HC Deb 28 April 1960 vol 622 cc536-44

11.15 p.m.

Mr. Rippon

I beg to move, in page 10, line 25, to leave out "and."

It will no doubt be for the convenience of the House if, with this Amendment, we take that in line 26. These two related Amendments are merely consequential on the repeal of Section 13 of the Civil Aviation Act.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 10, line 26, at end insert: and subsection (3) of section seven (which relates to one of the provisions repealed by the next following paragraph)."—[Mr. Rippon.]

11.16 p.m.

Mr. Rippon

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I do not think that it will be necessary for me to make a lengthy speech at this stage. My right hon. Friend has sought at every stage to secure, subject to the over-riding right of the House to have the last word, agreement on transitional and other arrangements that will ensure that both the Corporations and the independents get off to a fair start under the new procedure, and I think that it is fair to say that nothing has emerged from our discussions to suggest that any section of the air transport industry is dissatisfied with the main provisions of the Bill.

I should say that the coming into full operation of the provisions of the Bill will be largely determined by the progress made in preparing the necessary regulations. Consultations will be held with the interested parties, and I think that it will be accepted that we must allow them a reasonable period in which to form and express their views. During the Committee stage, my right hon. Friend gave an assurance that the regulations to be made under the provisions of the Bill would be laid in draft in the Library. He also said that it would probably be for the convenience of both the House and the industry if, as far as possible, all the regulations were published as a whole. The work of preparation has already begun, and it is my right hon. Friend's intention that the regulations should be available as soon as possible.

Hon. Members on both sides have, in the course of our discussions, emphasised the enormous possibilities of air traffic expansion in the years ahead. This Measure will, we hope, create the conditions in which all the operators, both the Corporations and the independents, will be able to secure and exploit those possibilities to the full, and increasing opportunities will, we believe, be open to them.

11.18 p.m.

Mr. Chetwynd

On behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I express thanks to the Minister and to the Parliamentary Secretary for the way in which they have listened to our arguments. They have not been able to accept all the points we have put forward, but have accepted a considerable number of matters of detail. As a result, we feel that the Bill has been improved to some extent in its passage through the House.

On the other hand, our fundamental objection has not been met, and we still think that in the Bill there is a danger to the Corporations. We shall keep a very careful watch indeed on the activities of the Board to make sure that the intentions of the Minister are not falsified. This, however, is not the time to press the matter any further. We have made our point of view absolutely clear on Second Reading, in Committee and on the Report stage. We are, naturally, disappointed that the Minister did not see fit to express in the Bill our views on the future of the Corporations. As I say, we shall watch his activities, and those of his successors, with great care.

I wonder whether the Minister could, at this stage, comment on the personnel of the Air Transport Licensing Board. This body will have a great responsibility for the future of the British aviation service. A number of names have been bandied about in relation to the chairmanship. The previous body had a great record of success, mainly because of the character and personality of its chairman, and we would hope that someone of that type would be made head of the new Board.

Has the Minister anything to say about the appointed day? Perhaps there will be different days for different parts of the Bill. We would like the part dealing with safety, to which we attach great importance and which has hardly been mentioned today, to come into operation as soon as possible. When will the regulations affecting the air operators' certificates be made?

Much of the Board's work has already been overtaken by events. The fare fixing which has already been announced for this year and for future years, and the sharing of routes in different parts of the world between the Corporations and the independents, has, naturally, taken a good deal of the work with which the Board might otherwise have been faced. Spheres of influence are already being created. New groups of companies are being formed. We attach great importance to the work which the Air Transport Licensing Board will have to do and we shall watch its progress with great interest.

After all this, I feel that we have had a pleasant flight. It was a little bumpy in places, though not quite as rough as the Minister of Aviation had it yesterday. Nevertheless, we have been airborne quite long enough and it is time that we came in to land.

11.22 p.m.

Mr. Diamond

There have been two very sad faces in the House for some time, one belonging to the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) and the other belonging to the hon. Member for Gloucester—myself. I feel that I have a double duty on Third Reading to try to present not only my own views, but also those which, unfortunately, the hon. Member for Belfast, East was gagged and prevented from saying by the terror of the Chief Whip and the remarks which he made. That was a great pity on an occasion when, in Parliament, we hope to improve a Bill and enjoy what remains to us of free speech.

My reason for rising at this late hour is to say how much I regret that the Bill should have been brought forward in its present form. I regret it on the ground that civil aviation is one of our most important industries. It leads the whole of the engineering industry. The damage done to civil aviation is very widespread damage.

I have no doubt whatsoever that the Bill damages civil aviation, and I will try in a short time to explain why. We have been told on many occasions that it has been the fact hitherto, certainly until the early 1950s, that the flag carriers were the two Corporations. They enjoyed the confidence of the Government, the House and the people.

Does the Minister work best when he feels that he has the confidence of his supporters behind him? Does he work best when he feels that he is getting a pat on the back or when he is in the irritable and nagging situation that we had a short time ago? Which does he feel stimulates him to the most constructive activity? He and everyone else in the House who knows the first thing about running large-scale organisations knows that the success of an organisation depends on the spirit of the workers in it. By "the workers" I mean from top to bottom, from chairman downwards.

The spirit in the two Corporations, which I have seen recently, is excellent. By the Bill, they are being told that they no longer enjoy the confidence of this Government or the nation. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense".] Yes, they are. Whereas, before, they could rely on receiving full and favourable consideration, even being considered as favourites, from now on they will not be regarded as desirable in the same sense as they were before. There is a good deal of support being removed from them. The Bill means nothing if it does not mean that. Whereas, before, they had the field to themselves, it is made perfectly clear that from now on they are not to be regarded with the same favour and are not to have the same support.

That is a very depressing feeling for those working in these two Corporations, and it will mean inevitably that those responsible in a major way will start looking over their shoulders and saying to themselves, "So that is the way the wind is blowing. The wind of change is blowing in this direction, and to make £2 million profit means that we have a Bill of this kind." For the two things are closely related. There is, then, that pressure. I am not referring to the accident provisions in the Bill. I am referring to the provisions for opening up the field to wider and wider competition.

If there had not been a profit or the likelihood of a profit this year—

Mr. William Shepherd (Cheadle)

B.O.A.C. made record losses last year.

Mr. Diamond

B.O.A.C. figures already show a very considerable improvement. The B.O.A.C. achievement in cross-Atlantic flight is very considerable indeed. It is not my fault if B.O.A.C. does not perhaps enjoy the same skilful and happy and understanding management as B.E.A. That is not under my control.

As I was saying, the damage being done to the two air Corporations is, first, that the support of the Government is seen to be being withdrawn from them now that it is known that there are plenty of opportunities for private enterprise to get involved in. I am not saying for one second that the Bill does damage because it permits competition. If it were fair competition I would be in favour of it. Nobody who has thought about the matter for two seconds can suggest that the two Corporations which have fought the toughest international competition successfully for years are going to be afraid of local competition, small or large. Of course not. They are not afraid of equal competition.

The Bill provides for unequal competition, because it puts on the Corporations responsibilities which are not put on the private operators. It puts greater responsibilities on the Corporations and inequality of opportunity. Of course, it is right to say that they should both have fair shares in terms of seeking profit, but the Minister is quite wrong when he deprecates the suggestion that there are two classes. There are two classes. We have made two classes.

The nationalised Corporations are different from private operators. They have got different considerations. They have got different responsibilities. They cannot be pure profit-seeking private enterprise firms. They have got different calculations to make. Their boards have to take different problems into account. It is because they have to take those different problems into account that their costs are higher. If the Minister wants to achieve equality of competition, let him do it by putting equal responsibility on the private enterprise firms, on the private operators.

It is, of course, impossible when we have got an arrangement under which we have the nationalised Corporations responsible to him; to whom he can give directions in certain respects, whose activities he can interfere with in certain respects; whereas the private airlines run their affairs their way. They do not have to ring up the Minister and say, "We propose to do this. Is that all right?" They do not have to fear doing something which might offend the Minister unduly. They do not have to make arrangements with other firms which they do not want to enter into, because, otherwise, the Minister would be displeased. They can tell the Minister to sit down comfortably wherever he wants to sit down and can get on with running their own business in their own way.

As I say, the Minister—and the House by passing the Bill—are withdrawing support from these two Corporations, and are showing that there is a red light shining, shining for those who have responsible positions, warning that they had better look around to see whether they can find more attractive jobs elsewhere. They are putting on them the unfair local competition for which the Bill provides. It is for these reasons that I regard this as a most unacceptable Bill. I see that the hon. Member for Belfast, East is about to rise and, I hope, support me.

11.30 p.m.

Mr. Stanley R. McMaster (Belfast, East)

I do not intend, at this late hour, to detain the House very long. I appreciate the efforts of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) to intervene on my behalf, but I assure him that I was not deterred from speaking earlier in the debate by any voice which I might or might not have heard from the Government Front Bench. I had thought of intervening when an Amendment was moved which I had introduced in Committee, but I did not wish to detain the House by covering, a second time, ground which had been covered so well before. In any case, Mr. Speaker was already on his feet and that was why I resumed my seat. It was not because of any prompting from the Whips.

The hon. Member for Gloucester is completely wrong in interpreting my silence or my aims as being support for him. I am afraid that I cannot agree with the sentiments which he has just pronounced or that the Bill will expose the Corporations to unfair competition. I cannot agree that it is right that this country's future in aviation should be left in the hands of a monopoly, because that would be the position of the Corporations if the Opposition had its way. The Corporations are already well entrenched. Already, a great deal of public money is invested in them. Surely they can compete against small companies which do not receive any Government backing if they can go out into the world and compete against foreign airlines which are subsidised by their own Governments.

I foresee great expansion in the aircraft industry in future not only in passenger carrying, but also in the new exciting rô1e of air freighting. We have developed in this country new planes based on new techniques, like the turboprop Viscount and Vanguard, the Britannia and the Britannic, which is being built in my constituency. Because of something which the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) said, I might add that I have no vested interest in any of the independent airlines.

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister for the number of Amendments in the names of my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden), my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) and myself, which were on the Notice Paper in Committee, which have been accepted and incorporated in the Bill. In moving some of those Amendments I was acting in the interests of British aviation as a whole. The first Amendment on the Notice Paper today was designed to promote the expansion and advancement of British aviation, and I thought that it was quite wrong that it should be amended to mention the Corporations or the independents. There was no need to mention either.

The only things that I have had in mind in proposing Amendments and in supporting the Bill have been the British aviation and aircraft industries. It is the aircraft constructors who will benefit most from strong, sturdy independence. It is these independent aircraft operators who operate the Viscount, the Comet, the VC10 and other fine aircraft, which will sell throughout the world, who will benefit most in the long run.

The whole engineering industry and, indeed, the whole country will benefit from the wise measures adopted in the Bill. The travelling public will benefit from low fares. The Vanguard is capable of carrying up to 150 passengers at almost half the rates now charged. The travelling public and the taxpayers with money invested in the Corporations— these are the people who will benefit from the Bill. I have great pleasure in supporting its Third Reading.

11.35 p.m.

Mr. Sandys

I want to say a few words before we part with the Bill. First, I express my thanks to the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) and the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd), and to my hon. Friends and other hon. Members opposite, for the way in which they have handled the Bill. Our discussions have been helpful and constructive throughout, and I readily accept that the Bill has been strengthened and improved as a result of the Amendments which we have made. We can be happy with the results of our work.

I recognise that there is a difference of opinion between the Opposition and the Government on the position of the Corporations. But I think that hon. Members opposite accept the assurance which I have given, which, at any rate, reflects my own view, that the Corporations represent a very important element in our aviation and will continue to do so, and that it is in the interests of everyone in the country that they should continue to be the main flag carriers of the British air mercantile fleet.

The Bill will alter the arrangements for licensing, and I should like to take the opportunity to express my thanks and those, I believe, of the whole House to the Air Transport Advisory Council and its chairman, Lord Terrington, because the Council has been doing this job for a long time without adequate powers and it is primarily due to the Council's wisdom and judgment, and that of its chairman, in particular, that it has discharged these duties with such success and to such general satisfaction.

The hon. Member for Stockon-on-Tees asked me whether I would say something about the membership of the Board. I do not know what the membership of the Board will be, although, naturally, I have given the matter some thought, and, in any event, it would be improper for me to give names, even if I were in a position to do so, before the Bill had reached the Statute Book.

I return to the main difference which divides us on the Bill. I am sure that the new Licensing Board will administer the Act in a manner which will be fair and equitable to all operators, whether they be Corporations or independent. I believe that there is room for all, and I hope and believe that the Act will give a useful and constructive new impetus to British civil aviation.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third Time and passed.