HC Deb 18 July 1956 vol 556 cc1220-1
Lords Amendment

In page 4, line 15, at end insert: (4) As respects any vehicles which, immediately before the expiration of the five year period mentioned in Part II of the First Schedule to the Transport Act, 1953, are—

  1. (a) owned by a company to which vehicles have been transferred under the said section five; and
  2. (b) authorised to be used under a licence granted to the Commission under the said Part II,
the said licence shall be deemed to have been granted for a period expiring with the end of the said five year period or with the date when the company ceases to be under the direct or indirect control of the Commission, whichever last occurs: Provided that if, after the expiration of the said five year period and before the company ceases to be under the direct or indirect control of the Commission, any of the vehicles authorised to be used under the licence are disposed of by the company to the Commission, the licence shall thereupon cease to have effect with respect to those vehicles.

The Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Harold Watkinson)

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This Amendment is intended to maintain the value of the companies which the Commission might have to sell at some period. The reason is that the special A licences for the vehicles owned by the company, granted under Part II of the First Schedule to the 1953 Act, will expire in 1958; that is to say, five years after the applications were made to the Commission. The purpose of the Amendment is to hold that position so that at a time when the British Transport Commission sold or proposed to sell either the parcels or the meat company it would be able to sell it with the value attached to a special A licence—a licence which otherwise, under the 1953 Act, would have lapsed.

Without the Amendment, the Commission or the company would in 1958, when the special A licences expired, have to apply for ordinary 1933 Act A licences. That application would have to be published, other operators could, of course, object, and if they did the licensing authorities would have to hold a normal sitting to determine the applications. If the Commission obtained a 1933 licence and the company was later sold then, of course, the purchaser would not have an automatic right to the licence, as he has under present arrangements, but would have to make his own application all over again to the licensing authority.

Therefore, the purpose of the Amendment is to continue the right to a special A licence on the part of vehicles of the parcels or meat company, and so protect their position until such time as it is finally decided whether or not the Commission disposes of them.

Mr. G. R. Strauss (Vauxhall)

We have had a technical explanation of this rather