TRANSPORT BILL (Hansard, 21 April 1953)

§ Mr. James Callaghan (Cardiff, South-East)

We certainly think that it is appropriate at this stage to consider the Lords Amendments and we wish to say that we think that there has been adequate time both for the Government and for the Opposition to consider what Amendments have been put down, to take a view upon them and to draft the Amendmepts necessary in order to discharge our functions. I hope that no one will believe that the Amendments we are about to consider are short and negligible or that they can be dismissed quickly. They raise important points.

If hon. Gentlemen on the benches opposite should be inclined to feel that perhaps they might seem more important to the Opposition than they do to Government supporters, I would remind them that the Secretary of State for the Coordination of Transport, Fuel and Power, made a brief intervention in the course of the Third Reading of the Transport Bill. In a speech which occupied one-and-a-half columns of the OFFICIAL REPORT of the House of Lords, he said: I am told that nearly 100 Amendments out of a total of 211 on the Order Paper will have been incorporated in the Bill in its passage through your Lordships' House and, of these, over 30 must rank as major or important items. No mean achievement. The time was certainly usefully spent. As I said at the beginning of our proceedings at the time of the Second Reading, the Government have been ready at all stages, as indeed we should be, to listen to suggestions and have not hesitated to amend the Bill by a proper response to public opinion."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 26th March, 1953: Vol. 181, c. 314–5.] The view of the Government spokesman in the House of Lords is that over 30 of the Amendments on the Order Paper rank as major or important items. I think, if anything, that is probably a slight understatement, although I should be willing to accept it for this purpose. If the House of Commons is to discharge its responsibilities adequately and properly, it is 818 clear that there must be substantial discussion about a number of the matters which have been put down on the Order Paper and which the House of Commons now comes to for the first time.

It would be wrong, and indeed it would be out of order, for me to debate those matters now. We shall come to them in due course. But on consideration of a Motion of this sort it would be in order for me to list at least some of the important items which are coming before the House either for the first time or in such a substantially altered manner that the House will have to spend time considering them. There is, for example—and I merely quote these as examples—the question of the number of vehicles that are to be retained by the Commission. How many shall there be? That was the subject of continuous and long debate in all stages in the House of Lords. I have no doubt that we shall have to spend some time on it here.

There is the whole question of the formation of companies which in the Lords Amendment now in front of us takes up something like four pages of the Order Paper. This so-called Lords Amendment starts on the middle of page 2, goes down the whole of page 3, the whole of page 4 and the whole of page 5 and ends half-way down page 6. There is more in this single Lords Amendment than is contained in the substance of many Bills that are placed before this House. It is certainly of the most vital importance, and it should be treated as such.

There is the question which has been introduced for the first time by the Government in the course of the debates in the other place about the restoration of the right of entry into the road haulage industry of certain people who had agreed by contract with the British Transport Commission that they would remain outside the industry for a fixed number of years. This is being introduced for the first time.

Another question which will concern us will be the treatment of persons who have enjoyed excessively low rates. This, too, will have to be considered, for it is being brought before the House of Commons for the first time. There is the question of the procedure to be followed by the Transport Tribunal in the raising of fares. This has been altered by the Government. 819 There can be no dissent in any part of the House from the suggestion that these are major matters.

What vehicles are to be exempted from the levy? Here we reached a decision in the Commons, but the Government, having intimated to us here that they were intending to put down Amendments, in fact did so in another place, and so reopened the question of vehicles that are to be charged with the levy and those which are to be exempted. What is the amount of loss that should be charged to the levy for the British Transport Commission who, as we all know, by the operation of this Bill are to be subjected to heavy losses through the breakup of their operations? That has been altered by the Government in the House of Lords. Clearly whether the Commission are to have proper compensation or not—a matter on which the Government themselves have had second thoughts—is an extremely important question.

The whole question of railway reorganisation was brought under review in the House of Lords. Although I would not suggest that the changes made there were of a major character, they are certainly important, as some railwaymen feel very strongly about the attempt to depart-mentalise and compartmentalise the railways into regions. What degree of competition is to be permitted in the industry? That is another question raised in the other place—whether we should have the industry concentrated in too few hands or whether it should be broken up into a few units. This is a question which has been opened almost de novo by the Government through the Amendment they put down in the other place.

I have illustrated enough to show that we have in front of us a very useful period of work. We shall not be operating under the Guillotine. The Minister will have to rely upon conviction in order to convince the House that what he is doing is right and proper. He will have to rely on being able to take us with him, instead of being able to rely upon the operation of the clock to get him out of difficulty. All these things will clearly influence the Minister in the course which he is to take and the concessions which he may be prepared to make on this Bill. The concessions will not be concessions to a recalcitrant Opposition, but concessions 820 to common sense and to the overwhelming criticism that has been directed against the Minister in all quarters and at all stages of this Bill by most of the people in the industry.

It is not our intention to divide against this Motion. We wish to start the consideration of these Amendments, but I certainly should not have been setting out the position thoroughly unless I had stated quite clearly that many major items of importance confront us, to which due attention must be paid. We are prepared to examine them thoroughly and properly, without undue delay, and in the hope that the Minister, being faced with the continual criticism which he has had ever since he introduced the Bill, will at this very late stage see the light of day, will be prepared to concede certain Amendments which are submitted in an attempt to improve this Bill and make it, if not ideal, if not good, at least workable and will make some concessions to common sense. We shall proceed to the examination of the Lords Amendments in that spirit.