§ 7.45 p.m.
§
Lords Amendment No. 29: In page 12, line 32, after "If" insert:
after local government has been reorganised in the light of the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government".
§ Read a Second time.
470§ The Minister of State, Ministry of Transport (Mr. Stephen Swingler)I beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
We are now passing to the subject of passenger transport authorities, and are once again confronted with a proposition to postpone their establishment until
after local government has been reorganised in the light of the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government.471 I fully understand why those who are opposed root and branch to the concept of the passenger transport authorities or their establishment would agree with the proposition, in so far as it would postpone the setting up of any P.T.A.s for a considerable period. I am also aware that there are others who are not necessarily opposed to the establishment of an organisation like the P.T.A. but who sincerely think—and this point of view was expressed in another place—that it should await a reorganisation of local government that produces some new form of authority on the lines of the Greater London Council, which, as we said in our White Paper, Public Transport and Traffic, Cmnd. 3481, would be desirable if it covered an area that made sense in transport terms. But, as we also said in the White Paper, we regarded, and still regard, the situation in the great urban areas as so grave and urgent to be dealt with that we could not possibly wait several years, which is what would be involved here, before tackling it by the establishment of some form of integrated passenger transport authority.We said in the White Paper:
It is therefore proposed as soon as the Bill becomes law to proceed with the establishment of PTAs in Greater Manchester, Merseyside, the West Midlands and Tyneside.There we named the four great conurbations outside the London area where we regarded the traffic congestion situation—all the difficulties and obstacles confronting effective public transport operations, and all those things connected with integrating responsibilities of highway planning with public transport operations—as being all so urgent that we could not afford to wait until there was an agreed radical reorganisation of local government.
§ Mr. BessellThe hon. Gentleman said that it might be a period of several years before this could take place if we awaited the Report of the Royal Commission. I do not follow this. Is there likely to be such a long delay? On what does the hon. Gentleman base that assumption?
§ Mr. SwinglerOf course, I cannot accurately forecast, but the hon. Gentleman will have noted that the Amendment does not refer to the making of any report but says 472
after local government has been reorganised in the light of the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government".The Royal Commission has not yet finished its work and has not yet issued a report. That may be in some months' time but all hon. Members will appreciate that, in a way, that is only the beginning of a process. Thereafter there will have to be very considerable negotiations and arguments about the recommendations or the proposals which may arise—I know not—from the Royal Commission, to see what measure of agreement can be achieved about the character of any reorganisation of local government. We know from past experience that that is a process which must last over a considerable period of time.I am not saying that swift results may not be achieved in a particular area of the country, but we all know in general that when recommendations are made affecting the whole distribution of powers of local government and the character of the organisations to be established there can be a prolonged period of negotiation, and, of course, debate in Parliament. Therefore, we cannot possibly foresee actual reorganisation in the light of the report of the Royal Commission as something likely to happen within months. It will be after a period of years.
§ Sir Robert Cary (Manchester, Withington)Would the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that it would have been useful to the House of Commons if, when considering this Bill, we had been in possession of the recommendations of the Royal Commission?
§ Mr. SwinglerOf course I would acknowledge that straight away. We would have been only too happy if we had been in the position where we had the recommendations, where there had been discussions with the major local authorities, and so on. The fact is that that is not the situation with which we were confronted. At the same time as we had to devise a transport policy to try to meet the really urgent problems of traffic congestion, we lacked a proper framework for planning public transport, for planning the urban roads programme and the application of modern techniques of traffic management. We had not got a consensus of opinion, or specific recommendation about local government to meet the situation.
473 That is the position with which we are still faced and that is the reason why I commend to the House that we disagree with the Lords in this Amendment, because acceptance of the Amendment would postpone for a time, which I cannot define, but, undoubtedly, a substantial period of time, the setting up of any passenger transport authorities. Therefore, in our view, it would postpone setting up organisations to deal with the rôle of public transport in those areas where the situation is really urgent.
I recognise from what has been said that one of the reasons behind this Amendment and this proposition is that accountability, as it was expressed in another place, is not properly expressed in the organisational structure which we have at the moment in the Bill. Some time was spent by their Lordships discussing, for example, the Minister's powers in relation to P.T.A.s and criticising the fact that the Minister has representation on the passenger transport authority, has control over capital expenditure and expenditure in relation to investment grants, and has the rôle as arbiter between the P.T.A. and the P.T.E. and the Railways Board, and has power to direct the form of accounts; all of this is represented as too much of Whitehall control over the establishment of the passenger transport authorities.
We have always regarded this proposition as a proposition for a partnership between the local authorities and the State in the establishment of passenger transport authorities. The Minister is to have only a minority representation in regard to appointments. The overwhelming majority of appointments are to be made by nomination by the local authorities without any reference to the Minister at all. Of course, because many of the areas include a multiplicity, sometimes a great multiplicity—look at the Manchester area—of local authorities—
§ Sir R. Cary60.
§ Mr. SwinglerYes, 60 as the hon. Member says, or more—we think it is right that there should be some liaison between the local authorities and the Minister in the appointment of the chairmen of the boards.
It is obviously also right that in respect of capital grants which are made, or major capital expenditure, the Minister 474 of Transport must have an important rôle, as, indeed, he fulfils these functions in respect of the highways and roads programme. Again and again we have made plain that this organisation is to be grafted on to the machinery of local government, that it is because the local authorities have highway powers and traffic regulation powers that we wish to give them the responsibility for public transport operations, and that it is only because we have not got reorganised local government machinery that we must devise this kind of structure in which we think it is fair that there should be some representation of the Minister of Transport and that the Minister must exercise a rôle in regard to major projects where there are going to be contributions from national funds.
To sum up on this question, we have made it plain again and again—and, of course, the proof lies in the White Paper my right hon. Friend issued in respect of London in July of this year where we had a piece of reorganised piece of local government machinery—that when there is reform of local government machinery with possibly a single authority covering an area which makes sense in transport terms, clearly we may have to reconsider many of these issues—when that day comes, but it may be that that is several years hence. I cannot tell. It may be something which is very difficult to achieve, and only after protracted negotiations. We know from the facts about traffic congestion and public transport operation, and, from what we are told by people in the conurbations, that we cannot wait till that day to set up an authority which begins to devise and integrate a public transport plan and to pull together the various responsibilities. It is for that basic reason that I trust the House will make plain that it cannot agree to this Amendment.
§ 8.0 p.m.
§ Mr. Michael Heseltine (Tavistock)In listening to the case advanced by the Minister of State for proceeding straight away with the establishment of the Passenger Transport Authorities, I could not help remembering all I had heard when we were discussing earlier this afternoon the National Freight Corporation. The one great similarity between the National Freight Corporation and the Passenger 475 Transport Authorities is that the Government are not capable of producing one single outside expert to argue in favour of either organisation.
We know all about congestion in big cities; we are told about the difficulties which it creates by the people who live there. Why is it, if this pressure exists in big cities, and if the solutions are so obvious to those who come down from London to examine the situation, they are not able to persuade the people in big cities that the Passenger Transport Authority as designed by the Ministry of Transport is the way to cure the problem? The Minister of State knows as well as I do that every time anyone goes from the Ministry to any of the four conurbations which will first receive Passenger Transport Authorities the one thing on which they are all united is that the Passenger Transport Authority as embodied in this legislation will not advance the cure of congestion. I cannot understand how the Minister can call in aid arguments about the views of local people when he knows as well as I do that they are diametrically opposed to his proposals. Their Lordships are the last group of people to have examined these proposals and rejected them. They do not believe that they will solve the problems that exist.
I agree with the Minister of State that traffic congestion is one of our major problems. We are in favour of some sort of organisation being set up to bring about an earlier day when the planning that is necessary for these great cities can he brought to fruition, when the investigations and plans can be got under way, but we do not believe that that day will be brought one hour closer by tinkering around with the ownership of the buses, by setting up a great bureaucratic organisation whose principal powers will be to deal with the minutiae of the running of the buses, to decide where the buses shall stop, who runs which bus, which garage they return to at night, the various wage rates paid to the people who run them, the timetables and such problems. These are not the cause of congestion. The centralisation of the decisions around these problems will not remove congestion.
As I shall seek to argue later in my speech, the Ministry have taken the first 476 stage of what needs to be done, made that the main focus of their activities and ignored the real priorities which we have argued consistently throughout Committee and Report stages of this legislation, and which their Lordships have argued with great determination and have seen fit to embody in this Amendment.
The Minister of State sought to show that the power built into the Passenger Transport Authorities, to be handed over to the executive in many respects, and the constitution of the Authorities themselves, will produce a partnership between the central Government and the local authorities. Yet everybody is aware that what needs to be done in this country is not to set up a partnership between central Government and local government; it is to give to the local people a streamlined organisation which has the power to cope with the problems, about which there will be little dispute in this House or anywhere else where these problems are discussed. It is not a partnership that is being set up in any sense of that word. A partnership is the voluntary coming together of two or more groups of people for a common purpose. This legislation does not produce the voluntary coming together of local authorities and central Government.
This is legislation which has been steam-rollered through this House, which doubtless will he pushed through on the Whips tonight and which has been attacked by everybody—"everybody" is the operative word—who has looked at it and who has a voice which should be heard on the subject. For the Minister of State after these long months to refer to this as a partnership is the height of effrontery at the end of a long exercise of effrontery during the passage of this legislation.
To dismiss some aspects of the legislation to which we have drawn the attention of the House, and of others who have examined it, as though they are of no account or as though they are of some safeguard and benefit to the local people is a curious way of twisting the views which have been expressed outside the House.
For example, the Minister of State referred to the number of Ministerial nominees to be appointed locally to represent the Minister of Transport in this 477 partnership with the local authorities that is to take place. I would accept at once that the number of nominees in the totality of the organisation does not bear an overwhelmingly large proportion of the power and responsibility. There is to be only one out of every seven members of the Passenger Transport Authority who will be nominated by the Minister, and it may be wondered, therefore, why this principle has been fought for so bitterly and with such persistence. The moment one examines the problems which will be considered by those people, and considers the balance of power which exists in any form of Government, local government being no exception, one begins to realise that that one-seventh, operating as they might well do on directives of the Ministry of Transport, will in virtually every conceivable circumstance have a balance of power. Whatever arguments or discussions are taking place in an organisation consisting, say, of 21 people, that one-seventh, three people, on any likely contingency will be immensely influential and powerful men.
To take the obvious example of the political balance of power, let us look at the standard build-up of an authority of 21 people, only 18 of whom come from locally elected organisations. Let us assume that 10 of those people represent in direct proportion Conservative authorities and that 8 represent Labour authorities. In the straightest possible examination of those facts it is obvious that the local people have decided that they want to be represented by a Conservative authority, because 10, in any democracy of which I am aware, is better than 8. But in the Passenger Transport Authorities, with a Labour Government at the centre of this country, 10 is not better than 8, because 10 does not equal 8 plus 3. If that is not an example, as clearly as it can be spelt out, of precisely why local authorities suspect words like "partnership" then I do not know what is.
§ Mr. ManuelI am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. The Tory Party, he in particular, is introducing politics into the debate. I do not know if the hon. Gentleman has had experience of serving in local government; many hon. Members have. I have been a representative on various authorities, electricity, county councils and so on. Despite the fact that there are two parties, representa- 478 tives are selected from each side according to who is the best man to do the job. That is the rule in Scotland and I hope it is the same in England.
§ Mr. HeseltineI am grateful to the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel). I do not know much about local government in Scotland, but he knows as well as I do that in local government in this country where there are political groupings the vast majority of appointments to committees and as chairmen are made on a party basis, depending on who won the last municipal election. As none of the areas listed for Passenger Transport Authorities is in Scotland, I do not withdraw one word of what I suggested; that in the elections which could take place within the four areas which are likely first to get Passenger Transport Authorities 10 is not better than 8 plus 3, and that is not a partnership. That is a direct attempt by central Government to take unto itself more power at a time when the country yearns for more power to be returned to the people in the provinces and not centralised in London.
My argument does not only concern the political balance, although that is serious enough for hon. Members on this side of the House. There is, for example, the weighting of the big city centre against smaller local authorities outside; the weighting of those people living on the left of the city against those living on the right. Wherever one looks there will be a division of opinion within the Passenger Transport Authority, and, where that division exists on anything except an overwhelming basis, it is those three men from the Ministry of Transport who will be vitally important men because, as the Minister of State said, they are the men who bring with them the money from Whitehall. Without their blessing and agreement, the whole programme as wished for by the local people can be set at nought, unless the Ministry's nominees are prepared to go back to their masters in Whitehall and say, "We agree with the proposals of the local people." That is not partnership, and it is no use the Minister pretending that it is.
If it were genuine partnership, no doubt much of the fury in the local authorities would not exist, but it must be inconceivable to the Minister of State that, having argued so passionately for 479 so long in favour of passenger transport authorities, even now, when the benefits which are supposed to flow from them stare the local authorities in the face, he cannot find one local authority which does anything but attack him and his Ministry for the proposals embodied in the legislation. In those circumstances, I do not understand—
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving)Order. It is true that the Minister went rather wide of the Amendment, and I have allowed the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Michael Heseltine) a good deal of scope, but I think that he ought now to come back to the Amendment, which is concerned with the Royal Commission.
§ Mr. HeseltineMr. Deputy Speaker, I agree that the Amendment is concerned with the Royal Commission, but the Royal Commission will report upon the very subjects at the centre of the whole discussion of passenger transport authorities. It is because the local authorities are aware that a new set of proposals will come from the passenger transport authorities that it is important for me to attack the existing proposals, which are simply not wanted by the local authorities.
8.15 p.m.
These discussions were first entered into on the Floor of the House nearly 12 months ago. One of the central themes advanced by those who advocate the proposals on behalf of the Government is that the Opposition do not want any form of passenger transport authority. However, that has never been our position. We would like to see a consultative authority set up at the earliest opportunity, because we believe that there is a vital job to be done, and it is a job which must run parallel with the work now being carried out by the Royal Commission on Local Government—
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerThis is still rather wide of the Amendment, which is concerned with the timing and relationship of the Royal Commission's Report. The hon. Gentleman must come back to that.
§ Mr. HeseltineWith great deference to your judgment, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I appreciate that this might appear to be wider of the mark than one would 480 like at this stage of the debate. But what is happening in the deliberations of the Royal Commission is that proposals are being prepared for the way in which local government is to be reorganised. When that happens, all the various facets of the passenger transport authorities will have to be reorganised as a result of the proposals flowing from the Royal Commission.
Perhaps I might give one example of the sort of situation which arises. Newcastle is to have a passenger transport authority. At the present time, while we are awaiting the political judgments on the reorganisation of local government from the Royal Commission, a land-use transportation survey is taking place at a cost of something like £500,000 to discover what are the real transportation needs of the area. I agree that that should be happening, and it has happened in many of the other areas proposed to he affected by passenger transport authorities. In other words, one has a political examination and a transportation examination taking place. But it is only when one has both sets of proposals that one can make a once and for all recommendation for the reorganisation of local government, one of the principal facets of which is local transportation and all that flows from it.
It seems quite extraordinary that the Ministry, which is as aware of this as anyone could be and which has submitted evidence to the Royal Commission that it is very difficult to fault, can still go ahead with the tail-end of the investigations which are going on before we get the proposals themselves. Anyone who has read the evidence of the Ministry to the Royal Commission will understand that it has argued precisely the case which I advocate. It says in its memorandum:
The same principle applies to the transport functions of local government. In practical terms it is important not only to co-ordinate the various local authority transport services one with another; the planning of highway construction and improvement of traffic control measures and of public transport services must also be based on a full appreciation of plans for land-use".That is what it is all about—
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerBut it is not what the Amendment is about, and the hon. Gentleman must come to the Amendment.
§ Mr. HeseltineMr. Deputy Speaker, I am quoting from the Ministry of Transport's memorandum to the Royal Commission. This is obviously part of the Royal Commission's considerations, and I cannot see how it can be irrelevant to our discussions. Without waiting for the Royal Commission's Report, the Ministry is proceeding with action which could be contradictory to what it has asked for already.
§ Mr. LeadbitterIt is not clear to me what the hon. Gentleman is trying to do. Is he saying that the evidence before the Royal Commission was an indication that that was what it was required to do, or is he saying that it was evidence of what should be done about transport, which is a separate subject?
§ Mr. HeseltineI am making it clear, by quoting from the Ministry's evidence, that it knows that the priorities are to draw together the various local government departments concerned with highways, the planning of roads and the operation and provision of services. The threads have to be drawn together. We are waiting to see how the Royal Commission proposes that the exercise should be carried out.
§ Mr. LeadbitterThat is the hon. Gentlemen's interpretation. Does he now agree that what he has said about the P.T.A.s is obviously wrong and that he should be supporting the Government's case?
§ Mr. HeseltineMr. Deputy Speaker, it would not be convenient to the House for me to quote at length from speeches that I have made on the subject over many months. But those who have heard them will agree that there is nothing inconsistent in what I have said tonight.
There we have the target set for the Royal Commission by the Ministry. Having spelt out what it is hoped will be achieved, it is extraordinary that the Ministry should now be going ahead with the reorganisation of certain parts of public transport services long before we have been able to examine the Royal Commission's proposals. I would have thought that that answered the case more completely than any other quotation one could produce.
My concern and that of all those living in areas which are to be affected by 482 passenger transport authorities is that if one ignores the delay, which could only be a year or 18 months, before we can examine the Report of the Royal Commission, and proceeds with a reorganisation of transport without the Royal Commission's recommendations, passenger transport authorities will be set up with all the ramifications flowing from them and then, within about nine months, we shall require another Transport Bill to try and incorporate the then existing authorities within some new framework of local government reorganisation as yet unknown. An immense amount of energy and ingenuity will have gone into the Bill and the work flowing from the Bill, and then there will have to be another Bill. How much better it would be if the consultative organisation which we advocate took the place of the proposals that we are now discussing, which could go ahead with the drawing together of the essential threads of this extremely tangled web without the waste of talent and time involved in implementing the proposed legislation.
§ Mr. Charles Mapp (Oldham, East)The contribution that we have just heard from the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Michael Heseltine) is the one that I expected from the Opposition. I very much regret that we consistently get a wholly prejudiced political kind of speech on this topic. I would have preferred to hear an informed case about the operations of the transport authority rather than the kind of stuff we have heard from the hon. Member for Tavistock who, quite clearly, is not familiar with large industrial areas where the problems of passenger transport are really acute and, in the main, have to be solved by transport operators with a wide vision of what is required.
I am very familiar with the Manchester area, and I would like to correct the hon. Member for Tavistock on one matter. The Conservative Council in Oldham, which I regret exists in its second year, is running a fleet of nearly 250 vehicles. The Council is running services now not only in Oldham, but across the adjacent Lancashire County Council boundaries running into and within the City of Manchester. Yet the political friends of the hon. Member for Tavistock on some occasions less prejudiced than he, have 483 considered the facts and decided that they are unable to find any better alternative to the intricate and difficult passenger transport operations that are known within the Manchester conurbation. I hope that future debates will be more fruitful in bringing out the facts. Referring to this imaginary 10 and eight principle that the hon. Member for Tavistock was talking about, I hope that those kinds of people will be more transport minded than the hon. Gentleman.
§ Mr. Heseltine rose—
§ Mr. MappI will give way in a moment. May I assure the hon. Member for Tavistock that, concerning transport, there are many obstinate facts which go beyond the realm of politics. We have to try to work our social philosophy, as it were, into the obstinate facts of moving people and goods, even within the archaic local government structure of the 5 million people in and around the Manchester area. Regardless of what the hon. Member for Tavistock says about professional people not recommending this kind of thing, his knowledge is limited by those visits to Manchester which are now and again arranged by Smith Square with a view to getting an end result they wanted to start with.
§ Mr. Heseltine rose—
§ Mr. MappThe people who are worried about doing the job that the public want know full fell that here is the main nucleus of the future, and much depends on the kind of brains, whether they be Tory, Socialist or Liberal, which will be put into this kind of operation, the officials and professional men being conscious of the general well-being.
I dismiss out of hand the argument put forward by the hon. Member for Tavistock. It contributed nothing to the world of transport. In many ways it was a waste of time of this House. I will give way if the hon. Gentleman seeks to help me on the point.
§ Mr. HeseltineI cannot know whether the Oldham Council has passed some resolution in favour of passenger transport authorities. If it has, I am not aware of it. I obviously do not suggest that the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Mapp) would do anything other than report the facts to the House, but he will 484 be aware that the council most affected by the proposals, the Manchester City Council, is totally opposed to the establishment of passenger transport authorities.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. Clause 9 is not for debate. The Amendment is merely concerned with the Royal Commission. Clause 9 should not be operated until after the receipt of the Report of the Royal Commission. Hon. Members are going much wider than the Amendment. I hope they will stick to the Amendment. Mr. Mapp.
§ Mr. MappI was attempting to direct my thoughts to the fact that, even within the existing structure of local government, with all its contradictions, at least in Oldham a Conservative Council, having considered all the alternatives, finds that it is unable to do anything better. Whilst I am aware that Manchester has this prejudiced political view, it arises not from a study of transport in and around local authorities, but because of the road structure. It arises because of a political viciousness that has been generated both here and elsewhere. It brings nothing to the debate and does not help the future of transport in any way.
§ Sir R. CaryThe hon. Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Mapp) was a little unkind to my hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock (Mr. Michael Heseltine) in accusing him of being unfamiliar with the requirements of large industrial areas. No Member on this side of the House has taken more trouble than the hon. Member for Tavistock to familiarise himself with the industrial and transport problems not only of the Newcastle area, but of the Manchester area, too.
§ Mr. ManuelThe hon. Gentleman was sent up there to do it.
§ Sir R. CaryLet us be fair to my hon. friend the Member for Tavistock. Though he speaks fluently, cogently and lustily, a talent for which I envy him, in putting his point of view he speaks for the majority of voices on this side of the House.
The Minister of State has raised a number of issues going rather wider than the Amendment. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock raised 485 the principle of the P.T.A.s. Of course we accept the principle of the P.T.A.s.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. I would indicate to the hon. Member that that is exactly what I took exception to in the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock (Mr. Michael Heseltine). The question of P.T.A.s is not under discussion tonight.
§ Sir R. CaryI will try hard not to drift.
The Minister of State should understand that this is not a wrecking Amendment. There is no intention other than to improve the Bill. But we on this side of the House hold the view that the P.T.A.s cannot succeed unless they are firmly based upon local government. The powers envisaged in the Bill belong almost wholly in the hands of the Minister. We want that power shed to the local authorities.
I am sorry that we have not got the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Local Government before the House, even at this late hour in the closing stages of this long debate on the Bill, but the local authorities in the end have to determine the pattern and how a public transport authority shall work. Therefore, the more responsibility that we can give to the local interests, as distinct from the interests of the conurbations, what I might call the front-line interests of the conurbation in contrast to the planning—and some of it has been quite good in the whole of the scheme envisaged by the Ministry of Transport—so much the better it will be to operate the provisions of the Bill.
8.30 p.m.
The Bill in the form in which it has been presented to the House had its beginnings, not in the Minister of State's mind, or in the minds of his colleagues. It perhaps began in the time of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) when some years ago, as Minister of Transport, he launched his great scheme of traffic surveys and an examination of the future of urban land. I remember going to his first great pronouncement on this subject to about 80 authorities within the Manchester area. That, I think, was the seed of the P.T.A.s envisaged in the Bill.
486 All the Amendment asks is that some of the vital powers possessed by the Ministry should be shed to the local authority, particularly when the P.T.A.s have to be set up. I am sure that the hon. Member for Oldham, East will agree with me when I say that in the conurbation of which I know best, that of the Manchester area containing about 70 to 80 local authorities, only 25 of those authorities will be represented on the P.T.A. There will be an enormous number of smaller local authorities, interests, and urban district councils which will have no say in the consultations which must take place, and which, if they are to be reasonably well done, will take a considerable time. I am therefore sorry that the Minister of State is hostile to what has been proposed. I think that if the Amendment were accepted it would not only be helpful to the Bill, but would save the Government from drifting into many silly mistakes in the future.
§ Mr. LeadbitterThe hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Heseltine) must be credited with the claim made for him by the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Sir R. Cary) that he has done an extreme amount of hard work on this part of the Bill. It would be wrong for any Member to minimise the amount of effort and work that has been done by any Member, on whatever side of the House he sits. The hon. Member for Tavistock and I have crossed swords on this subject time and time again, but I must tell him that the debates were all the better for his having done a good deal of research. That does not mean, however, that he is right in what he says about the Amendment.
I am glad that the debate tonight is confined to the simple word "when", because all the arguments about the merits of the case have long since been deployed, as have all the arguments about the demerits of the P.T.A.s. No one can alter the difference of opinion between the two sides of the House. If, however, we are to be deprived of what might be called a second bite at the cherry, I think that we should address ourselves to the facts. I was therefore sorry to hear the hon. Member for Tavistock claim that nobody was in agreement with the setting up of the P.T.A.s. That is a sweeping statement which at one fell swoop destroys the 487 conclusion to which we would all like to come, that the hon. Gentleman's work was done with the degree of impartiality which the importance of the subject commands. The hon. Gentleman has displayed a weakness. He has allowed the prejudicial part of his thinking to interfere with the constructive part of his homework. When I say that, I do not mean to imply that the knowledge he has gained from hours and months of hard work is any the less for that.
It is a pity that the subject of P.T.A.s has from time to time been spoilt by this injection of prejudicial thinking. I do not say that it is political thinking. People both inside and outside the House have been misled by the complete misrepresentation of the facts. Therefore, there are innocents on this side of the House who from time to time feel that there may have been something premature or something wrong—something that was rather an infringement upon the freedom of local authorities—in placing the statutory charge—
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. The hon. Member is once again seeking to argue the merits of Clause 9. I must ask him to come back to the Amendment.
§ Mr. LeadbitterI can assure you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I shall not attempt to go beyond the terms of your Ruling by any subtle reasoning. I shall return to the question of when.
If we address ourselves objectively to the question and accept what the Minister of State said earlier, that if we confine ourselves to the wording of the Amendment, several areas will be involved. I therefore ask the House to say by what stretch of the imagination anyone with any responsibility for this country, and bearing in mind the serious congestion, economic loss, frustration, death and accidents on the roads, can accept that, especially in the four conurbations referred to, we can delay plans to set afoot a more rational and efficient method of dealing with transport problems. Wherever political or prejudicial arguments are employed the area of doubt lies in favour of getting on with the job as soon as possible.
I have said that the hon. Member for Tavistock used the sweeping statement that no one agreed with the P.T.A.s. The 488 answer to that is quite clear from the minutes of the Association of Municipal Corporations. That national body has agreed—
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. I endeavoured to prevent the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Michael Heseltine) from arguing that point. I hope that the hon. Member will not follow it up.
§ Mr. LeadbitterI shall try to confine myself to your Ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The A.M.C. has agreed that it should not wait for the local boundary commission to report in respect of the four conurbations. In this respect the hon. Member for Tavistock was wrong. I agree that the A.M.C. has reservations about the P.T.A.s, but on the question of the conurbations it regards the matter as so serious that the minutes include a determined decision to get on and support urgently the P.T.A. idea for the four conurbations before the Boundary Commission reports.
§ Mr. HeseltineThe hon. Member is as aware as I am that the minutes to which he has referred make it clear that while the A.M.C. is in favour of some form of progress the precise passenger transport authorities, as laid down in this legislation, are not acceptable.
§ Mr. LeadbitterThat is not the right use of the language. However, I do not wish to develop the point too much, because I must keep within your Ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The main issue concerns the question when the P.T.A.s shall be set up. At least a large proportion of the plan for the conurbations has been supported by the A.M.C. It has also been supported by other authorities. It would be wrong to debate those details now, but the hon. Member for Tavistock overstated his case when he said that no one supported this.
I would comment on his simple arithmetic. Whether he was thinking in terms of the P.T.A.s set up either in accordance with the Government's wishes now, or in accordance with the Amendment several years from now, his simple arithmetic shows wrong thinking. Why did he pick 10 and eight and then, because the Minister has the power to appoint one-seventh of the 21 members of the authority stick those three on the eight and conclude that 10 was better than 489 eight? On the other hand, why not pick 10 and six or 10 and seven? Better still, why not ignore the arithmetic and try to understand what appointments to boards of this kind mean?
His own party, when in power, did a good deal of reorganisation of river boards and drainage boards. Under that legislation, the interesting situation arose in which my authority and Stockton had to share a delegation every three years, so we had half a delegate each. Thus, he is not talking about representation on the P.T.A.s in practical terms.
It is no good trying to defeat a Bill's purposes purely on the simple arithmetic of representation. The hon. Member must understand that local authorities, public utilities and bodies of all kinds have a long and well-established reputation for putting forward nominations to serve the interests concerned. It does net follow that when a local authority nominates someone either to the P.T.A. in the area or to any other body, their representation will be any less in the terms which the hon. Member envisages.
To take an extreme example, he makes the mistake of thinking that, since my right hon. Friend is to appoint three members to the P.T.A.s, they will come from Whitehall. If that were the case, the Minister of State would have a row on his hands from this side of the House. I lake it that it is intended that the Minister will make nominations after receiving recommendations from interested bodies. It appears that the advantages to the P.T.A.s would be enhanced by nominations coming from outside local authorities of people with a minority position, having special knowledge to offer, as well as the local knowledge on which to work, which would bring to the P.T.A.s advantages rather than the great disadvantages which the hon. Member foresees.
Therefore, his simple arithmetic is wrong and misconceived. His conclusions are based on wrong premises and his knowledge of local authority nominations and Ministerial appointments of this kind is very "off wicket". The establishment of the P.T.A. in the four conurbations which I have mentioned is a matter of great urgency in considering the country's transport. There are many lives to be saved as well as great economies to be made.
490 If we are to address ourselves strictly to the Amendment, we are not arguing about the principle. We are not arguing whether it is right or wrong. We are arguing when we should do it. The question, therefore, is as follows: is the problem so serious that it should be dealt with as early as possible or should it be dealt with in several years time? The answer must be that it should be dealt with as soon as possible.
§ 8.45 p.m.
§ Mr. Harold Gurden (Birmingham, Selly Oak)We have heard some rather surprising statements this evening. It has been claimed that the setting up of the P.T.A. will have a considerable effect on traffic congestion and will even save lives. Surely that is a lot of nonsense. As an experienced Birmingham City councillor, as I consider myself to be, I suggest that no P.T.A. will ever do the job better than the Birmingham authority have done it in the past. For a serious claim to be made that it will be done better by the P.T.A. is nonsense.
The Minister claimed that it will be some years before the findings of the Royal Commission can be put into operation. Clearly the Government want it both ways. I am sure that they will tell us that the constituency boundaries cannot be altered because quite soon we shall have the Royal Commission's Report on local government. It looks to me as though the Minister in charge of the Bill has not consulted his senior colleagues, because he has put them in a little trouble by letting the cat out of the bag and telling us that the Royal Commission's Report will not be in effect for some years.
§ Mr. SwinglerI did not say that the Report would not be received for some years. The Amendment argues that the P.T.A. should not be set up until the Royal Commission's recommendations have been implemented. That is why I referred to the long period.
§ Mr. GurdenThat excuse may be valid, but I must tell the hon. Member that my suspicions are aroused.
Birmingham is a very large transport authority, and the large transport authorities are entitled to some information from the Royal Commission on what their recommendations will be. If not, I am 491 sure that the P.T.A. set up for the West Midlands area will be faulty. Surely the Government ought to take some notice of the mistakes of the past over nationalisation, in respect of which they realise that they ought to have waited for better information. We are suffering as a consequence of that and we have suffered as a consequence for years. Through hasty legislation in setting up authorities such as this, we shall only repeat the errors of the past.
§ Mr. A. Woodburn (Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire)Is the hon. Member aware that there is no guarantee that the Royal Commission's Report will be accepted by anybody? It will not be accepted as the law until Parliament approves it. Everyone knows that there will be a great deal of argument and discussion with local authorities about it. I agree with the Minister that it may well be six or seven years before the Royal Commission's Report is put into effect—if it is accepted.
§ Mr. GurdenThat only confirms my argument that the Government will be arguing one way when it comes to adjusting constituency boundaries and another way when it suits them for the P.T.A. to be set up.
Birmingham is a very large transport undertaking which can only lose as a result of this proposal. It is likely that through the fares structure it will have to subsidise the other local authority areas when the P.T.A. is set up. It is very important to the Midlands and certainly to the Birmingham constituents to know by how much they must subsidise to help the smaller local authorities. They ought to be told with which local authorities they will ultimately deal. We are apparently to set up a P.T.A. in an area which, according to the Minister, later will be changed. Surely that is wasteful and most unfair to the citizens of Birmingham, who have built up the capital in this large transport undertaking and who will be on the giving end and not on the receiving end.
I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) is just as interested in this matter on behalf of her constituents as I am on behalf of mine. They certainly will not like the proposal unless the 492 Government take other action to meet the needs of those who have to operate the scheme and to give them some information about what the ultimate arrangements will be. I cannot see the point of setting up a P.T.A. for the West Midlands until we know exactly what the Royal Commission will report. As for the suggestion that it will save lives and ease traffic congestion, in fact it will have no effect on that at all.
§ Mr. Peter Mahon (Preston, South)I would not wish to do the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Michael Heseltine) an injustice. Having been a member of the Standing Committee, like him, for five months, I must describe his advocacy tonight as having been not only eloquent but sincere, according to his lights. The argument of hon. Gentlemen opposite has been that some drastic problems must await the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government. My hon. Friends are entitled to wonder what is to happen in the mean time.
Undue delay could result in transport grinding to a halt. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have argued that the Royal Commission's Report will represent a panacea for all ills. It is often said that drastic measures require drastic remedies. Transport in the conurbations is already chaotic in the extreme. In areas like Liverpool, Manchester and Tyneside something must be done without delay. To delay now might be dangerous and it is irresponsible to suggest that we should await any report. It is imperative that changes are introduced quickly because real progress is being bedevilled by inadequate and inefficient transport arrangements.
The hon. Member for Tavistock said that expert opinion was against the arrangement we are discussing. The definition of an expert is a man who knows too much about too little. We have found to our sorrow that the experts are only too often representative of vested interests and are not primarily concerned with the interests of the travelling public. Whatever is said about the Royal Commission being able to cope speedily and adequately with this complex problem, something must be done now.
Having served on a local authority for 35 years, I would not decry the 493 efficiency and competency of local government. Too often in Parliament we hear of the inefficiency of local government, but we are not justified in making these assertions without sometimes looking to our own laurels. We are occasionally contemptuous when we complain without paying sufficient attention to what has been achieved by local government.
The hon. Member for Tavistock has a high I.O. His intelligence perhaps leads him to be sceptical or cynical. The voting habits of people are often open to question. Time is transient. People's voting habits change almost hourly. We need not be unduly perturbed about the political complexion of those who make up committees which are appointed. The hon. Gentleman's fears are not real enough and, although he spoke sincerely and eloquently, he did not prove his case.
§ Mr. Tim Fortescue (Liverpool, Garston)When this Amendment was considered in another place, noble Lords with great experience and knowledge of the traffic problems of the conurbations of the West Midlands—Manchester, Tyneside., and so on—were in evidence, but by some extraordinary freak there was no noble Lord present with experience of the traffic problems of Mersey-side. This Administration cannot be accused of being niggardly in the distribution of honours to Merseyside. I can only presume that on that occasion none of the noble gentlemen or ladies who knew about Liverpool were present, so today I wish to put in my plug for Liverpool on the consequences of the Amendment.
This part of the Bill is one of those obnoxious Clauses which begin, "Should the Minister consider it expedient" or words to that effect—and expediency, in the mind of the Minister, is the only criterion given to us. The Minister said that the Government regard the establishment of P.T.A.s as urgent, but who else regards their establishment as urgent? The people of Liverpool do not. Nor does the council there. The local council has made its view clear in a vigorous way. It is the mysterious "We" in the Minister's remark, "We regard their establishment as urgent" that makes us wonder why these P.T.A.s must be established in 494 advance of the Report of the Royal Commission.
9.0 p.m.
Traffic problems in Liverpool are serious, as anyone who knows the city will agree, but they are not insoluble by the present methods. They are being tackled very bravely by a succession of Liverpool city administrators. New tunnels and new roads are being built. Things will improve whether or not we have a P.T.A. there. I suggest that this sense of urgency for a P.T.A. on Mersey-side in advance of the implementation of the Royal Commission's Report exists entirely in the mind of the Government and in the mind of no one else at all.
A second point that has not been answered is: what does the Royal Commission on Local Government itself think of the proposal to designate P.T.A. areas in advance of its Report being considered and implemented? In another place, a noble Lord suggested that the Royal Commission should be consulted, because it would seem obvious to anyone that the views of its members would be pertinent and valuable in considering this problem. We have had no news at all from anyone that the Royal Commission has been consulted. It seems that it is required to go on working in a vacuum somewhere on the redesignation of local government boundaries and quite apart from any consideration being given to this aspect of the Bill.
I should like to draw attention to the concluding words of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, speaking for the Government in the House of Lords debate on this Amendment just before it was carried. The argument was that the recommendations of the Royal Commission should be taken into account before any P.T.A. areas were designated, and Lord Stonham said, as a statement of Government policy, that the Government would in fact take these recommendations into account. He stated:
The Minister has given sufficient indication that over the country as a whole he will have regard, in any proposals he makes for setting up Passenger Transport Areas, to the recommendations which may be made by the Royal Commission.There it is, in black and white.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. Whatever the Royal Commission may decide will not affect Clause 9 and the principle 495 of P.T.A.s. The hon. Gentleman is therefore out of order in what he says.
§ Mr. FortescueWith great respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, we are talking about an Amendment which proposes that Clause 9 should not be put into force until the Royal Commission has reported.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerAs I understand it, whatever the Royal Commission decides does not negative Clause 9. It is a question of timing, not of the principle of Clause 9, which we are discussing tonight.
§ Mr. FortescueWith respect, I find your reasoning a little difficult to follow, but I will, of course, defer to your Ruling. It was my belief that what we were trying to decide was whether or not the Minister should have the power to designate P.T.A. areas in advance of the recommendations of the Royal Commission being implemented.
The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said in almost the next sentence:
But we cannot wait till those recommendations, which we have not yet received, have been considered …If the Minister is to take into account those recommendations but cannot wait until they have been received, how can he put into effect the policy that he says the Government is to put into effect? This seems to be a feat of prevision which up to now has not been possible for them. It is some extra sensory knowledge that Ministers in this matter have but of which others do not have the benefit.At the very end of his remarks Lord Stonham said:
It is our intention, however, that in those areas "—that is, in the four conurbations about which we are talking:the P.T.A.s should be reabsorbed more directly into local government when and if a suitable local government organisation, just like Greater London, is in existence."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 24th June, 1968; Vol. 293, c. 1201–2.]What on earth does that mean? How will these P.T.A. areas be reabsorbed having been set up by this very elaborate procedure outlined in the Bill, and having gone through all the processes which, incidentally, will take some years? The process from the first day when the first 496 Order is obtained until the final P.T.A. is effective will take up to two or three years.Having done all that, all the authorities having been established, all the executives having been established, all the reports having been made, then, according to the noble Lord, the area will be reabsorbed into a new local authority. This is nonsense. Anyone with any common sense will recognise that the sensible course is to wait for the recommendations of the Royal Commission and then to tailor the local transport passenger transport areas to those recommendations.
§ Mr. Eric S. Heffer (Liverpool, Walton)The hon. Gentleman said earlier that there was no feeling in Liverpool or on Merseyside in favour of an integrated transport system. For the information of the hon. Gentleman, who has not been associated with Merseyside for as long as I have, I state that an argument has raged in that district for a long time in favour of an integrated transport system on a much wider basis than has hitherto existed. If the hon. Gentleman goes into the history, he will find there is a good deal of feeling on Merseyside in favour of such a system.
§ Mr. FortescueI did not say anything of the sort. I did not say that there was no feeling in Liverpool for an integrated transport system. I know the strength of the feeling there. I said that there was no feeling in Liverpool that there was any urgency to such a system before the Royal Commission has made its recommendations.
§ Mr. HefferI say that there is a feeling of urgency.
§ Mr. SwinglerBy leave of the House, I will reply very briefly to the debate. I realise from your Rulings, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I went rather wide in my opening remarks, but I thought it right to deal with the reasons which were advanced in favour of the Amendment. That involved my going into reasons concerning the constitution of P.T.A.s as proposed in the Bill and which have been argued as reasons for postponement.
I find a slight difficulty, as I have done previously, in replying, because I know that I am confronted with two types of 497 criticism. There are those who are wholly opposed to P.T.A.s as such and who therefore support the Amendment as an indefinite postponment of the establishment of such organisations. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Fortescue) probably falls into that category—those who are root and branch opposed to the idea and who therefore do not want to see it operating. Obviously we cannot accept the view of those critics and there is nothing further that I can argue with them, except to say that they have failed to provide any constructive alternative to the concept of the passenger transport authority.
It is conveyed to me by the flavour of the speech of the hon. Member for Garston that apparently some people are relatively satisfied with the traffic situation in Liverpool or with highway planning there. That is not an opinion which has been powerfully conveyed to me and I do not think that those who represent central Birmingham, central Liverpool, or the centres of any of the big cities, are in a state of complacency and are prepared to postpone for ten, or even for five, years any effective action. This is a matter on which the House must judge.
There is the other type of critic such as the hon Member for Manchester, Withington (Sir R. Cary) who is in favour of the P.TA.: "I am not hostile to the Amendment. My difficulty is that none of us here knows what would be involved in accepting it." The Amendment says:
after local government has been organised in the light of the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government ".No hon. Member can say whether that means postponing any action for three years, five years or 25 years. It might be 25 years, because the reorganisation of local government is a matter which arises not just out of decisions of this House but out of massive consultations with all local authorities in the country. One cannot, therefore, say what is involved.My simple objection to those who agree that some effective action must be taken along the lines of establishing passenger transport authorities to link the responsibilities of highway planning, traffic management and public transport operations but, who nevertheless do not accept the Government's proposal is that we cannot wait for anything from five to 25 years in our great congested urban areas. 498 We must act now. It is not sufficient to set up consultative committees, either. We must act by means of effective executive bodies.
In spite of the difficulties, obstacles and risks involved, it would, therefore, be a dereliction of duty on our part to accept as a line of least resistance a proposal to make a protracted postponement of effective action in these urban areas.
§ Mr. Peter Walker (Worcester)I am disappointed by the Minister of State's reply, and I am particularly disappointed by his suggestion that no alternative to the Government's proposal has been put forward. Those who study the OFFICIAL REPORT of our proceedings in Committee will find there detailed proposals outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock (Mr. Michael Heseltine) to deal with this very problem. All the way through the debates on passenger transport authorities, we on this side made perfectly clear that we consider that there is a case for further co-ordination of services and a case for some action in the major conurbations, and we have set out in detail exactly what we would wish to see.
The Minister of State knows that we disagree fundamentally on the question of placing all the bus companies which are at present operated by democratically elected local authorities in the hands of passenger transport authorities on which, quite possibly, some of them will have no representation, or, if they have representation at all, only minor representation. It is quite possible for a local authority which carries on bus operations now to have no representation save through the county council, whereas at present it has direct representation through the borough. Those objections have been made throughout all our debates.
I am alarmed to hear the Minister of State say that, in his view—presumably, he speaks for the Government—when the Royal Commission on Local Government reports, as everyone eagerly hopes it will in a month or so, no action will be taken on it for five to 25 years. That is a remarkably lethargic attitude to the urgent need for the reform of local government. However, even on that supposition, it would be far better to have the type of machinery which my hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock outlined, under which democratically elected 499 local authorities come together to improve co-ordination between the various transport services, than to do what the Government propose, that is, provide for compulsory purchase by what is, to some extent, a non-democratically elected passenger transport authority.
The urgent problem in our conurbations is not that of the ownership and operation of buses. The urgent problems are questions of road improvement, providing parking facilities and seeing that what transport services do exist are linked better with other transport services. Those matters do not call for the sort of compulsory purchase powers which it is proposed to give to the passenger transport authorities.
Moreover, by rejecting the Lords Amendment the Government will create a great deal of uncertainty. If these four major passenger transport authorities are created, the people working in them will know that there is a probability that, in a few years, with local government reform, the whole pattern of boundaries in their area will change. This is an absolute absurdity. One of the things that has worked against the transport system for some years is the uncertainty of the
§ services. A much better approach to the whole problem would have been first to set up a better co-ordinating machinery in the conurbations and then, when the Royal Commission had reported, to decide what boundaries one wished to draw for any operations one wished to carry out.
§ The fact is that the local authorities throughout the country and those interested in the transport problems of the conurbations—who have to face the practical problems involved—agree with us. But the Government are absolutely persistent on this point once more, because in four of our major conurbations they, from Whitehall, wish to lay down the boundaries, irrespective of the Report of a Royal Commission; they, from Whitehall, wish to see the local government control, the elected members' control, of bus operations taken away.
§ For these reasons, I urge my hon. Friends to vote against the Government in their desire to remove the Amendment from another place.
§ Question put. That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment: —
§ The House divided: Ayes 262, Noes 212.
503| Division No. 293.] | AYES | [9.14 p.m. |
| Abse, Leo | Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green) | Ensor, David |
| Albu, Austen | Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James | Evans, Fred (Caerphilly) |
| Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) | Carmichael, Neil | Evans, loan L. (Birm'h'm, Vardley) |
| Alldritt, Walter | Carter-Jones, Lewis | Faulds, Andrew |
| Anderson, Donald | Coe, Denis | Fernyhough, E. |
| Archer, Peter | Coleman, Donald | Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston) |
| Armstrong, Ernest | Concannon, J. D. | Foot, Rt. Hn. Sir Dingle (Ipswich) |
| Ashley, Jack | Conlan, Bernard | Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale) |
| Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.) | Corbet, Mrs. Freda | Ford, Ben |
| Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham) | Craddock, George (Bradford, S.) | Forrester, John |
| Bagier, Gordon A. T. | Crawshaw, Richard | Fowler, Gerry |
| Barnes, Michael | Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony | Fraser, John (Norwood) |
| Baxter, William | Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard | Freeson, Reginald |
| Beaney, Alan | Cullen, Mrs. Alice | Galpern, Sir Myer |
| Bence, Cyril | Davidson, Arthur (Accrington) | Gardner, Tony |
| Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood | Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway) | Garrett, W. E. |
| Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton) | Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.) | Ginsburg, David |
| Bidwell, Sydney | Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford) | Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. p. C. |
| Bishop, E. S. | Davies, Harold (Leek) | Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth) |
| Blackburn, F. | Davies, Ifor (Gower) | Gregory, Arnold |
| Boardman, H. (Leigh) | Davies, S. o. (Merthyr) | Grey, Charles (Durham) |
| Booth, Albert | de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey | Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside) |
| Boston, Terence | Dell, Edmund | Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly) |
| Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur | Dempsey, James | Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J. |
| Boyden, James | Dewar, Donald | Hamilton, James (Bothwell) |
| Braddock, Mrs. E. M. | Diamond, Rt. Hn. John | Ham ling, William |
| Bradley, Tom | Dickens, James | Harrison, Walter (Wakefield) |
| Bray, Dr. Jeremy | Dobson, Ray | Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith |
| Brooks, Edwin | Doig, Peter | Hattersley, Roy |
| Broughton, Dr. A. D. D. | Dunn, James A. | Hazell, Bert |
| Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan) | Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter) | Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis |
| Brown,Bob(N 'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.) | Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th & C'b'e) | Heffer, Eric S. |
| Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch & F'bury) | Eadie, Alex | Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret |
| Buchan, Norman | Edwards, William (Merioneth) | Hilton, W. S. |
| Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn) | Ellis, John | Hobden, Dennis (Brighton, K'town) |
| Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.) | Ennals, David | Hooley, Frank |
| Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas | McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.) | Roberts, Albert (Normanton) |
| Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough) | McNamara, J. Kevin | Roberts, Gwilym (Bedfordshire, S.) |
| Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.) | MacPherson, Malcolm | Robinson,Rt.Hn. Kenneth(St.P'c'as) |
| Howie, W. | Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.) | Robinson, W. O. J. (Walth'stow.E.) |
| Hoy, James | Mahon, Simon (Bootle) | Rogers, George (Kensington, N.) |
| Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey) | Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg) | Ross, Rt. Hn. William |
| Hughes, Emrys (Ayrshire, S.) | Manuel, Archie | Rowlands, E. (Cardiff, N.) |
| Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.) | Mapp, Charles | Shaw, Arnold (Ilford, S.) |
| Hughes, Roy (Newport) | Marks, Kenneth | Sheldon, Robert |
| Hunter, Adam | Marquand, David | Shinwell, Rt. Hn. E. |
| Hynd, John | Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard | Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney) |
| Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak) | Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy | Short,Rt.Hn.Edward(N'c'tle-u-Tyne) |
| Janner, Sir Barnett | Mayhew, Christopher | Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton.N.E.) |
| Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas | Mendelson, J. J. | Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford) |
| Jeger, George (Goole) | Millan, Bruce | Silverman, Julius |
| Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford) | Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test) | Slater, Joseph |
| Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.) | Moonman, Eric | Small, William |
| Johnson James (K'ston-on-Hull w) | Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire) | Spriggs, Leslie |
| Jones, Dan (Burnley) | Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw) | Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.) |
| Jones,Rt.Hn.Sir Elwyn(W.Ham,S.) | Morris, John (Aberavon) | Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John |
| Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham) | Moyle, Roland | Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. |
| Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West) | Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick | Swain, Thomas |
| Judd, Frank | Neal, Harold | Swingler, Stephen |
| Kelley, Richard | Newens, Stan | Symonds, J. B. |
| Oakes, Gordon | Taverne, Dick | |
| Kenyon, Clifford | O'Malley, Brian | Thomas Rt. Hn. George |
| Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter & Chatham) | Oram, Albert E. | Thornton, Ernest |
| Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central) | Orbach, Maurice | Tinn, James, |
| Kerr, Russell (Feltham) | Orme, Stanley | Tomney, Frank |
| Lawson, George | Oswald, Thomas | Urwin, T. W. |
| Leadbitter, Ted | Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn) | Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley) |
| Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton) | Owen, Will (Morpeth) | Walker, Harold (Doncaster) |
| Lestor, Miss Joan | Padley, Walter | Watkins, David (Consett) |
| Lever, Harold (Cheetham) | Page, Derek (King's Lynn) | Watkins, Tudor (Brecon & Radnor) |
| Lever, L. M. (Ardwick) | Paget, R. T. | Weitzman, David |
| Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.) | Palmer, Arthur | Wellbeloved, James |
| Lipton, Marcus | Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles | Whitaker, Ben |
| Lomas, Kenneth | Park, Trevor | Wilkins, W. A. |
| Loughlin, Charles | Parker, John (Dagenham) | Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick |
| Lyon, Alexander W. (York) | Parkyn, Brian (Bedford) | Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.) |
| Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.) | Pavitt, Laurence | Williams, Clifford (Abertillery) |
| Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson | Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd) | Williams, W. T. (Warrington) |
| McBride, Neil | Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred | Willis, Rt. Hn. George |
| McCann, John | Pentland, Norman | Wilson, William (Coventry, S.) |
| MacColl, James | Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.) | Winnick, David |
| MacDermot Niall | Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.) | Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A. |
| Macdonald, A. H. | Price, Christopher (Perry Barr) | Woof, Robert |
| McGuire, Michael | Price, Thomas (Westhoughton) | Wyatt, Woodrow |
| McKay, Mrs. Margaret | Price, William (Rugby) | Yates, victor |
| Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen) | Probert, Arthur | |
| Mackie, John | Rankin, John | TELLERS FOR THE AYES: |
| Mackintosh, John P. | Rees, Merlyn | Mr. Harry Gourlay and |
| Maclennan, Robert | Reynolds, Rt. Hn. G. W. | Mr. Joseph Harper. |
| NOES | ||
| Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash) | Campbell, B. (Oldham, w.) | Fletcher-Cooke, Charles |
| Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead) | Campbell Gordon (Moray & Nairn) | Fortescue, Tim |
| Astor, John | Carisle, Mark | Foster, Sir John |
| Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n & M'd'n) | Cary, Sir Robert | Fraser,Rt.Hn.Hugh(St'fford & Stone) |
| Awdry, Daniel | Channon, H. P. G. | Galbraith, Hn. T. G. |
| Baker, Kenneth (Acton) | Chichester-Clark, R. | Gibson-Watt, David |
| Baker, W. H. K. (Banff) | Clegg, Walter | Giles, Rear-Adm. Morgan |
| Balniel, Lord | Cooke, Robert | Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.) |
| Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony | Cooper-Key, Sir Neill | Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.) |
| Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton | Cordle, John | Glyn, Sir Richard |
| Bell, Ronald | Corfield, F. V. | Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B. |
| Berry, Hn. Anthony | Costain, A. P. | Goodhart, Philip |
| Bessell, Peter | Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne) | Goodhew, Victor |
| Biffen, John | Crouch, David | Gower, Raymond |
| Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel | Crowder, F. P. | Grant, Anthony |
| Black, Sir Cyril | Dalkeith, Earl of | Grant-Ferris, R. |
| Blaker, Peter | Dance, James | Grieve, Percy |
| Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.) | Davidson, James(Aberdeenshlre,W.) | Grimond, Rt. Hn. J. |
| Bossom, Sir Clive | d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry | Gurden, Harold |
| Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John | Dean, Paul (Somerset, N.) | Hall, John (Wycombe) |
| Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward | Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford) | Hall-Davis, A. C. F. |
| Braine, Bernard | Doughty, Charles | Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury) |
| Brinton, Sir Tatton | Eden, Sir John | Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.) |
| Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter | Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton) | Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye) |
| Bruce-Gardyne, J. | Errington, Sir Eric | Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere |
| Bryan, Paul | Evans, Gwynfor (C'marthen) | Harvie Anderson, Miss |
| Buchanan-Smith,Alick(Angus, N&M) | Eyre, Reginald | Hastings, Stephen |
| Bullus, Sir Eric | Farr, John | Hawkins, Paul |
| Burden, F. A. | Fisher, Nigel | Hay, John |
| Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward | Mills, Peter (Torrington) | Silvester, Frederick |
| Heseltine, Michael | Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.) | Sinclair, Sir George |
| Higgins, Terence L. | Miscampbell, Norman | Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington) |
| Hill, J. E. B. | Monro, Hector | Smith, John (London & W 'minster) |
| Holland, Philip | Montgomery, Fergus | Speed, Keith |
| Hooson, Emlyn | More, Jasper | Stainton, Keith |
| Hordern, Peter | Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh) | Steel, David (Roxburgh) |
| Hornby, Richard | Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh | Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M. (Ripon) |
| Howell, David (Guildford) | Murton, Oscar | Summers, Sir Spencer |
| Hunt, John | Neave, Airey | Tapsell, Peter |
| Hutchison, Michael Clark | Nicholls, Sir Harmar | Taylor,Edward M.(G'gow,Cathcart) |
| Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael | Taylor, Frank (Moss Side) | |
| Iremonger, T. L. | Nott, John | Teeling, Sir William |
| Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye) | Onslow, Cranley | Temple, John M. |
| Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford) | Orr, Capt. L. P. S. | Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret |
| Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.) | Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian | Tilney, John |
| Jopling, Michael | Osborn, John (Hallam) | Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H. |
| Kerby, Capt. Henry | Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth) | van Straubenzee, W. R. |
| Kershaw, Anthony | Page, Graham (Crosby) | Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John |
| Kimball, Marcus | Page, John (Harrow, W.) | Waddington, David |
| Kitson, Timothy | Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe) | Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley) |
| Knight, Mrs. Jill | Percival, Ian | Walker, Peter (Worcester) |
| Lambton, Viscount | Peyton, John | Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek |
| Lancaster, Col. C. G. | Pink, R. Bonner | Wall, Patrick |
| Lane, David | Pounder, Rafton | Walters, Dennis |
| Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry | Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch | Ward, Dame Irene |
| Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland) | Price, David (Eastleigh) | Webster, David |
| Lloyd, Rt.Hn.Geoffrey(Sut'nC'dfield) | Prior, J. M. L. | Wells, John (Maidstone) |
| Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirral) | Pym, Francis | Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William |
| Longden, Gilbert | Quennell, Miss J. M. | Williams, Donald (Dudley) |
| Loveys, W. H. | Rees-Davies, W. R. | Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater) |
| Lubbock, Eric | Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David | Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro) |
| McAdden, Sir Stephen | Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon | Winstanley, Dr. M. P. |
| MacArthur, Ian | Ridley, Hn. Nicholas | Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick |
| Mackenzie, Alasdair(Ross&Crom'ty) | Ridsdale, Julian | Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard |
| Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain | Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey | Woodnutt, Mark |
| Maddan, Martin | Robson Brown, Sir William | Wright, Esmond |
| Maginnis, John E. | Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks) | Wylie, N. R. |
| Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest | Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey) | Younger, Hn. George |
| Marten, Neil | Royle, Anthony | |
| Maude, Angus | Russell, Sir Ronald | |
| Mawby, Ray | Scott, Nicholas | TELLERS FOR THE NOES: |
| Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. | Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby) | Mr. R. W. Elliott and |
| Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C. | Mr. Bernard Weatherill. |
§
Lords Amendment No. 30: In page 13, line 30, at end insert:
and shall send a draft thereof to every such local authority, and if any objection thereto is made by one or more than one such local authority the Minister may if he thinks fit order a public inquiry to be held in accordance with the provisions of Schedule 5.
§ Read a Second time.
§ Mr. SwinglerI beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
Perhaps it would be convenient to take at the same time Amendment No. 213 which goes together with this one.
§ Mr. SpeakerThere is no opposition. With Amendment No. 30 we will take Amendment No. 213.
§ Mr. SwinglerThe simple point is that the Amendment requires the Minister to send a draft of any P.T.A. Order to local authorities affected, and gives him discretionary power to order a public inquiry if he thinks fit on an objection to a proposal to designate a Passenger Transport Area.
504 The Amendment is totally unnecessary for the reason that it is already provided for in the Bill. I feel that there must be a misunderstanding, since Clause 148 provides the Minister with the necessary discretionary power to order a public inquiry. Moreover, the Bill as it at present stands requires the Minister to consult with local authorities affected by any Order designating a Passenger Transport Area, so that is completely covered.
We have pledged ourselves that notice of any such draft Schemes will be published in the London Gazette, the national and local Press and the Traffic Commissioners' Notices and Proceedings so that the stage carriage operators, who are entitled under the Bill to a reasonable opportunity to make representations, may know exactly what is involved.
I give, on behalf of my right hon. Friend, the firm assurance that the Minister would not hesitate to use his power under Clause 148, which gives him the widest discretion for the ordering of 505 public inquiries, if he felt it was necessary to elucidate facts which the wide range of consultations, carried out informally over the past months and formally in the coming months, had failed to bring out. In all respects, therefore, the Amendment will be seen to be completely unnecessary. All the points made in it are covered in other Clauses. Therefore, to avoid superfluity, I hope that the House will disagree with their Lordships in their Amendment.
§ 9.30 p.m.
§ Mr. Michael HeseltineI agree that Clause 148 provides that the Minister may hold inquiries. However, I think that that is an argument in favour of the Lords Amendment. What their Lordships are doing is to spell out the sorts of inquiries and the terms under which they may be held. In addition, they insert the very important word "public" in the descriptions in Clause 148.
I would have thought that the Government would be happy to accept their Lordships' Amendment. It is merely expanding what is already in the Bill, arid I cannot see why the House need spend time debating it. It is obviously an Amendment which should be acceptable to the Government.
It is surprising to discover that the Government have given firm notice that they intend to reject it, and I find that difficult to understand. This part of the Bill deals with local authorities, where the public are intimately involved, and I cannot see why there should not be a clear-cut provision embodied in the legislation relating to Part II.
The arguments which reinforce what I want to say are already apparent to the Minister of State. The Lords Amendment is not obligatory on the Minister. It says that he may, where there has been an objection. There is no time delay involved in accepting the Amendment, because, at most, there is only a four-week delay for objections to be lodged, after which the Minister has power to decide whether and how soon after the lodging of objections the inquiry should take place.
The public inquiry does not commit the Minister to act on the findings or report of the inspector or on any of the revelations of the public inquiry. This 506 is an innocuous addition to the legislation. It does not commit the Government to anything or delay them. It merely spells out what the Minister of State tells us is already in the Bill. Why, then, should the Government see fit to reject this Amendment in such firm terms in advance of any discussion in this House?
§ Mr. SwinglerIt is not for the Government to make out a case. It is for the hon. Gentleman to say why, when the Bill already provides in Clause 148 that the Minister may hold inquiries for the purposes of his functions under any provision of this legislation other than Part V, this should be repeated only in one part of the Bill. Does he argue in favour of first and second class inquiries?
§ Mr. HeseltineNo.
§ Mr. SwinglerIn that case, since we have provided the discretionary power for the Minister over a wide range of his functions, why should it be repeated in regard to only one function?
§ Mr. HeseltineI think that we should deal with the types of inquiries applying to other parts of the Bill when we come to them, and not be concerned with the generalisation embodied in Clause 148.
The point is that the important word "public" is missing from Clause 148.
§ Mr. ManuelIt is my understanding—possibly the hon. Member for Tavistock can help me—that under the wording of Clause 148, referring to Section 20 of the Ministry of Transport Act, 1919, these inquiries are public
§ Mr. HeseltineI would be interested to see Section 20 of the Ministry of Transport Act, 1919. If in fact public inquiries are to be held, there can be no objection to accepting the suggested Amendment which will spell out and clarify, relating to Part II, what the Government have said they will not accept. If there is already provision for the holding of public inquiries there can be no objection to spelling it out. But those of us on this side who have been involved in negotiations for over a year now have the sneaking suspicion that inquiries conducted by the Ministry of Transport on this legislation are not as complete, open and public as we would 507 like. There have been endless consultations and inquiries. If we had to find a contradiction to all the evidence and the submissions in those consultations and inquiries, we could not find a better contradiction than that embodied in Part II, because all the evidence submitted to the Ministry is against Part II.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. As the hon. Member knows, we are discussing two Amendments. We are not discussing Part II of the Bill.
§ Mr. HeseltineI believe that there is an unanswerable case for including these words in the legislation. I believe that if an elected local authority wishes to submit an objection to the Minister there should be the possibility, in the Minister's discretion, of a public inquiry. It would be for us in this House to question the Minister if he should not feel prepared to grant a public inquiry, but at least we would know that, if there was to be an inquiry, it would be conducted in public.
It is important for the House to know—I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will feel this is a legitimate inclusion in the general discussion—the people who might want a public inquiry. It is important to many people that there should be the opportunity for their cases to be heard before the Order is laid in each of the areas that might be designated. There might, for example, be local authorities wanting to be included within the designated area contained in the Order about which there was to be a public inquiry; there might be local authorities included within the designated area wanting to be outside it. It is already known that there are local authorities now making submissions to the Ministry that they should be inside or outside, or whatever the case may be, and it is, therefore, reasonable that they should be heard at a public inquiry.
There are those whose livelihood depends on running bus services in and out of designated areas. I am aware that it is necessary for the Minister to consult bus operators running stage carriage services into a designated area; but it is not mandatory in the legislation for the Minister to consult those running excursion tours or contract carriages into the area. There is no provision for any inquiry amongst those people, so often least able to protect themselves. They are 508 not given the benefit of consultation or any form of public inquiry.
There are the large operators who have many joint operating agreements with local authorities included in the designated area. These people, too, might want to be sure that their cases are made clear before the Order is finally presented to this House.
The last group of people with reason to be sure that their case is presented in public before the Order is presented are the public themselves. It does not need me to argue why the public should be concerned. I believe that they will be fearful of increasing fares and rates in their areas, and it is right that their case should be heard in public before the Order is ratified by the Ministry for presentation to this House.
It seems to me that the arguments are overwhelming for including the Amendment in the legislation. In the words of the Minister of State, it is already there. If it is there in spirit, there can be no objection from the Government to including words which spell out what we are asking the House to do. It is not enough for the Minister of State to say that it is already there, because he knows that the word "public" is not included in the original legislation. I appreciate that if I wished to steer the Bill through the House I would not want the public in on it, either.
§ Mr. BessellI think that the most important matter upon which we wish to have information in our discussion of the Amendment is in relation to Clause 148, to which the Minister of State referred, and whether the 1919 Act, upon which that Clause is dependent, provides for a public inquiry. This is the nub of the matter, and the argument advanced by the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Michael Heseltine) is one which I entirely support. If the Minister of State can say that the 1919 Act provides that an inquiry ordered by the Minister in circumstances of the kind envisaged by another place will be a public inquiry, then I should admit, and I think the hon. Member for Tavistock would be willing to admit, that a different issue would be involved.
As things stand, on the basis of the argument advanced by the Minister of State, the Minister of Transport already 509 has this provision which the hon. Gentleman maintains is the only consequence of the Amendment introduced by another place. The hon. Gentleman maintains that the Minister has this provision in Clause 148, which says:
The Minister may hold inquiries for the purposes of his functions under any provision of this Act other than Part V as if those purposes were purposes of the Ministry of Transport Act 1919 and section 20 of that Act shall apply accordingly.As the hon. Member for Tavistock has rightly said, there is no reference whatsoever in that Clause to a public inquiry. If it means a private inquiry, one conducted by the Minister without the public being present, without it being possible for representations to be made by the public, by the people who will be most affected by the provisions of Clause 9, it is clear to me that their Lordships were right to introduce the Amendment, and I go as far as saying that it is a vital Amendment, because there are far too many public issues involved in relation to passenger transport areas and authorities for the Minister, for his own protection, not to have the right to order a public inquiry.
§ Mr. SwinglerThe hon. Gentleman keeps on about this. Will he tell the House the occasions on which, when the Minister of Transport orders inquiries, he does not order them to be public? We order a considerable number of public inquiries. I should like to know, as the hon. Gentleman is so colossally suspicious, when they are not public inquiries.
§ Mr. BessellI accept what the hon. Gentleman says, that it is the custom for the Minister of Transport, when ordering an inquiry, to make it a public one, but there are examples of Ministries, and Ministers in the present Government, ordering inquiries under powers granted to them under other Acts, and ensuring that they are not public inquiries. I think that I should be out of order to quote an example of that. The fact remains that where an Act provides that an inquiry may be held, that does not, as I understand it—in fact, I am sure about this—mean that a Minister has an obligation to make it a public inquiry.
9.45 p.m.
The purpose of the Amendment introduced in another place was to ensure that 510 there would be a public inquiry, reasonable to ask why it should be important that there should be a public inquiry in all circumstances. The reason is fairly obvious. In designating a passenger transport area the Minister is saying that a certain part of the country—which may consist of one urban conurbation and a large number of rural areas surrounding it—shall constitute a passenger transport area which, in turn, will have its own passenger transport authority and passenger transport executive. It will comprise one or perhaps a considerable number of local authorities.
I can visualise circumstances arising in which one or more local authorities may put forward objections to being included in the area while other local authorities in the designated area may wish those disagreeing authorities to be included for reasons which they regard as in the interests of their areas, although inclusion may be against the interests of the disagreeing authorities. In those circumstances, a conflict of interests or even of wishes on the part of one local authority or another may arise, and the Minister may decide that it is necessary to hold an inquiry.
It is very important that such an inquiry should be held in public and that it should be an inquiry at which not merely the views of local authorities concerned would be considered by the Minister's inspectors and ultimately by the Minister, but also the views of organisations directly concerned with transport—both public and private—and where the public should have the opportunity not merely of witnessing the proceedings but of knowing the proceedings day by day in terms of Press reports and the media of mass communication.
I believe that their Lordships acted wisely in this matter. They put their finger on a fundamental point. Although the Minister of State has repeated pledges that he gave in Standing Committee about the intentions of his right hon. Friend, we must remember that Ministers are not mortal and that there may be an occasion in the future on which a Minister might not feel obliged to be bound by his predecessor's pledges.
§ Mr. SwinglerI must point out to the hon. Member that the Amendment does not oblige my right hon. Friend to order 511 an inquiry in any circumstances. The hon. Member keeps arguing as if that was the object of the Amendment. It is not. The Amendment grants a discretionary power, which is already provided for in the Bill, to order an inquiry. My right hon. Friend frequently exercises this discretionary power and on nearly all occasions there is a public inquiry, because public issues are involved. That is the position. It is no use the hon. Gentleman's talking about a fundamental issue; the issue is that which is presented in Clause 148.
§ Mr. BessellThe Minister of State, who has always been courteous, has not listened to what I said. My point is that there could be circumstances in which there was a disagreement between local authorities with whom consultations had taken place and to whom the Minister had himself spoken. There could be a disagreement on the question whether certain local authorities should be included or excluded from a certain passenger transport area. In those circumstances I suggest to the Minister of State that his right hon. Friend, for his own protection and that of his Department, may wish to hold an inquiry.
The Minister of State argues—and I follow his argument—that in terms of Clause 148 such an inquiry could be held. But that inquiry, according to Clause 148, would have to comply with the 1919 Act, and what no one has told me yet is whether, under the terms of that Act, that would have to be a public or a private inquiry—
§ Mr. Peter WalkerI can inform the hon. Gentleman on this, if he will allow me—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I would remind the House that we are not in Committee. Mr. Walker, to intervene.
§ Mr. WalkerThank you, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Gentleman has asked for this, so perhaps I may say that that Section says that notice of inquiries "may" be given and published in accordance with such general and special directions as the Minister "may" give.
§ Mr. BessellI am obliged to the hon. Member, because this is what we have wanted to know and what I asked the 512 Minister of State, without receiving a reply.
This means that we are talking once again of a matter of Ministerial discretion. It would be discretionary, but, if the Minister used his power of discretion and ordered an inquiry, it would not be an inquiry as set out in Clause 148, as the Minister of State tried to convey to us; it need not be a public inquiry.
Their Lordships are saying that if an inquiry is decided upon, it shall be a public inquiry, and I have tried to set out the reasons why I believe that it is imperative that if any inquiry is ordered in circumstances like this, it should be a public inquiry. I hope that the Opposition will not hesitate to divide the House on this, because there is an important matter of principle involved.
§ Mr. LeadbitterAs I read the Amendment, it does not deviate from the provisions of the 1919 Act. The Amendment says:
… the Minister may if he thinks fit order a public inquiry to be held …What I cannot understand is the hon. Gentleman's argument that there must be a public inquiry.
§ Mr. BessellI should be out of order if I repeated the arguments which I have already made. I would say to the hon. Gentleman, who is always most acute in following these arguments, as he did in Committee, that if, in the discretion of the Minister, an inquiry were necessary, under the Amendment, it would have to be public—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will acquit me of any discourtesy, but he must not repeat his arguments.
§ Mr. BessellThank you, Mr. Speaker. You are right, of course. I had already advanced that point, but the hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. Leadbitter) implied that I had not done so, but was arguing from a different premise. My premise was the argument advanced in any place.
I am certain that when the report of this debate is read, it will be clear to everyone that their Lordships were right and that we should be quite wrong to reject this. If, as the Minister of State said, this is merely a duplication—a claim 513 which I cannot accept—there can be no earthly reason for not accepting it, because no harm could be done in extending an already very long Bill by a few lines to provide the clarity and assurance which local authorities would gain.
§ Sir R. CaryI am surprised that the Minister of State resists this reasonable and sensible Amendment. I want him to give me an assurance on a matter of mechanics. Before being made, will the draft Order be subject to prior consultation with local authorities and other operators likely to be affected? That is important. The Minister will understand why I add the words "other operators".
§ Mr. HeseltineAll other operators.
§ Sir R. CaryYes, all other operators. It will be appreciated that in my special circumstances, which are well known to the Minster of State, I have a responsibility in a very large area of Lancashire. I should like to extend the Amendment, but, taking it in its limited terms, there are many local authorities, close and far distant, in that area with which I have agreements. This is the lifeblood of the co-operation which exists between local authorities and other operators. I do not want that to be destroyed. I want to sustain it.
Many problems will arise which will demand some form of public investigation and I am not assured by the terms of Clause 148, which the Minister quoted, and which I feel is too much of a generalisation. I want him now in the House to be quite precise and to say that before being made a draft Order will be subject to proper consultation with the local authorities and with all other operators affected.
§ Mr. SwinglerSubject to your Ruling about repetition, Mr. Speaker, before the hon. Member sits down I wish to remind him that I said that the Minister is obliged to consult the local authorities about the designated area. Furthermore, we have said that we shall publish the details of the proposal to make a designation order in the "Notices and Proceedings", in the London Gazette and in the National and local Press. They will be published for all operators to be able to read them so that they will know what is happening. The Minister has that 514 obligation and we have promised that these will be published.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I remind even the Minister that it will improve the debate if we keep to the formality of the debate.
§ Sir R. CaryI thank the Minister of State for that statement.
Even with its imperfections, there will be a desire when the Bill reaches the Statute Book to get the organisation in the different conurbations operating as quickly as possible. The scrutiny of a public inquiry which is given, for example, to increases in fares ought to be provided here so that many of the provisions enshrined in the Bill were open to the same investigation. If we do not do that we shall collide with consultation difficulties which will hold up the Bill far longer than anybody expects. I therefore beg the Minister to look more sympathetically at the Amendment than he has looked at it so far.
§ Mr. John HyndI wonder why we are spending so much time on this Amendment. The point made by the hon. Member for Withington (Sir R. Cary) seems to be adequately met. Clause 148 contains a blanket provision that the Minister may hold inquiries into the operation of the Bill under many Clauses of the Bill. Apparently we are being asked to write into the Bill that the Minister shall be obliged to hold public inquiries. Provision is already made for inquiries and we have had an assurance that the proceedings of those inquiries are public.
In any event, if it is said that although we have a Ministerial assurance, no such provision is made in the Bill, the simple answer is that the provision is not made in the Amendment either. As has been pointed out repeatedly, the Amendment merely says that if objections are made the Minister may, "if he thinks fit", hold a public inquiry. I do not see how the Amendment meets the point apparently being made by hon. Members opposite. If we accepted the Amendment it would not have the slightest effect except to load the Bill and to create a precedent so that hon. Members could demand similar provisions in practically every Clause of the Bill. This is wasting time, and I hope that we shall move on.
§ Mr. Anthony Berry (Southgate)The more I hear the Minister of State explain why he objects to the words being added, the more I fail to understand him. He said that public attention will be drawn to any notices by his Ministry. Why will he not agree to accept the word "public"? I thought that after five months in the Standing Committee I was no longer capable of being surprised by what the Minister says.
§ It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.