully comprehend why there are such high penalties in the Bill—none 1656 lower than £20. The Minister of Transport, no doubt, intends to reimburse himself out of the unfortunate motorist who is to be run in. The speed traps have been done away with, and we might say that now it is a trap laid by the spider to catch the fly. Instead of the small penalties that used to be inflicted for exceeding the speed limit, we are now to have penalties of not less than £20 in order to enable the Minister to start his new establishment.
I fully agree with my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for New Forest and Christchurch (Colonel Ashley) that the full-time salaried officer who is to be appointed by the Minister should not be a lawyer, but that he should be a man of common sense. [Laughter.] I do not mean that in any derogatory sense; I mean that he should be a man with broad-minded views, and not one to take a narrow legal view—he should be a man, shall we say, accustomed to the world. I think that such a man would make a far better chairman than a mere legal officer. With regard to the public service vehicle examiners and certifying officers, I hope that they will be highly qualified technical engineers. They are going to have a very difficult job, and on their examination will depend the lives of a great many people, so that they should be highly paid and efficient men. That is going to add considerably to the cost of carrying out the provisions of the Bill.
Not only is a full-time salaried officer to be appointed, but the travelling expenses of the other two commissioners are to be paid, and office staffs will be needed for these commissioners. There are to be 12 of these new office staffs throughout the country. I quite agree that the staffs at present employed by the local authorities are to be done away with, but I hope that the Minister will watch carefully the growth of these office staffs to see that they do not become excessive. We are told in the Resolution that payment is to be made to traffic commissioners and other officers and servants of such salaries, remuneration and allowances as the Minister may determine. The Minister, of course, has very great powers, and this is just one little item in the great bureaucratic regime that is being set up—
§ Mr. HERBERT MORRISONWith the consent of the Treasury.
§ Colonel HOWARD-BURYWith the consent of the Treasury. I am glad to hear that the Treasury, and, therefore, the House of Commons, is to be able to look into this matter very fully. I hope that the Minister will look carefully into this matter of the increase of staffs, which are constantly growing, and will be very careful to see that too large staffs do not grow up in all these different offices throughout the country, and, more especially and above all, here in Whitehall.
§ Major SALMONI am rather pleased to have an opportunity of saying a few words with regard to the new functions and duties that are going to be placed upon the area commissioners. As a member of the Royal Commission on Transport, who have recommended many of the proposals in the Bill, I was rather pleased, as I am sure my colleagues were, to hear from all quarters of the House expressions of general satisfaction with these recommendations. One of the points that caused the Commission a great deal of thought was the question of dealing with co-ordination of traffic. I take second place to none in desiring to see administration run in the most economical manner that is possible, but I venture to say that the sum of money which we are asked to vote to-day is infinitesimal compared with the good that these commissioners can do. The setting up of the commissioners in the way that is proposed, and the resulting co-ordination, will be, I am quite sure, the means of accelerating traffic, which will be of enormous benefit to industry throughout the country. That is the object of setting up these area commissioners and doing away with the 1,300 existing licensing authorities, or even with 360 of them, as proposed in the original draft Bill.
The number of authorities at present is so large, and the difficulty of really controlling and co-ordinating traffic is so great, that it was felt that it would be much better to divide England into 10 parts and Scotland into two, so that it would be possible to take a bigger and broader outlook on traffic problems. I believe that the scheme which is before the House will prove to he of immense value to the country as a whole. With regard to the special duties of the commissioners, the Royal Commission recommended that the commissioners should be 1658 within their respective areas the sole authority for licensing public service vehicles constructed or adapted to carry a certain number of passengers, and that, in coming to a decision upon any applications, the commissioners should act judicially and shall have regard to the following considerations: the traffic needs of the whole area, the provision of adequate and efficient services throughout the area, the elimination of unnecessary services, the provision, where possible, of services on routes which themselves are unremunerative.
It is very important to bear in mind the new functions which these commissioners will have. They are going to take a much bigger and broader view of the whole traffic problem than the existing licensing authorities have taken in the past. Earlier this afternoon there was a discussion on the question of permitting local authorities which wanted to scrap tramcars in favour of omnibuses to go to the commissioners, in the same way that private owners could, for permission to run omnibuses. It is interesting to note the large number of local authorities who have scrapped their tramcars and at the present time are running trackless trolley vehicles—places like Chesterfield, Darlington, Doncaster, Wolverhampton, Ipswich, St. Helens, West Hartlepool and others. The idea of the future will be that any local authority that has had permission to run omnibuses, or trackless trolley vehicles, or tramcars, should have the right to go before the area commissioners. There was a time when I strongly objected to the idea of these local authorities having the right to apply to their own licensing authorities for permission to run omnibuses, because they were not, or might not be, as impartial as these area commissioners will be, and I think that from every point of view the setting up of area commissioners will be a great improvement on the existing system. I had hoped that we should hear from the Minister something in regard to London and the home counties. I would remind the Minister of the following observation which was made by the Royal Commission:
We do not wish it to be understood, however, that we are satisfied with the present condition of affairs in London. The London Traffic Act does not appear to have fulfilled altogether the intention of its authors. The division of authority between the Home Office, which is responsible for 1659 the police, who are the licensing authority, and the Ministry of Transport, which is charged with the duty of regulating and coordinating traffic, and is advised by the London Traffic Advisory Committee set up by the Act, introduces a needless and troublesome complication. We cannot help thinking that some such plan as we have suggested for the rest of the country should, mutatis mutandis, be applied to London.If it is good enough for the whole country to have a unified system of area commissioners, the same principle should apply to London, and I feel sure that the Minister will give careful consideration to the recommendation which the Royal Commission made in that respect. Remarks have been made this afternoon on the fact that a new authority is being set up, but I believe that, although that is bound to cost a certain amount of money, when that is balanced against the expenditure which is taking place to-day under 1,300 authorities, and of which we have no actual knowledge, a considerable saving will be shown when the expenditure is concentrated under 12 authorities. I hope that the Committee will pass this Resolution, so that the Bill may be considered in Committee upstairs, and so that we may have at no distant time a Bill that will really bring our traffic problem more up to date. I have much pleasure in supporting the Resolution.
§ Mr. SANDERSI should not have intervened but for the speech of the right hon. and gallant Member for the New Forest and Christchurch (Colonel Ashley). Before proceeding to make my comments, I should like to say that, as an old friend of the Minister of Transport, I am getting a little anxious about his future, because there constantly comes to my mind an old saying that we used to repeat very often from our platforms: "Beware when all men speak good of thee." This remark, made by an older man to a younger and promising leader of my party, will not, I think, be taken by my hon. Friend as being unduly out of place.
The point that I rose to make is this: I have always been anxious, as many of my friends have been, to break down the barrier that has always existed in this country between what may be called the working member of a profession and the mere academic member of a profession. One of the reasons why there is a drifting 1660 away from mechanical occupations into occupations where the pen is more used than other kinds of tools is that there is always a feeling that, if you once become a mechanic, you remain a mechanic and are barred from the higher sections of the particular occupation.
I want to ask the Minister not to take the view that the examining technical officers are to be highly technically trained skilled men in the sense of academic training. I want him to give at least encouragement to the working engineer by letting it be known that the man he wants for this job is not the man who can draft an interesting and convincing report, but the man who knows most about the machinery connected with transport from the practical point of view. As I know the engineering trade, not by personally working but by being acquainted with a large number of working men engineers, I am certain that from that type of man he could get the very best form of public servant, who will do, not for an excessively high salary but for a good wage, equally good if not better work than a man who has received most of his technical knowledge in the engineering college and not in the actual workshop. It is simply because I want to emphasise that aspect of the possibility of employment for the mechanic rather than for the professional engineer that I have intervened.
§ Mr. REMERThe hon. Member told the Minister to beware when all men spoke well of him. From the 11 years that I have been in the House of Commons, I take the same attitude towards Bills, and when I hear words of praise about a Bill my natural instinct is to express doubt as to what is in it. When I heard the present Minister and the late Minister, both on the Second Reading and on this Motion, saying that they were in favour of these Traffic Commissioners, I could not help thinking that there was a great point that must be raised in Committee which should be materially altered. I think my right hon. and gallant Friend gave the best argument against these Traffic Commissioners in the question he asked about a little Department growing into a large one. Unless we scrutinise these expenditures carefully, there is the greatest tendency for this very small amount of £160,000 to rise to a very much larger figure. I have seen many cases in which we have 1661 passed a very harmless Bill which was only going to cost a few pounds, and from those small beginnings we have seen a huge bureaucratic Department rise up. The Minister made one observation against which I must enter a protest. He told us that it was going to impose no cost on the Exchequer because of the large amount of fees that would be recovered from the Road Fund. It is a growing practice for Ministers to tell the House that, because they get the money from the Road Fund, that in itself is not an expenditure.
§ Mr. HERBERT MORRISONPerhaps I can save the hon. Member time. I assure him I would not be guilty of such infamous doctrine as to say anything of the kind. Certainly, it is my duty to tell the Committee where I shall get the money from, but the liability to be exceedingly careful with any money, wherever it comes from, remains upon me, and I said nothing indicating the contrary.
§ Mr. REMERI am sorry if I misunderstood the hon. Gentleman. I will put it in a different way. There is a growing tendency to hide the expenditure from the ordinary purview of the House into the Road Fund, the Unemployment Insurance Fund, Widows' and Old Age Pensions and a number of others, and the House has not the power of scrutinising these expenditures as it ought to be done. I have received a large number of protests and, while I am prepared to admit that the 13,000 local authorities who are licensing authorities are too many, it is wrong that they should be divided in this way and that a number of bureaucratic officials should dictate to them exactly what the traffic is going to be in their areas. It is necessary that there should be expenditure to provide for the safety and examination of vehicles, but I do not think this should be dealt with nationally. I believe the local influence should remain and, for that reason, I think this expenditure is very largely out of place and should not be tolerated. Reference has been made to the specification of vehicles. There is a very great danger, because some years ago the Ministry of Transport wanted to put forward a scheme under which all vehicles should be standardised to a specification which was to be the same all over the country.
§ Mr. REMERThat is the very point, because by a side wind we may give this vague objectionable power to these commissioners, not by an Act of Parliament, but by a Financial Resolution. By giving these people their salaries we may be getting a very dangerous point into the Act. The Minister said one thing that I did not understand. He mentioned fines. Will he explain what they are? Are we to understand that fines paid by motorists are to go into the Road Fund, or is this some other kind of fines? If the procedure is that fines on motorists are to go into the Road Fund and to be used for this purpose, that is a very complete alteration of anything that has happened before, when fines have been paid at police courts. I believe this Resolution wants to be examined in the greatest detail. In these days £160,000 is regarded as a small sum compared with the large amounts that are voted almost daily, but we should view even the smallest sums with the closest scrutiny, and this £160,000 means that either this year or next year the Minister will be coming forward with a large Estimate. I hope the Committee will scrutinise the Vote with the greatest care in order to see that the power of the House of Commons is kept over the public purse.
Dr. VERNON DAVIESThe interesting Financial Memorandum that the Minister has presented says:
It is difficult to frame any close estimate of the expenditure which will be incurred in respect of the Traffic Commissioners and their staffs, but it is estimated that the gross expenditure should not exceed £165,000 a year.It would be very interesting to know upon what basis the Minister has formed this estimate. Is it simply a rough guess—a toss up? "We might as well say £165,000 as £500,000. One may be as near as the other." Another Minister to-day gave an estimate that was pure guesswork. I wonder if the Minister of Transport has had a more or less lucky guess as to what this amount will be. The House of Commons seems to be taken less and less into the confidence of the Government when dealing with financial matters. They seem to think that all they have to do is to put some sum on paper and say, "We think it may be this; we cannot guess very closely," and 1663 they expect the House of Commons to swallow that and pass it. That is very-wrong. It is not treating the House of Commons as a financial safeguard with sufficient respect. Ministers and their Departments should pay very much closer attention to these financial propositions, and, when they ask the taxpayer to provide them with money, they should be able to budget very much more closely than they do. In the next paragraph of the Memorandum there is a saving Clause:As against this expenditure may be set the receipts from such fees for the grant of licenses and the issue of certificates of fitness as may be prescribed by the Minister.I am not quite sure about these certificates of fitness. As I understand the Memorandum, they refer absolutely to the condition of the vehicle.
§ Mr. HERBERT MORRISONAt the moment, we are not dealing with certificates of fitness, but with certifying officers. I should not be in order in dealing with that matter now. It must be dealt with in Committee on the Bill.
Dr. DAVIESI understood that we were discussing the Money Resolution of the Road Traffic Bill, and we have a Memorandum here in regard to the expenditure which is likely to be incurred. In the last paragraph of this Memorandum the Minister has a set-off against this expenditure. I submit with all respect that this is a very vital part in the finance of the Bill. Although he guesses that £165,000 will be required for additional expenditure, he sets a credit against that of
receipts from such fees for the grant of licences and the issue of certificates of fitness.I maintain, with all respect, that I am entitled to ask to what these certificates of fitness refer?
§ Mr. HERBERT MORRISONI beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. I thought that he was raising the general conditions of issuing certificates of fitness. If it is purely a question of fees, that is another matter. The Act provides for the appointment of certifying officers to certify that a vehicle is fit to be a public service vehicle on the road, and that when certified to that effect the certifying becomes a main charge.
Dr. DAVIESThat is what I understood from the Memorandum. The Minister may be able to estimate with a certain amount of success the number of certificates which may be granted and the fees which may be charged. I would like to ask him a question—I do not know whether it is in order or not—with regard to the applications for licences. Are fees to be charged for these licences? I understand from the Financial Memorandum that this is so. But on the application for a licence which is to be made by declaration in the prescribed form
as to whether or not he is suffering from any such diseases or physical disability"—
Dr. DAVIESThe question I wanted to ask is, would the applicant for a licence have to pay any fee for the licence, and if it proved, in answer to the questions on the declaratory form, that he had to be medically examined, and the fee had to be paid for examination, would the fee be paid by the applicant or by the licensing office? The question might easily arise that when a man was given this declaratory form to sign as to whether he had this, that or the other disease, he might say, "I do not know," and they might say, "Very well, in that case we shall require you to be medically examined."
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI am afraid that we cannot go into details. We are discussing a Money Resolution to provide payments in respect of certain officers, and the hon. Member must keep to that subject.
Dr. DAVIESI do not wish to controvert your Ruling, Mr. Dunnico, for a moment. I am simply asking for information as to whether any fees are likely to be included which may be obtained from a medical examination of applicants for licences. The Minister does not at present seem inclined to answer the question. Perhaps he has not considered that point. [Interruption.] An hon. Member says that it can be done by negotiation. He is more optimistic than I am. I would point out that these guesses on the part of the Minister might be very wide of the mark. These certificates of fitness for which a fee is to be charged an to show that a public licensed 1665 vehicle is fit for travel. How often is a vehicle going to be examined? This is a very vital point. If it is examined only once a year, the fees for certificates will not be so many. If an examination took place every week, you might get a very satisfactory revenue from the examination of these licensed vehicles. There is one thing which every motorist knows, and that is that you can only trust a car or a private vehicle from day to day. It should be examined every day before being taken out. A licensed vehicle may be examined to-day and be in perfect order, but after a run of 50, 100 or 200 miles something may go wrong with the brakes. The vehicle should be examined again to-morrow. To ensure that public vehicles are in thoroughly good order they should be examined before every trip.
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThe hon. Member cannot go into details of that kind. He must keep solely to the Money Resolution, which is to provide money for a particular purpose.
§ Captain CROOKSHANKSurely on that point it is open to my hon. Friend to try to establish that there are certain duties being cast upon the Minister in this Bill which are not covered by the Money Resolution. That is what I understand he is trying to put before the Committee.
Dr. DAVIESI was pointing out that it is estimated that the sum should not exceed £165,000 a year, and I desired to know whether the Minister has any justification for such an estimate. He might just as well say that it is estimated that the gross expenditure should not exceed X pounds. It would be just as true. I think that the Committee are entitled to information as to the basis upon which he has formed this estimate, so that we may be able to discuss the matter and, if necessary, criticise him as to whether he is allowing sufficient money for this purpose. We must not forget that in this Money Resolution we are dealing with the money of the taxpayers. On every hand we hear of the increasing cost of services and higher taxation, and we are sent here to see that the business of this country is carried on with a due regard to economy. Personally, I have no confidence at all 1666 in the economy of the present Government, and as a member of the Opposition I think that it is doubly my duty to see that no Minister comes to this House with an unsatisfactory estimate and without any details to enable us to form a conclusion. The right hon. Gentleman should not be allowed to get away with this £165,000 simply because he says that it is difficult to frame any close estimate of the expenditure. That is not treating the House of Commons with respect and this country with fairness and justice. Perhaps the Minister will not mind, after the many encomiums he has had from all parts of the House on the ability which he showed in presenting this Bill, if I make a remark in the other direction and say that much as he deserves praise for the way in which he introduced the Bill, he deserves censure and condemnation for the loose manner in which he has prepared this Money Resolution.
§ Captain Sir WILLIAM BRASSI would like to ask the Minister a few questions. I notice that in the Memorandum relating to the Money Resolution the amount of expenditure is not to exceed £165,000. I would like to know whether that £165,000 is the net amount or the gross amount?
§ Mr. HERBERT MORRISONThe gross amount.
§ Sir W. BRASSWe see a little later on that the receipts from fees for the grant of licences and the issue of certificates of fitness are going to the Road Fund. We also see that considerable saving will accrue to the local authorities. Can the Minister of Transport give us any idea as to how much will be saved to the local authorities, and whether the amount which will be saved to the local authorities is to be deducted from the £165,000 or not? Can he give an estimate as to the amount of money which he will receive for the granting of licences? Do I understand that the granting of licences will be at a nominal fee of, say, five shillings or will it be the full amount which the licensee will have to pay for his licence? There is the question of the certificate of fitness. I suppose that a fee will be charged for that certificate. Has the hon. Gentleman yet fixed in his mind what fee is to be charged for that certificate?
1667 On the question of the inspectors, or the certifying officers as they are called, I imagine that the amount of money which will be expended on fees to these gentlemen will depend very largely upon the amount of work which they have to do. What are these officers expected to do? When they are certifying these vehicles are they, for instance, going to look into the question as to whether the steering-gear of the vehicles is in order? I understand that the motor omnibuses in London—I think that the Minister will probably bear me out in this—have the steering-arm clear of paint, so that any-body can see whether the steering-arm has any fracture in it. I have been wondering whether, after the certifying officers start work, all public vehicles which carry passengers about the country must have the steering-arms clear of paint so that these officers may be able to see whether there are any cracks in them.
There is the question of brakes. It is a very important question, indeed, and I do not think that anybody can stress that point too much. It affects the safety of the public probably more than anything else. I know that they are very strict about the brakes in London in regard to the certifying of taxi-cabs before they are allowed to go on to the road. I think that it is most important that these certifying officers should go into all these questions. I would like the Minister to tell me a little later on whether such are the things into which the certifying officers are to inquire. How often are the certifying officers to inspect these vehicles? This will also make a great difference as to the amount of money which will have to be expended in paying these gentlemen for their services. I see in the Bill that these certificates of fitness are to last for five years. That does not mean, I imagine, that the officers will only visit these vehicles at the end of five-year periods. I imagine that they will inspect these vehicles more often than that. I think that we should know from the Minister how often these inspectors are going to see the vehicles. From whom is the Minister going to draw these inspectors? Must these inspectors go through any sort of examination, or is it intended to go to the Institute of Automobile Engineers in order to find 1668 these inspectors, or does the Minister expect to find them locally? What fees are they to receive?
It is very important, if you are to have a proper inspection of a vehicle, that you should have men who really are fully qualified for the particular job. It is important that these officers should really be qualified mechanical engineers; otherwise we may merely have a large number of inspectors going round the country looking for defects in various vehicles, and not really being capable of saying whether there is any really permanent defect or not. I notice that Clause 65, Sub-section (5), provides that:
Where the Minister is satisfied in respect of one vehicle of a particular type that the prescribed conditions as to fitness are fulfilled"—
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI cannot allow a general discussion upon details of this kind. This is a Money Resolution to pay the salaries of certifying officers, etc., and it is not in order to go into the details of their duties. The Committee has to decide upon the broad, general principle as to whether the money shall be provided or not for these officers.
Earl WINTERTONOn that point, Mr. Deputy-Chairman. When we are discussing a Financial Resolution dealing with the payment to be made to a certain body of officials, are we not entitled, within limits, to inquire the nature of the duties, otherwise, it is impossible for the Committee to decide whether the salaries should be voted. Whilst I respectfully agree with you that it is not competent to go broadly into the whole of the duties, I submit that it is competent for an hon. Member to inquire, generally, as to what are the duties of these officials.
§ Sir W. BRASSThat is precisely what I was trying to do.
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThe hon. and gallant Member must obey the Chair. I tried to explain that within reasonable limits it is proper to discuss the duties of these officers who are to be appointed, but it is impossible to go into the details of those duties, especially the type of vehicle they are going to examine.
§ Sir W. BRASSI was reading the Subsection for a specific purpose. It was this. I wanted to know the sort of man to be appointed in order to get some idea of the salaries it was expected to pay, and I was reading the Clause because it says that when a vehicle as a type vehicle has been approved then other vehicles of the same type will be approved. What I really wanted to know was whether these inspectors are to be such competent and capable persons, drawing such big salaries, that they will be able to lay down specifications which will have to be adhered to in the production of certain kinds of vehicles. That is the point, and maybe, Mr. Deputy-Chairman, you did not realise it at first. I am sorry that I was out of order. Have these inspectors, as part of their duties, to lay down specifications as to the sort of vehicles which will be allowed under this Bill? If that is so the amount of salaries you will have to pay will be considerably higher than if they were just ordinary inspectors going round to see whether brakes and such things were in order. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give me an answer.
§ Colonel CLIFTON BROWNA day or two ago when I asked the Minister of Transport whether he thought the Chairman of these commissioners should possess local knowledge, he, quite rightly I think, said that it was essential. Then I asked him a supplementary question as to whether it was proposed to ear-mark these full-time appointments as civil servants, and he said that that point had not been decided. It seems to me that this is a most suitable opportunity for raising the question. While it would be very nice to have the chairman and these commissioners all civil servants, administering each area according to a set of rules, I doubt whether it would suit the country as a whole. The duties of the chairman are not hard and fast. He must be a man of tact, capable of dealing with people and of acting impartially. He will have to decide on the omnibuses which shall be run. A mere civil servant appointed from London would not be a suitable appointment as chairman of these areas. I gather from the right hon. Gentleman's reply that this matter has not been decided and I hope he will see that these appointments are not confined to the Civil Service but that other 1670 people will have full consideration. These Traffic commissioners ought not to become part of our bureaucratic system. That is not the kind of control which this country desires.
§ Captain CROOKSHANKMay I congratulate the Minister of Transport on having taken this Money Resolution at a reasonable hour; an almost unique experience so far as Bills are concerned this Session. There are one or two points on which I want a word of explanation. When Bills come from another place a number of paragraphs are underlined showing that they raise a question of Privilege. The Financial Memorandum says that only Part IV of the Bill makes any direct charge on public funds but, on the other hand, there are underlined passages in other parts of the Bill which make it a little difficult for those who want to follow the financial implications of the Measure. The Memorandum refers only to Part IV as containing the financial provisions, but other parts of the Bill have been underlined by another place. We have underlined passages in Clauses 51, 53 and 54. Part I of the Bill, it is said, does not raise any financial question at all, but Sub-section (1) of Clause 4 deals with the question of the licensing of drivers. That means that a licensing fee, presumably, is going to be collected. Indeed, the Clause says so; and I presume that the receipts from such licenses will be set-off against the £165,000 expenditure mentioned in the Financial Resolution. I am not quite certain whether it covers the fees referred to in Clause 4. Clauses 100, 101 and 102, are practically all underlined. Sub-section (1) of Clause 100 refers to:
Such part of the expenses incurred by and in connection with the Roads Department of the Ministry of Transport.In my submission this Clause ought to have been covered by the Financial Memorandum and possibly should come under the Financial Resolution, because the Financial Resolution—and this is my difficulty—definitely refers to the salaries and remuneration of these officers to be appointed by the Minister. I am wondering whether there is not an error here, and that the Minister will find that there are other parts of the Bill where some kind of expenditure is involved. The words of Clause 100 seem definitely to deal with that point: 1671Such part of the expenses incurred by and in connection with the Roads Department of the Ministry of Transport, including the salaries of the staff of that Department.That refers to payments out of the Road Fund, a fund with which this House has had a great deal to do. It is not a matter which we should leave entirely out of our control. The Financial Resolution also refers to the employment of police officers as public service vehicle examiners; and it seems to me that this is a matter which requires some explanation. Does it mean that an extra duty is going to be put on the police without any special remuneration, or is the right hon. Gentleman going to pay the police as a result of this Bill? Are they to be specially selected for this purpose, or are they to do it as one of the many duties cast upon them. If he is to add to the salaries of certain police officers and pay them out of the proceeds of the licensing fees he is going to make a privileged class, but, on the other hand, if they are merely to do this kind of duty and no other police work it would be much better to transfer them from the police force and make them the officers of the Department altogether. The Financial Memorandum also refers to the three traffic commissioners to be appointed in each area. It is rather misleading when it says:There will be three traffic commissioners in each area one of whom will be a full-time salaried officer appointed by the Minister and will act as chairman.When I first read it I took it that only one of the three was to be a paid official, but on going into the Bill I gather that they are all to be paid, and that this is put in to show that the chairman is to be appointed by the Minister. Again, I am not quite sure that the Financial Resolution is sufficiently widely drawn. Provided that they do their duty they will have to come under some superannuation scheme and possibly retired pay. I should like the Minister to tell me whether this form of words would in actual practice cover superannuation and retired pay; whether it is intended that they should be civil servants in that sense. If so, I really cannot see why they should be and I am doubtful whether the words:salaries, remuneration, establishment charges or other expenses1672 in the Financial Resolution do cover superannuation and retired pay. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be good enough to explain it. Obviously, it will make a great difference to the class and capacity of the officers appointed for these services if they are to be put on a basis of superannuation and retired pay, and are merely to be used for a comparatively short period of years at a very high salary annually, or if they are to be like the rest of the Civil Service and eligible for retired pay and paid at a considerably less annual salary in view of this provision for the future.7.0 p.m.
There is another point upon which I think we ought to have a, little more explanation before we pass this Resolution, which involves a considerable sum of money. As the hon. Member for Royton (Dr. Davies) pointed out, this is sheer guesswork, and the Minister will be the first to admit it. We cannot foresee even the gross expenditure, but the Minister might tell us what sort of fees he has in view. In the last paragraph of this Memorandum:
As against this expenditure may be set the receipts from such fees for the grant of licences and the issue of certificates of fitness. … These fees will be paid into the Road Fund.It is very important to know what kind of fees are being thought of. Does the Minister mean 5s. or thereabouts, or, when it comes to licensing public vehicles, is it to be a matter of £5 or £10? When one sees some of the enormous juggernauts which desecrate the country roads, one feels like making it a fess of £100, and then they would be getting off lightly! The higher the fees the less that £165,000 will be a burden on the ratepayers. There is nothing, so far as I have been able to master the Bill, to indicate what these fees are to be. We ought to know, not only in the interests of the taxpayers who are most concerned in regard to this Resolution, but in the interests of the traders who use these heavy vehicles. I hope before we leave these points the Minister will clear them up, and let us know whether what he really has in mind is something quite small but sufficient to give him a measure of control over the nature of these vehicles, their safety appliances, and so forth, and whether he really means to try to get 1673 some money out of them commensurate with the kind of damage that they do to the roads. Of course, they do get a certain amount through the ordinary licence which corresponds to the damage done, but if you are going to give to any kind of vehicle the imprimatur of the Ministry that would be worth something to the vehicle.
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANIt is quite obvious that we cannot go on discussing matters like this, or we shall find ourselves discussing the kind of roads along which vehicles are to travel. I must ask the hon. and gallant Member to keep within reasonable limits or I shall have to be much more rigid in my Ruling.
§ Captain CROOKSHANKI am very sorry. I had no intention of going outside your Ruling. I was trying to point out to the Minister that it would be of value, in judging the finances of the Measure which has passed its Second Reading, to know what kind of fees he has in mind—whether he means a sum like 5s., or £5 or £20. These are the only points which I wish to make. It is important as a set off to the gross expenditure of £165,000. Without going into further details, I want to ask him these three questions: Firstly, is he quite satisfied that by putting in the limiting words in paragraph (a) of the Money Resolution, he is really covering every conceivable expenditure which might arise from the Bill, because nothing would be more unfortunate than for him to have to come back and have the Bill recommitted? He will have quite enough of discussion as it is without that. Secondly, can he tell us what sort of fees he had in mind which are going to be brought into the account as against this expenditure of £165,000? Thirdly, what kind of officers has he in mind when dealing with the Traffic Commissioners? Has he in mind asking persons to serve for a comparatively short period, at comparatively high salaries, or does he intend to set up, as it were, a definite branch of the Civil Service carrying with it superannuation and retired pay? If the Minister will answer those questions satisfactorily, I think I shall see my way to support it.
§ Mr. TURTONI am rather incredulous about the need for this large amount of £165,000, which I understand will all go 1674 into increases in the staff of officials. There are 12 traffic areas and that is allowing over £13,000 for each area. The Minister mentioned a small increase in the staff of Whitehall. What does he mean by a small increase? If he can give us some figure showing what will be the increase in the headquarters staff at Whitehall, it will give us a better idea of what is to be the expense to the country. I think it is deplorable that we should not know more about the Traffic Commissioners than has been vouchsafed by the Minister. He has not yet told us whether the Chairman is to be an official appointed by the Ministry or a local man. It is of immense importance to us because of the difference in the salary. You will get a local man at a much lower salary than an official who has been promoted from Whitehall. Will the Minister also tell us what will be the salary granted to the other two commissioners? Will he attempt to get men to undertake this work voluntarily for a year? I believe he would find as many public-spirited men to take up voluntary work as you get at present on the county councils, and he could thus make a great saving in this direction. Lastly, what is the saving he expects will accrue to local authorities in respect of traffic staff at present engaged? That is a most material part of the Financial Resolution. It may be that the saving to local authorities will be able to set off the cost of the new increase in the official stuff. If that is so, he will, at any rate, win my approval and the approval of my constituents in Yorkshire, but, if he is setting out to increase this staff of officials, we must make a protest. I represent an agricultural constituency which is suffering from grave depression. We cannot stand a large horde of traffic officials being put upon us by the Ministry of Transport. I wish to make a most definite protest against anything of that kind.
§ Mr. HERBERT MORRISONThere has been a very considerable and somewhat detailed discussion as to the provisions in this Financial Resolution, and I should imagine that every conceivable point has by now been raised in connection with the matter. I am very much obliged to the Committee for the friendly way in which they have received this request, and I hope very much, after the explanations which I will now give, 1675 the Committee will give us the Committee stage of the Resolution.
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the New Forest (Colonel Ashley) quite rightly points out that £165,000 is a very considerable sum, but he supports Part IV of the Bill. I can see that it does not of necessity frighten him as long as he is satisfied that whatever money is spent will be spent with care and with reasonable restraint. Certainly, I agree that the Committee is perfectly entitled to examine a proposal for the expenditure of £165,000, but it should take into account that this does replace local expenditure to some extent and will reflect a saving to the ratepayers, and that there will be a certain income from licensing and so on. But what is more important is to take into account the large measure of co-ordination of traffic which will be secured and the amount of elimination of waste which will be effected. I am perfectly certain, as the hon. and gallant Member for Harrow (Major Salmon) said, that the money will come back many times, but that does not eliminate the point that it is exceedingly desirable that the money should be spent with care. I can assure the House that there is no intention of spending money for the sake of spending and that every penny will be watched and no appointments will be made until they are established to be necessary. Certainly, we shall be careful in the first stages, so that we may get a machine which is efficient for its purpose, but which is not needlessly expensive and not wasteful.
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman asked me what figure I had in mind as to the salary of the chairman of the commissioners. Frankly, I have not yet reached that stage. It would be profoundly unwise for me to mention a figure at this moment or even to come to a tentative conclusion. We have to get the Money Resolution through before the Clauses can be dealt with, and therefore we must put before the House the nearest estimate that we can get, but in fact we do not know of a certainty what duties will be imposed on the commissioners or what their responsibilities will be, and, until we are certain about that, it would be premature even to mention in the 1676 House the salaries which are to be paid. I entirely agree with the late Minister that salaries should be adequate to command the right type of service. There is no point in paying salaries which will bring us third-rate or fourth-rate men, because we must have efficiency and fairness in this service, and the people who are concerned must be entirely above any temptation which could arise in the granting or refusal of licences. I should like to say how much we all appreciate the great services which the local authorities have rendered in licensing in the past. Although we are going to form a new organisation, that does not prevent us realising the great work which the local authorities have done.
With regard to the office staffs, I will keep in mind the right hon. Gentleman's warning against needless expansion in the first stage, and he may rest assured that I shall require to be satisfied that appointments are necessary, and I think he will agree that the Department itself is reasonably strict with itself as to expenditure. I undertake also, as Minister, to restrict myself and to be firm in supervising all matters in which we are concerned. I should not like to accept the figure of £100,000 as the net increased expenditure to the nation. I think that figure might be excessive, but even if there happens to be a net increase, that net increase will, I think, come back through the economies in transport that will be effected.
A question was raised by the right hon. Gentleman as to whether the certifying and examining officers will be officers of the commissioners or of the Minister. The appointments will be controlled by the Ministry, but it is not yet certain whether these officers will work under the immediate jurisdiction of the commissioners or of the Ministry. It is obvious that they must be in close contact with the commissioners, because their duties will interlock to a great extent. That is a matter of detail which will require to be settled, and it would be premature to settle it at this stage before we know what the duties of the commissioners are going to be so far as the Statute is concerned. The hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford (Colonel Howard-Bury) asked how I estimated the expenditure. In these matters we must do our best, and we cannot do more. We 1677 were bound to submit a Financial Resolution, but we are not yet clear as to the exact position. We admit that it is to some extent guess work. We have taken the 12 areas, and we know that there will be a full time commissioner, with other commissioners, that there must be one or more certifying officers and examining officers, and members of the clerical staff for the commissioners. Adding the whole together, we have arrived at the rough figure of £165,000. That is not entirely a blind figure, but I would not say that it is a scientific figure. At a later stage, when we know how we stand with the legislation, we may be able to get a nearer figure.
§ Viscount WOLMERWill the Minister tell us why he is not clear as to the precise function of the commissioners.
§ Mr. MORRISONThat is very easy to answer, because the Bill has not yet been passed.
§ Viscount WOLMERThe Financial Resolution is based on the Bill as it is drafted and presented. Surely, the hon. Member must give us a precise estimate in that respect.
§ Mr. MORRISONIt is impossible to give a precise estimate, because the Bill is not passed and at this stage we cannot work out a complete administrative scheme. We cannot get the precise figures unless we work out a complete administrative scheme. The House would censure me if I set the officers of my Department, who are busily engaged and wanted for other work, to work out a big administrative scheme which, when the Bill has gone through Committee, may be knocked to pieces by the Amendment of the Bill in Committee. The Noble Lord as a believer in businesslike administration in State Departments would not forgive me if I did any such thing. With regard to the headquarters staff, I do not think there will be much increase. There must be a certain technical staff to deal with the proposals which are made as to type vehicles, but the main increase of staff will be in the areas of the 12 commissioners, and the staff who are associated with the commissioners, including the certifying officers and the examining officers.
§ Colonel HOWARD-BURYCan the hon. Gentleman say whether he will have to set up a completely new branch in the Ministry of Transport to carry out the new duties imposed by the Road Traffic Bill?
§ Mr. MORRISONThat is not yet decided but I should not think so. I would not, however, like to commit myself finally. I am inclined to think that the appropriate existing Department suitably adjusted which deals with that work will be able to continue to deal with it at the Ministry of Transport. In regard to the point which was put to me as to fines being paid into the Road Fund, that has been the case since 1920. All the fines imposed have been paid into the Road Fund. Previously, they were paid into the Police Fund, which went to the relief of the local ratepayers. It was alleged—I will not say that it was true—in certain motoring quarters that when a local authority was getting short of cash and in danger of having to go to the bank for an overdraft, they organised police traps in order to bring in more revenue. That was the reason why the payment of the fines was transferred to the Road Fund.
§ Colonel HOWARD-BURYHas not the Ministry of Transport increased their fines in order to pay for this supplementary expenditure?
§ Mr. MORRISONWe have had no such evil thought in our minds. Certainly that is an idea but I do not propose to consider it as it is contrary to the well-established morality of the Ministry of Transport, a fact to which the right hon. Gentleman the late Minister of Transport can testify. In regard to the technical officers, two points were raised. Again, it must depend upon the duties of the officers what salaries we shall pay. In so far as certifying officers must perform very responsible technical duties, they must be technically qualified for the work in order that they may do it full well. In these matters there is no point in having half-qualified people, because you may waste your money, and, further, we might easily get into the Law Courts if one of these certifying officers were to make too many mistakes. In connection with the examining officers it may well be that intelligent skilled engineers who have had experience in the motoring world and can write a report of reasonable clarity 1679 that can be understood, might be considered for these positions. Both these points will be borne in mind when we get to that stage.
I am much obliged to the hon. and gallant Member for Harrow for the support that he gives as a member of the Royal Commission. I agree with him that the money will come back. He wanted to know why London and the Home Counties are not in this scheme. The reason is that the state of the law in London and the Home Counties, but more particularly the Metropolitan police district, is somewhat complicated and very different from the rest of the country, and we had not the time to clear the matter up at this stage. I agree with the Royal Commission, and I see no reason in principle, subject to the exceptional character of the London area, why this scheme should not be applied to the London area. Hon. Members will be aware that the problem of London traffic is now under consideration. I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for North Battersea (Mr. Sanders) that he need not fear that I shall be harmed by the praises that I get from the other side. Before we get through we shall, no doubt, get the reverse of praise, and one's soul will be saved. It would, however, be a pity in this House if, when we agree with each other, we cannot say so.
The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Remer) was apprehensive as to the creation of a huge bureaucratic department. I can assure him that we shall only make appointments in so far as they are necessary for the services to be discharged. The hon. and gallant Member for Clitheroe (Sir W. Brass) asked how much would be saved to the local authorities. There are no figures on record as to how much the local authorities spend on the licensing service, because it is interlocked with other services of the local authorities, and I am afraid that the figures vary to some extent. The licence fee for vehicles will follow the ordinary course. I cannot give a definite standard. The type vehicle will be dealt with in the main at the head office of the Ministry of Transport.
The hon. and gallant Member for Hexham (Colonel Brown) asked me whether the posts of the chairmen of 1680 commissioners were to be earmarked for civil servants. I have already said that the question of these appointments has not yet been decided. At this stage we have not yet decided the matter, but I am clear that we must seek fair-minded men with administrative capacity. I would not say that a lawyer is disqualified. This is an administrative rather than a quibbling legal job, if my legal friends will forgive my using that phrase, but a lawyer is not disqualified. What we want is a man with a fair mind, with business ability and with administrative capacity. I am quite clear that no political influence must be allowed to enter into any of these appointments in the slightest degree.
A point was raised about police officers. That will depend entirely upon the arrangements we are able to make with the police authorities. Some police authorities, as licensing authorities, are already carrying out these duties. There may be some arrangements that we should like to make with the police authorities, and our contract would then be with the police authorities and not with the individual police officer. A point was made as to superannuation. That has not yet been settled, but it will be given consideration. I have no bias as to whether the Chairman of the Commissioners should come from the locality itself or be appointed on a national basis. What we want is to get the best men for the appointments. I am sorry that I have not been able to give a complete balance sheet with regard to he £165,000, but it is impossible to do so at the moment. It is as near a round figure as we can get. Whatever the figure may be, the House may be assured that I will watch the expenditure on this matter with the greatest care, and I am certain that the Treasury, in due course, will watch me as well.
Earl WINTERTONNo one would deny that the hon. Gentleman has given us all the information at his disposal, but I hope he will not mind my saying that the information at his disposal is of a somewhat scanty character. It is true that this large Bill had to be prepared in his Department and that his Department is busily engaged with unemployment schemes, etc., and has been hard pressed, but he must remember that this Bill has been prepared for some time past. The information that has been 1681 given to us respecting the commissioners still remains in rather a vague state. I do not suggest that we are going to set up an instrument of bureaucratic tyranny or oppression, but it would have been desirable before we pass the Financial Resolution that we should be told rather more, at any rate, about the chairmen of the commissioners, and the commissioners. It is important to know whether these men are going to be civil servants or not. Personally, I hope that they will not. I do not think that it is work that would be as well done by civil servants as it would by other men who are experienced in these matters. It is a pity that the Minister has not been able to tell us whether they will be civil servants or not.
The Minister referred to the question of pensions. I should like to refer to a point which I raised on the Second Reading with regard to provision in the Bill as to the removal of a commissioner from office for inability or misbehaviour. If these are to be pensioned officials, obviously the terms of their appointment are important. If they are to be removed for disability or misbehaviour they lose their pensions. What I want to impress on the Minister is the need for considering whether it will not be possible at some future date to include the Metropolitan Police area within the Bill.
§ Mr. HERBERT MORRISONThere has been a difficulty in getting the legislation into shape. The whole question of London traffic is under consideration, and I do not want to pre-judge what I shall do on the larger question.
Earl WINTERTONThat is an entirely reasonable answer. We do want to draw a clear line of demarcation between police and transport. That is apparent from the recent report of the Inspector of Constabulary. I hope that the Minister will give his attention to the matter. My right hon. Friend the former Minister of Transport is in favour of what I have just said. The Minister has been rather vague about the duties of these commissioners, and I hope that in agreeing to the Resolution without further discussion we are not giving him too free a hand.
§ Resolution to be reported upon Tuesday next, 25th February.