HC Deb 30 November 1936 vol 318 cc943-55

(1) For the purpose of giving advice and assistance to the Minister in connection with the discharge of his functions as highway authority there shall be constituted a roads advisory committee (hereinafter referred to as "the committee").

(2) The committee shall consist of not more than twelve members representing the following interests, that is to say:

Highway authorities 4
Motor vehicle owners 3
Horse-drawn vehicle owners 1
Pedal cyclists 1
Pedestrians 1
Rural amenities 1
Labour 1

(3) The members of the committee shall be appointed by the Minister after consultation with such bodies or associations representative of the interests concerned as he thinks fit.

(4) A member of the committee shall hold office for not less than three years and not more than five years from the date of his appointment as may be determined by the Minister at the time of his appointment, but shall be eligible for re-appointment at the expiration of that period.

(5) The chairman of the committee shall be elected by the members of the committee from among their own members.

(6) The committee may make regulations as to their procedure and method of voting and may at their discretion consider and report to the Minister upon any matters affecting the construction, improvement, and maintenance of trunk roads.—[Captain Strickland.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

8.53 p. m.

Captain STRICKLAND

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

I am sure hon. Members will realise what a great advantage it is that our roads should have a Minister in the House directly responsible for their administration or, at any rate, that part of the administration that he has had the courage to take in hand. I think they will also agree that the Minister has taken on himself a very heavy responsibility. Whereas road administration in the past under the county councils has been a subject in which many people can take part and many different interests be represented, so far as the Minister himself is concerned with that part of the trunk roads that he is taking over, he himself becomes the one central focal point of contact with the House of Commons. Through him Estimates are to be presented to the House, but before they are presented they will have to receive the approval and sanction of one who will be the complete master of the Minister, and who will allot such a sum as he thinks necessary for the administration of the roads. Parliament will then be called upon to discuss this Estimate and to sanction the expenditure on the roads that come under the control of the Ministry.

It seems to me that it would be a great advantage if there could be a little more publicity with regard to what is believed to be the necessary expenditure on the roads. It must be obvious that what in fact will happen will be this. The Minister, in his desire to do justice to the needs of road transport, may easily bring forward a scheme which may entail, we will say, a sum of £15,000,000 in the current year. The House will never hear, and cannot possibly hear, that that is the sum the Minister himself thought would be necessary for expenditure during the coming 12 months. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer deems this sum to be in excess of what the revenue of the country can afford to spend on the roads, the Minister of Transport will be told to cut the expenditure down to, say, £10,000,000. We want to make sure that there will be some kind of public advisory committee which will have the power of studying, without fear of disrupting the peaceful relationships of the Cabinet itself, and of discussing what they believe to be the necessary expenditure on the roads. When one remembers that at the present time licences and Oil Duties yield a sum of £71,000,000 towards what should be spent upon the roads, one realises the legitimate demands road users might have for a great discussion on the needs of these roads. The Minister of Transport is not just Minister for Roads, as the Committee know. He is also Minister for the railways, canals, coastwise shipping, and, as the right hon. Gentleman himself says, for electricity. I did not mention electricity because that is not part of transport.

The improvement of highways will unquestionably have the effect of increasing the efficiency of road transport, which will come into direct opposition with another important section of the Minister's care—the railways. If the Minister is to hold the balance and try to protect the railways, as the Government have done in the past, often to the detriment of road transport, it will be almost the bounden duty of the Minister to see that too much money is not spent upon the roads with the result that traffic may be drawn away from the railways, and conflict of interests may easily arise. The new Clause which I am submitting for the consideration of the Committee provides for the setting up of an advisory committee of road interests. It will be noticed that it does not consist even of a majority of motor users. I have tried in the proposals to get representatives of every class of person interested in the proper administration of our highways. First of all there are the highway authorities, then the motor vehicles, horse vehicles, pedal cyclists, pedestrians, rural amenities, and, last but not least, labour.

Mr. BENJAMIN SMITH

The hon. and gallant Gentleman could not have got much lower.

Captain STRICKLAND

The Committee follows the precedent set up in the Transport Act, 1919, and the Committee will realise that that committee was set up on much similar lines to those proposed under this new Clause. Thai; particular committee, it may be argued, was superseded in the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, by the formation of the Transport Advisory Committee. In case it is advanced as an argument why this particular committee should not be set up now that there is already a committee in existence, I would direct the attention of the Committee to the component parts of the Transport Advisory Committee. On that committee you have the local authorities, the users of mechanically-propelled vehicles, horse-drawn vehicles, representatives of the railways, the canals, coastwise shipping, harbours and docks, trading interests and labour. It is obvious that if you are to have a committee that is to deal with the administration of roads and the placing of them in a better condition than they are at the present time, you will get very great opposition from a large section of the Transport Advisory Committee. That committee is not concerned with road administration as such, but with the whole of the transport of the country.

So I suggest the formation of a committee entirely composed of specialists on the road, men who know from experience the dangers of the road and what is wanted on the roads in matters of lighting and administration. It would be a wise thing to have this body set up under this Bill. The essential feature of the committee is that it will have special knowledge and experience in the construction and use of roads and will deal only with the roads, and be representative of all sections of road users. The functions of the committee are laid down in the suggested Clause, and the committee shall be prepared at all times to consider the Minister's road programme or to suggest to the Minister necessary work and to include costs and estimates.

The Minister might well take advantage of such a committee for the purpose of consulting them and asking them to investigate the essential and more immediate needs of the trunk roads which he is taking over. The formation of such a committee would have the effect of saving a good deal of Parliamentary time, and I would point out that it is proposed to be a purely advisory committee. It is to be in no sense executive and to have no power to do things, but it certainly will have the power to advise and the advantage of being available for consultative purposes, as well as have the great advantage of being intimately connected with each phase of road work. It will form a very useful avenue of approach both for road users to the Minister and for the Minister to all road users. It is with that object that I commend the suggested Clause to the notice of the Committee in the hope that they may approve of its insertion in the Bill, and express the pious hope that the Minister may accept it.

9.3 p.m.

Vice-Admiral TAYLOR

I beg to second the Motion.

The Minister is undertaking the responsibility of looking after many thousands of miles of trunk roads, many of which are of the greatest strategic importance in time of war, and all of them of the utmost importance to the economic life of this country. Therefore, I am quite sure that the Minister, in carrying out this work, would desire to have those roads as model roads throughout the country from every point of view—from the point of view of construction in all its details and lighting, and of safety for road users. I also feel sure that the Minister would like to deal justly by road transport throughout the country. Up to the present time the railways have had it more or less all their own way, and legislation has been introduced in this country whereby the railways have a tremendous advantage over other forms of transport, which is not in the true interests of the economic life of the country. I desire to see fair play in this matter and that the Minister in taking over these trunk roads will hold the balance evenly.

We do not want the roads to have any undue advantage, but it must be realised to-day that they are forming a more and more important part in the transport of goods throughout the country. In time of war there would not be the slightest doubt that, owing to the menace from the air in destroying rail communications, etc., coastwise traffic in co-operation with the goods system of the roads would be of the utmost importance to our security and the distribution of our goods. Therefore, it will be of the utmost assistance to the Minister to have a committee such as is suggested, which would consider the road problem purely from the point of view of the roads and their utility, and not from the point of view of competition with the railways or with other forms of transport, but purely from the road efficiency point of view. This committee will consist of men who are conversant with and experts in road construction, lighting and safety arrangements, and, from that point of view will represent the best that is available for helping the Minister to maintain the roads at their maximum efficiency. For these reasons I desire to support the new Clause.

9.9 p.m.

Mr. CROWDER

I support the proposal because I feel it is necessary to have a body who will be able to hold the balance between the views of the Minister and local authorities. They will also be able to advise him as to the opinion of the majority of ratepayers in the country as regards the grant system and the percentage grant system. It seems to me that in the end it will be much better for the Minister to pay 100 per cent. of the cost of the main roads and do away with the percentage grant system altogether, so leaving the minor unclassified roads to be paid for entirely by the ratepayers without any grant. Each county could then have such minor roads as it wanted and keep them up as their ratepayers thought fit. Such a body, having nothing to do with the Minister or with local authorities, would be able to advise the Minister in his direction. It would be able to keep the Minister in touch with public opinion in the country. We are to have representatives of pedestrians, rural amenities, pedal cyclists, and horse-drawn vehicle owners on the committee and, therefore, such a body might save the Minister the trouble of having to receive deputations, as he often does, from these various bodies, because these questions could be considered and brought before him by a responsible committee as constituted under the new Clause. They would also be experts in road construction and would be thinking only of roads and not of transport. In my opinion it would be very useful to the Minister, and to some extent would keep these questions out of politics, if such an outside body made recommendations to him. I commend the new Clause to the Committee as being very useful to the Minister, to the ratepayers and to the country.

9.10 p.m.

Mr. BENJAMIN SMITH

The party which I represent welcome a committee for assisting the Minister. The Transport Advisory Council and the London Traffic Advisory Committee have not been unhelpful to the right hon. Gentleman and his Department in the past. We welcome a committee in principle, but what the representatives of the Rural Amenities Association can have to do with the defence of the country on such a committee I cannot understand, or what pedal cyclists can have to say about it. Surely the duty of the defence of the country devolves on this House. The Committee, as suggested, is to consist of four representatives of highway authorities three motor-vehicle owners, one horse-drawn vehicle owner, who, of coarse, will know something about our trunk roads! I wonder how many of them go from London to Edinburgh or London to Newcastle, and how they can be competent to advise the Minister on trunk roads. The area of a pedal cyclist is circumscribed by his physical capacity. The trunk roads we have to visualise are trunk roads with cycle tracks. Up to now the cyclists' associations have steadily resented the idea of cycle tracks. Being hazardous they prefer to take the risks of the road rather than seek the safety of the green lanes which the Minister proposes. What can the pedestrian know about our trunk roads? He knows about the roads in his immediate vicinity, he has to get to his job and back again, but what as a pedestrian he knows about our trunk roads passes my comprehension.

Captain STRICKLAND

Trunk roads have to pass through villages and towns, and a pedestrian has to get across the road or use a footpath along the particular section in his immediate vicinity.

Mr. SMITH

I take it that one would come from Lerwick, another from Middlesex and another from Argyllshire. They would have to know about what is going to happen in London, Manchester, Birmingham or South Wales. I say it is unnecessary to put such a representative on the committee. Then, as the hon. and gallant Member said, last but not lease there is labour. There is a slight recognition that labour still exists and potters about the country where it can, doing what it can. But why only one representative? You would get much more information of our trunk roads from people who operate the lorries—

Captain STRICKLAND

I hope the hon. Member will not misunderstand the use of the word "labour." It is not labour as represented by the lorry driver, but someone to represent trade union matters, the wages which are paid on the roads for upkeep and so on. If a lorry driver came in, he would come in under the heading of "motor vehicle owners."

Mr. SMITH

The hon. and gallant Member's fear is that the Minister through his agents will not pay proper wages. We believe that the Minister will see that the fair wages clause is operative on the working side of the scheme. Nevertheless, we are in favour in principle of some committee. One can understand a rich or progressive county council seeking some favoured treatment from the Minister by some kind of pressure, to say nothing of the fact that the Minister may develop a not unnatural love for his own constituency and give them a trunk road perhaps more quickly than he would the constituency which I represent. Therefore, for the purpose of co-ordinating the desires of county councils and to see that the Department carries out this work with something like equity as between the county councils, I hope the Minister will consider favourably the appointment of some committee to advise him on things which are most essential and to see fair play as between highway committees in the country.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. MITCHELL

I would like to support the proposed Clause in principle. I agree with most of the arguments made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Coventry (Captain Strickland) in moving the Clause, and I agree to some extent with the hon. Member for Rotherhithe (Mr. Benjamin Smith) in his criticism of the personnel of the suggested committee; but I think that is a matter which could be arranged. I agree with the hon. Member for Rotherhithe that the proportion given to labour is not sufficient; nor do I think the representation given to industry is sufficient. I would like particularly to emphasise the last sentence of the proposed Clause, which is to the effect that the committee may advise the Minister upon any matters affecting the construction, improvement and maintenance of trunk roads. I feel that the committee would be of considerable use in drawing the attention of the Ministry to the need for using British road materials.

As an illustration, something like 2,000,000 tons of crude tar are produced annually in this country from British coal, and, while other products are made from it, there are included something like 750,000 tons of road tar used annually on road work in this country; but in spite of that, 300,000 tons of bitumen and ashphalt are imported annually, mostly from sources outside the Empire. That is the sort of thing which one would like to have the proposed committee bear in mind. I think the users of the roads and the public in general would like to feel that in the construction of these improved trunk roads British road materials are used as far as possible. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Paddington (Vice-Admiral Taylor) referred to the need for these roads in connection with defence, and I would like to emphasise the need for drawing our materials for making them from home sources, particularly at a time when some of the areas which produce the materials —for example, South Wales—are going through a period of very considerable difficulty. I hope that if the committee is set up, greater representation will be given both to labour and to the employers in those industries producing road materials. If that were done, I am sure the committee would serve a very useful and helpful purpose.

9.18 p.m.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA

I recognise that this proposed Clause is supported by powerful advocates, but I am still unable to see what practical purpose it would achieve. This Bill has been introduced in order to supersede a system under which 88 different committees managed these roads and to vest them in one central authority, namely, the Minister of Transport. My object is to get something done, and I thought that was the object of everybody who advocated this Bill, or something approaching. No sooner do I introduce it than the warmest supporters turn round and propose that I should be circumscribed by another committee. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] That is the proposal on the Paper. As the hon. Member for Rotherhithe (Mr. B. Smith) pointed out, a Transport Advisory Council—a majestic body—was set up by Parliament for the purpose of giving advice and assistance to the Minister. It has on it six representatives of highway authorities. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Coventry (Captain Strickland) proposes that another committee should be appointed for the purpose of giving advice and assistance to the Minister. He does not propose six representatives of highway authorities, but four. He admits that two must be redundant, but are the other four likely to give advice different from the representatives of the highway authorities on the Transport Advisory Council? He proposes that there should be three representatives of the motor vehicle users.

Captain STR ICKLAND

Would the right hon. Gentleman mind if I asked him when the Transport Advisory Council last met?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA

I would not mind in the least, but I can assure the hon. Member that it is a most active and competent body, which is in constant session, either directly or through numerous committees, and that no praise I could bestow upon it would be good enough. A new chairman has just been appointed—Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen, who was chairman of the Royal Commission on Transport, who has resigned all his personal interests in transport in order to give his time gratuitously to the State. The council is a most competent body, and I will not tolerate any aspersions on it.

Mr. BENJAMIN SMITH

I did not wish to cast any aspersions on the Committee—

Mr. HORE-BELISHA

I was not referring to the hon. Member.

Mr. B. SMITH

But I would like the right hon. Gentleman to inform the Committee whether the duties of the six representatives of highway authorities on the council are not defined, and that it deals with such subjects as road safety, but not with road construction?

Several HON. MEMBERS

rose—

Mr. HORE-BELISHA

If I might be permitted to continue, otherwise the Debate will degenerate into—

Captain STRICKLAND

On a point of explanation. I am not quite sure whether we are thinking of the same committee. I am referring to the committee set up under the 1919 Act. The committee set up under the 1933 Act was a different committee, which deals with railways and other transport, be sides road transport.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA

I do not think it is necessary for my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Coventry to interrupt everybody who is making a speech, because everything will come in due course—I cannot say everything at once. I was saying that I would not tolerate any aspersions on the council, and the hon. Member for Coventry asked me when it last met, as though it were a mere body which met—

Captain STRICKLAND

Is it the 1919 Committee?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA

I am talking of the Transport Advisory Council set up by the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, only three years ago. The other one was abolished then, and a more modern committee established. I am merely explaining that at the moment I am advised by this council, which has upon it six representatives of the highway authorities; but my hon. and gallant Friend suggests a committee which would have four, and I ask him whether the highway authorities are going to give through six representatives different advice from that which they give through four? The hon. Member proposes three representatives of the motor-vehicle owners. I have five upon the Transport Advisory Council. Are they going to give different advice according to the committee on which they sit? He suggests one representative of the horse-drawn vehicle owners. I have one. Presumably, as these people are always appointed or nominated by associations, there would be exactly the same man. He suggests one representative of pedal cyclists. I have one. He suggests one for pedestrians. I have one. I agree that I have no representative of rural amenities, but I have six representatives of highway authorities who are concerned with rural amenities. He suggests one representative of labour, and I have three.

I put it to the Committee that if it wishes something to be done, it should refrain from trying to impose upon me another committee which is not dissimilar from the one already in existence. As I have said, I recognise the great work which this council is doing, because it happens to have an extremely fine personnel. On committees generally, is there not liable to be some misconception? There are ministries of State which are responsible to this House. They engage staffs which are the best that they can acquire. These staffs have to do work from day to day. They have to do the job. If a road is out of repair it has to be repaired. If a new bridge requires to be built somebody has to discuss it and come to a decision. If you keep piling committee on top of committee you get nothing done at all. Everybody is afraid to act. The Ministry has a highly competent staff who have shown their desire and enthusiasm to improve the road system. They come and say: "Make things easier; facilitate our task, so that road users may get through to their destination." In these circumstances I do not expect the hon. and gallant Member for Coventry to come and block my path with one more committee.

If it is a question of technical knowledge, I have it in my Department. If the House thinks that I have not got that knowledge, it should see to it that I get better officials. A committee of surveyors from our Department and from various authorities has been in session some time. They have produced a circular on the layout of roads which I hope hon. Members have read. We shall shortly produce another. These are matters for experts. Similarly we have had a Departmental Committee on lighting, on which highway authorities also were represented and anyone who could contribute to the problem. In these circumstances I hope my hon. and gallant Friend will withdraw his Amendment which, in my judgment, if carried, far from advancing progress and far from smoothing and freeing our way, would further encumber it. That, I know, is not his desire. He is the last person to wish that. So is my hon. Friend who knows so much about the transport of the` sea. They want to go ahead and get some business done. So do I. I therefore plead with my hon. Friends, having acquainted me with their desires on the subject, to trust me and my successors to do our best for road users generally.

9.29 p.m.

Captain STRICKLAND

I would like to ask the Minister whether he would give me an assurance that the Transport Advisory Council of which he has spoken will see to it that the railway representatives do not have a voice on the construction of roads and the improvement of their condition. If he could give me that assurance I should be quite prepared to withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. HO R E-BELISHA

This Transport Advisory Council, in my judgment, has looked at transport as a whole. On this committee there are three railway representatives as against six highway authorities and a number of pedestrians and road users generally. So that the railways are in a distinct minority. The Council works through committees on particular subjects. On most of these committees the railways are not represented. I can assure my hon. Friend that the railways have not exercised and will not exercise an unbalanced influence on our counsels.

Captain STRICKLAND

In view of the Minister's assurance I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Clause

Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

The CHAIRMAN

The next two Clauses in the names of the hon. Members for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) and Barnstaple (Mr. Acland)— (Additional trunk roads by agreement with highway authority) and (Provision of standard road)—are out of order.