TRANSPORT ACT (1947) AMENDMENT (Hansard, 24 June 1952)

§ Major Sydney Markham (Buckingham)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend paragraph (iii) of subsection (2) of section two of the Transport Act, 1947. I hope that this Bill will have a much more enthusiastic welcome than the last. My Bill is designed to amend the Transport Act, 1947, in one small and, I hope, practical way. It has no reference at all to those great issues of nationalisation, denationalisation or un-denationalisation which form the texture of political controversy, but it is simply to amend paragraph (iii) of subsection (2) of Section 2 of the Transport Act. It was this Section which laid down that the Transport Commission shall not … construct, manufacture, or otherwise produce anything which is not required for use for the purposes of their undertaking. My Bill is designed to add the words: except for the purposes of national defence or as sub-contractors for the production of railway stock or equipment for the export trade. I think it is well known in this House that the Act of 1947 has produced very great difficulties so far as concerns rearmament and the railway workshops. It has been the wish of all hon. Members on both sides of the House to have rearmament done in the workshops. The workshops have been anxious to do the work. The Minister has been anxious to place it there, and the only way in which it could be done was by invoking the very complicated method under Defence Regulation 55 (2A) which, to put it mildly, has been found so clumsy and laborious. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Smithers) pointed out on 31st March, it resulted in a considerable delay in a very vital piece of re-armament work going through.

Therefore, the first part of my Bill is designed to clear up this misunderstanding, this confusion, that has arisen and which was not foreseen when the Transport Act was introduced, although every hon. Member knew that during the war years, at any rate, the railways had rendered very great services by 2060 creating material and providing stock not specifically for their own use.

The second part of the Bill is designed to allow the railways to become subcontractors for the production of railway stock or equipment for the export trade. This, again, is a return to pre-war normality. I do not think we can quarrel with that because that is a statement of fact. But at the moment, while the British Railways can give orders to the extent of millions of pounds to private enterprise, they are not allowed, under the Transport Act, 1947, to do a single piece of work for private enterprise in any way. They cannot sell a communication cord. They cannot sell a train lighting set or make a dynamo or assist in any way, even though the export trade of this country in this particular field of railway rolling stock and equipment may be very urgently in need of those parts which could be supplied by British Railways.

I hope that my Bill has been so carefully drawn that it will not raise any of these contentious issues as to whether State services should compete openly with private enterprise. This is drawn, I hope, in a way that will satisfy certainly all railway men in the House, and I hope all others.

Finally, I believe that the railway workshop capacity that we have in this country now is not being used sufficiently, and that that is very detrimental to the national interest. We should use that, and we should use it constructively for the good of all concerned, and especially for the defence programme and for the export trade. It is for these reasons that I hope the House will give me leave to bring in this Bill.