§ Q4. Sir R. Nugentasked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement about the circumstances in which the Government decided not to employ Lord Beeching's services for the study of transport co-ordination carried out earlier this year.
§ Q13. Mr. Ridleyasked the Prime Minister why he decided not to employ Lord Beeching to carry out a study of transport co-ordination.
§ The Prime MinisterIt has already been explained. I was very anxious that Dr. Beeching, as he then was, should do this study. But he had, in his evidence to the Geddes Committee, taken a strong pro-railway and anti-road line, and the Government considered that, unless he had attached to him assessors who could represent all points of view, there would be strong ground for criticism in this House and elsewhere. Unfortunately, Lord Beeching insisted on a one-man inquiry without assessors.
§ Sir R. NugentBut did not the Prime Minister, in the first place, get Lord Beeching to agree to do this study single-handed and afterwards impose conditions on him which caused him to withdraw? Is not this what his right hon. Friend the Minister of Technology meant by "sacking" him?
§ The Prime MinisterNo, Sir. The statement made by my right hon. Friend made quite clear the circumstances in which that interchange occurred last week. [Laughter.] If hon. Members opposite are interested in this important question rather than their usual vendetta against my right hon. Friend, certainly the Government were very anxious that Lord Beeching, with his high qualifications, should do it, but I can just imagine the howl there would have been from hon. Members opposite, particularly those sensitive to road haulage interests, if Lord Beeching, after years of taking the rail point of view and after the evidence submitted last year, had gone into this inquiry alone without assessors representing the point of view of road haulage.
§ Mr. RidleyIs not the Prime Minister aware that he appeared to have changed 1232 the terms of reference after he first asked Lord Beeching to undertake this survey, and it further appeared that this was as a result of pressure from the Minister of Technology? Is not this a clear example of the undesirability of having a Cabinet Minister remaining a member of the union?
§ The Prime MinisterIt is about time the hon. Gentleman grew up and faced the facts which this serious problem presents. There was widespread criticism in the Press and elsewhere of the evidence from British Railways to the Geddes Committee, although many people felt that it was reasonable in the emphasis which it placed on the pro-railway side. There would certainly have been the most inordinate howl from road haulage interests—nothing to do with the Minister of Technology—and, I should have thought, from some hon. Members opposite unless one could have been sure that Lord Beeching had access to the views of all concerned. This was why the proposition was put to him. As regards his going back to I.C.I., this, of course, was arranged a long time ago. He was due to go back to I.C.I., but we asked him whether he would stay longer to do this inquiry.
§ Sir M. RedmayneThe right hon. Gentleman has stressed that this is an important question. Can he say when his right hon. Friend proposes to provide an answer to it?
§ The Prime MinisterIf the point of the right hon. Gentleman's question is to ask when we shall make a statement on transport co-ordination, we are very hard at work on this, but—[Laughter.] All we got in the previous 13 years was disco-ordination. I was not aware that any right hon. Gentlemen opposite thought that anything had been done to coordinate the transport services in those years. They carried out a pretty effective wrecking action in 1954.