MOTOR VEHICLE DESIGN AND ROAD PRICING (Hansard, 10 June 1964)

§ The Minister of Transport (Mr. Ernest Marples)
Mr. Speaker, with your permission and that of the House, I wish to make a statement.
In Traffic in Towns, Professor Buchanan drew attention to the tremendous impact of the motor vehicle on our way of life. I wish to announce two further developments.
First, the future of the motor vehicle. We all accept that it has come to stay, but just as the towns of the future must be rebuilt to come to terms with the motor vehicle, so the motor vehicle must 445 be designed to come to terms with those towns. For example, can we not design vehicles whose size, power and manœuvreability make them more suitable for town use? And can we not reduce such things as noise and fumes? There are many aspects of design to be studied.
After consultation with the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, I am arranging for a study to be made of future trends in design. The study will follow the same pattern as that of Traffic in Towns, and the bulk of the work will be done by a Working Group, which will include engineers from the motor industry and my Ministry and representatives from research organisations. They will work under the general direction of a high-level Steering Group, with Sir Harold Roxbee Cox as Chairman. I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT the names of the other members, and its terms of reference.
Second, Buchanan and Crowther demonstrated that, no matter on what scale we rebuild, our largest cities cannot physically accommodate all the traffic that will want to use them. In the shorter term, comprehensive and effective parking policies will ease our problem. But, in the longer run, as Buchanan and Crowther demonstrated, wider measures of restraint of traffic may be unavoidable. No country has yet solved this problem. It is more difficult for us than for most, because we are a small, densely-populated country.
As one step, we commissioned an independent study on the technical feasibility of road pricing. The report of the panel under the chairmanship of Dr. Smeed of the Road Research Laboratory will be on sale to the public tomorrow, and advance copies are now available at the Vote Office. I am grateful to the members of the panel for their work, which shows that a system under which road users pay directly for the use they make of congested roads is technically feasible. But no one can yet say whether such a system would be desirable. We need to know a good deal more about the much more important social, town planning, economic and administrative issues. We are now examining the need for further studies of these wide-ranging problems.

§ Mr. Strauss
Is not the Minister's first proposal another example of his setting up groups to study problems on which he could, and should, have taken action a long time ago? Is the problem of noise and fumes from motor vehicles a new one to him? Does he not recollect that hon. Members on all sides have been pressing him on these matters for years past? Can he be rather more explicit about what he has in mind when talking about the size and power of vehicles? Has he in mind cars smaller than the minis, and more powerful, or what is he thinking of? Is he not aware that the motor manufacturers are constantly studying these matters?
Secondly, is it not the fact that the right hon. Gentleman received the Smeed Report in the autumn of last year? Is that not an extraordinary important Report that may alter the whole pattern of motoring in this country? Why, although the Minister has been pressed ever since December last to publish the Smeed Report, has he not done so before now?
Finally, why does he say that he is only now examining the further studies of the problems raised in the Smeed Report? Is he not aware that, in view of the urgency of the matter, he should have set up those studies the moment he received that Report?

§ Mr. Marples
Perhaps I may answer the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question first. The question of the design of vehicles was really brought to a head by the Buchanan Report. Both Crowther and Buchanan demonstrated that in our largest cities it would not be possible to accommodate the motor car as it now exists so that everyone could use it all the time in any way he liked. Having said that, it occurred to us that there might be something that the motor car industry and we could do to redesign, reshape and look at future trends of the design of the motor car, so that perhaps more people could travel in smaller motor cars, suitably powered, rather than having a few people in big cars. That is one example.
The right hon. Gentleman says that it is the motor industry's business, and that is so. The question of design has to be reconciled with the rebuilding of our 447 towns, and if we are to rebuild our towns, and deliberately set out to build them so as to come to terms with the motor car, the motor industry should make some contribution to providing suitable vehicles for these towns. We have on the Steering Group the chairman of Fords, the chairman of B.M.C. and the chairman of Jaguars, so the motor industry is well represented in this study.
In regard to the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's question, the Smeed Report was published as soon as possible, which was as soon as we could get the printing done.

§ Mr. Hocking
Is my right hon. Friend aware that some aspects of his statement will once again give the impression that the Government are anti-motorist in their outlook? Would it not be better if the Government pursued a road policy that was matched with the production of the motor-car industry?

§ Mr. Marples
I hope that that impression is not widely held by the general public, and that my hon. Friend's question will not foster that sort of spirit, because it is accepted in all major civilised countries that roads, and roads alone, cannot solve the problems of increasing traffic; and that just to build roads without any conception of how to regulate city traffic is too narrow an approach. We have to rebuild our great cities, we have to build roads, and I think that we have to adapt the motor car, or at any rate inform ourselves of every technical possibility, so that we can live with the motor car and not die with it.

§ Mr. M. Foot
Why does not the Minister leave it to private profit to solve this problem? Why does he make proposals—admittedly at a very distant date—for interfering with private enterprise?

§ Mr. Marples
As the responsibility falls on me as Minister, I am taking it myself.

§ Mr. Webster
Is my right hon. Friend aware that the two-tier method of a study group such as Buchanan, with a steering group and a working group, was most effective in getting a pattern for changing the design of cities to meet the motor 448 car and the design of the motor car to meet the city? Can my right hon. Friend give not only the names of some of those on the Steering Group but the names of some of the designers who will be in the Working Group?

§ Mr. Marples
As I have said, I will circulate the information in the OFFICIAL REPORT. The Chairman of the Steering Group will be Sir Harold Roxbee Cox and the members will be Sir Geoffrey Crowther, Mr. A. C. Durie, Professor Hugh Ford, Mr. G. W. Harriman, Sir Patrick Hennessy, Sir William Lyons, and Mr. K. C. Turner.

§ Mr. Lubbock
The Minister referred in his statement to the question of eliminating noise and fumes. Is he not aware that this problem is fundamentally one of finding a different means of propulsion to replace the internal combustion engine? How does he think that this Committee will be able to solve this problem? Does he not think that this is more a matter for his right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science, who should be putting more money into the British invention of the fuel cell?
Secondly, on the question of the negative measures the right hon. Gentleman has taken to approach the problem of driving in towns, could we not have some contribution that would help the motorist by giving him some incentive not to use his car in the centres of our large towns? Would not the Minister look again at the idea, which I have put to him several times, of conducting social benefit studies of car parking at the periphery of our large cities, so that the motorist has some disincentive to bring his car into the middle of towns?

§ Mr. Marples
The question of public transport was adequately covered by the Buchanan Report, and will be completed when we have finished our comprehensive traffic land-use surveys, which have already started in all the major conurbations.
There are two ways of tackling the problem of noise and fumes. The first is enforcement, in which case we want an instrument that will measure both noise and smoke adequately. So far, we have not got it, but I am now taking 449 the positive step of getting into partnership the designers of motor cars to see whether we can tackle the matter from that end as well.

§ Sir J. Maitland
Can my right hon. Friend give the assurance that the export trade will be taken into account in any consideration of design into which the Government may enter?

§ Mr. Marples
I think that the composition of the Steering Group, with the chairmen of three big motor-car firms included, will ensure that that is taken into account. But the point is that Buchanan was a best seller abroad, and if Buchanan on the reshaping of our cities was a best seller abroad it may be that if we can find an answer to the design of the motor car it could well be a best seller also.

§ Mr. Manuel
Does not the right hon. Gentleman think it deplorable that while he is still investigating traffic trends in our large cities and into seaside resorts at holiday periods he should, before formulating policy, be agreeing to rail closures? Could he not envisage dealing with all the traffic needs of the whole country by various methods of transport before deciding on the closure of one particular means?

§ Mr. Marples
That is done before any closure takes place. That question is taken into account.

§ Sir J. Duncan
Will my right hon. Friend include in the study of motor-car design the study of commercial vehicle design and trailers?

§ Mr. Marples
Yes. This inquiry is not solely into the motor car as such, but into every motor vehicle that goes on the road.

Several Hon. Members
rose—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. We cannot debate this now.