LIGHT RAILWAYS BILL (Hansard, 24 July 1903)

LORD WOLVERTON

My Lords, it will be in the recollection of the House that when Parliament passed the Light Railways Act of 1896 it treated that measure more or less as of an experimental description, and confined its operations to the period of five years. Since the expiration of that period Parliament has renewed the Act year by year, and the object of the present Bill is to make it permanent, as the Board of Trade consider that it has been a success. To prove its success I will quote a few figures. Up to now the orders that have been applied for number 442, of which the Board of Trade have confirmed 194. These comprise a total length of line of over 4,000 miles, at an estimated expenditure of £31,550,000. To make the Act of 1896 permanent is the effect of Clause 1. Clauses 2 and 3 reform the procedure. Under the existing Act if the Board of Trade think a light railway scheme to be of such importance that it ought to be submitted to Parliament the preliminary work on the Order is wasted and the promoters have to begin de novo. 211 Clauses 2 and 3 remedy that state of things.

Moved, that the Bill be read 2^a.—(Lord Wolverton.)

THE CHAIRMAN or COMMITTEES (The Earl of MORLEY)

My Lords, I do not rise to offer the slightest opposition to this Bill. On the contrary, I think the measure is a very useful one. If promoters have to resort to a private Bill they should not be compelled to commence the whole proceedings de novo. There is no doubt that the existing legislation in regard to light railways and tramways is not in a very satisfactory condition, and I would appeal to the Board of Trade to consider before another session whether they should not introduce a more comprehensive measure which would bring some order into the law. The Tramways Act was passed in 1870, before there was any idea of electric tramways, and it deals with a set of circumstances entirely different from those that obtain to-day. As I pointed out when the Light Railways Act of 1896 was passed, there is nothing to differentiate a light railway from a tramway on the one hand or an ordinary railway on the other. The only difference is in procedure. In the case of tramways the consent of the local authorities and of Parliament has to be obtained in the ordinary way, whereas in the case of light railways the preliminary consent of the local authorities is not required, and the Orders are obtained from a body outside Parliament. I do not say that that is by any means a bad procedure. I only point out that it is possible for these schemes to be dealt with in two distinctly different ways, and it is not at all an uncommon proceeding, when it is found to be too late to comply with the necessary formalities connected with the promotion of a Private Tramway Bill, to substitute a Light Railway Bill, and that can be done without the consent of the local authority being required. I venture to hope that before another session the Board of Trade will consider what can be done to bring some order into this legislation.