§ LORD HARRIS had given Notice to call attention to the wear and tear on the roads caused by modern heavy mechanical transport and to move that the burden thereby thrown on ratepayers is unreasonable and should be remedied.
§
The noble Lord said: My Lords, my justification for bringing this matter before Parliament is that in my own County of Kent recently—in the autumn of last year—a large number of local authorities, rural district councils, etc., passed the following resolution:
That this Council do immediately bring to the notice of the County Council the totally inadequate amount of money paid in present taxes by motor coaches, lorries, etc., towards the cost of the maintenance of county and district roads. This cost is at present being borne by county landowners, farmers and inhabitants, thereby causing not only grave injustice but an
3
insupportable burden, and the rural district councils request that steps be immediately taken to make a more just proportion so that heavy motor vehicles shall bear their full share towards the cost of maintenance of county and district roads.
What steps the County Council is taking on that resolution I do not know. brought the matter up at the last meeting of the council, but I did not gather from the reply that they were taking any immediate steps to impress upon the Minister of Transport the grave feeling of injustice that is felt in the county.
§ It may be that we are subject to a greater amount of traffic than a good many counties. That is probably the case, because the Kent coast is reached very easily from the Metropolis, and it is the practice now for large charabancs, holding upwards of 32 people, to, go the whole way from Trafalgar Square down to the Kent coast, at least once a week in the months when it is customary to take holidays at the seaside. Your Lordships will see that the grievance lies in the intermediate parishes. The people on the coast towns naturally are not aggrieved. They get the patronage, and they are quite agreeable to pay an extra rate, if necessary, for the patronage of the metropolitan population which comes down to the coast. It is the intermediate parishes which suffer. They get no benefit whatever; only a certain amount of discomfort from the passage of these heavy vehicles.
§ I am not complaining of the action of the Government. They have recognised the theory laid down by the late Lord Gosehen, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, that those who used the roads should pay for them, and he at first endeavoured—I have no doubt Lord Chaplin will remember it—to reimpose the turnpikes, but he soon found that to be an absolute impossibility. He made up for it by the whisky money which lie gave to the counties. Now the Government has realised that it is legitimate for the taxpayer to contribute to sonic extent towards the upkeep of the roads, and, in consequence of that, a schedule of licence fees was laid down by a Committee summoned by the Ministry, upon which local authorities were represented together with the automobile makers and users. The schedule is the result of that conference, and I understand that it has been made statutory.
4§ The idea was that by means of these licence fees a sum of money should be raised, and that a contribution should be made from it to the counties for the upkeep of the roads. I am not sure what was the idea in the mind of the Government Department as to the proportion they should contribute towards the maintenance of the roads, or towards county expenditure. I estimate that they contribute about one-eighth, in some cases more than that.
§ VISCOUNT PEELThat is over the whole roads of the country.
Loan HARRISYes. I admit that in the case of the County of Kent the contribution is a good deal more. I am not grumbling at the principle; the principle is sound enough—namely, that the users of the roads should to some extent pay for their upkeep. What I and the rural councils who passed the resolution complain of is that the proportion is unreasonable. If the scale of licence fees for lighter vehicles is reasonable then the heavier vehicles should pay a great deal more than they do, and I will give your Lordships figures to bear that out. These heavy vehicles, charabancs and road locomotives, which go at a fair pace, are most destructive of the roads. An expert assures me that in winter in one day a road locomotive will do an immense amount of harm to the road. Not only is it that the pressure on the camber of the road is great but the lateral pressure in the case of these very heavy vehicles is extreme, and as a consequence roads have to be broadened and hedged with granite setts. A granite kerb has to be put on many roads in order to bear the pressure from this heavy traffic.
I refer not only to the roads which are expected to bear this traffic, and which the counties endeavour to strengthen up to a point which will bear it, but also to roads which were never meant to carry such heavy traffic at all. They are used by these very heavy mechanical vehicles and simply ground to powder. Before the war a granite macadamised road, treated with tar, was sufficient for the traffic. In my own county very large lengths of main road were treated in that way. I well remember these roads being held up as an example of what roads could be; very complimentary references to the Kent roads were made by the Government. But that class of road material is not good 5 enough now, and the hardest granite that can be obtained has to be treated with bitumen.
The point that I wish to make particularly to your Lordships is that if the fee charged for a light private pleasure car is reasonable, then some of these heavier pleasure cars ought to bear a very much heavier tax than they do. I will take the case of a Ford car holding six people. The tax outside the metropolitan area is £23, whereas an omnibus carrying double that number of persons on solid tyres, instead of cm pneumatic tyres, pays only £12, or just about one-half. If £4 a head is fair in the case of the private motor ear, why should not £4 a head be the right price to pay in the case of the public motor car, which is doing infinitely more damage with its solid tyres? In that case the charge would be something like £48, instead of £24, and the difference becomes more marked in progression. Why should £4 a head not be a fair rate in the case of the omnibus carrying twelve people?
§ THE EARL OF ANCASTERIt. pays £12 now.
LORD HARRISIf it is carrying twelve persons that is the maximum, and I am taking the maximum. In the case of an omnibus capable of taking thirty-two persons the charge is only £60, or less than £2 a head, and that omnibus, with solid tyres, and going a very great pace, is doing, I dare say, five, perhaps ten times as much damage as is the private motor car with pneumatic tyres. I submit that this schedule cannot be justified, and that the heavier cars, doing in proportion so much more damage, ought to pay a very much higher rate than they do. I am not arguing that the light private cars are paying too little. I am all for those who use the roads paying for their upkeep. What I say is that the heavier cars which do far more damage should pay more than they do. Commercial vehicles from 12 cwt. to 4 tons and over pay from £10 to a maximum of £30. The damage they do is infinitely greater than that caused by private cars. Road locomotives varying in weight from 8 tons to 12 tons and over pay from £25 to £30. These scales of taxes in respect of the varying classes are not anything like commensurate with the damage caused to the roads.
The rates were agreed, as I hay e said, at a Committee brought together by the 6 Ministry of Transport, and there was pre-sent on that occasion a representative of the Ministry, an extremely able man, who, perhaps, knows more about the roads than anybody in the country, Sir Henry May-bury. I am perfectly certain that what happened was that it was a ease of "pulley hauley" between the representatives of the local authorities and the representatives of the automobile users and automobile manufacturers. Sir Henry Maybury had to come between them and make the best compromise he could. This was all he could do, with the result, as I submit to your Lordships, that the complaint of these ratepayers is perfectly legitimate, and justifies me in bringing the matter, before your Lordships.
We are up against an extremely strong position. I expect my noble friend below me will be saving presently: "Here is a Committee which did the best it could, a Committee representing all the parties interested, and this is the result, which has been made statutory and can be altered only by Parliamentary interference." I suspect that is the position. To any of my noble friends who arm thinking of supporting me to-night—and I am very much inclined to go to a Division if necessary on the Motion which, after all, is only academic, so that I cannot conceive anybody suggesting that I am infringing privilege—I suggest that the only way of getting something done is to bring the matter urgently before the county councils and to impress upon them that they must approach the Association of County Councils and persuade them to bring pressure to bear upon the Government to reopen this matter and to readjust the proportions of the licence fees.
I have an idea in my head, though I may he wrong, that it has been suggested that the taxpayers should contribute one-half towards the maintenance of the roads. Whether I am wrong or not, they certainly are not doing so now, neither generally nor particularly. I am advised by the highways authorities that the total expenditure in the country is something like £50,000,000, and the gross yield of the motor tax for the past year was £11,000,000, of which £8,500,000 was allocated to the classified roads. In my own county the estimated expenditure on the urban and rural main roads was £464,000, towards which we received only £174,000—nothing like one-half—and this seems to me to be something 7 of a grievance. A total of £272,000 was collected in licence fees in the county, but we did not get that for the county. We received £67,000 less than that, and it looks to me as if my county is helping to pay for roads in other counties. If that is so, it seems to be a grievance. Again, looking at the number of vehicles, there were some 9,300 private vehicles in my county, the tax from which amounted to £119,000 odd. Hackney and commercial vehicles, which are those that do the damage, were almost equal in number, 8,900 odd, and the amount they contributed was also as nearly as possible the same, £117,000 odd. The damage done by the latter is, I daresay, five or ten times as much as that done by private ears, and yet they pay the same amount.
As I have already suggested, we may be exceptionally situated in my county. There is the attraction of the seaboard at no very great distance, and there are these trippers coming down in charabancs in large numbers every week. We are delighted to think they are able to get there, but I do not see why the intermediate parishes should have to bear a heavier burden than is just, to enable them to get there. Let us go back sonic years. In the old days those who used the roads paid for them through the means of the turnpike. When Mr. Goschen found it was impossible to reimpose that, because it was an antiquated method of collecting the money, he turned to this idea of doing it through Imperial taxation, but the amount of user in those days was comparatively small and in the main it was only by people travelling for business purposes. The people to whom I refer now are travelling for pleasure purposes, and they should he prepared to pay, a very much larger share towards the upkeep of the roads than they are at present being asked to pay.
In 1916, during the war, a very useful emergency Act was passed, which gave power to the county councils to refuse permission for a new service of omnibuses to open out a new route. That Act has been cancelled, and now the county council has no power whatever to stop or interfere with these very heavy omnibuses, and other vehicles, taking any road they please, whether it has been prepared for such traffic or not. The only kind of authority left is that the Ministry of Transport may prohibit or restrict the user where the highway is unsuitable. 8 Our experience in Kent is that the Ministry has not restricted or prohibited in one single case, and it is unquestionable that there is great reluctance to go to the Courts with the idea of proving excessive traffic, because, as these mechanical vehicles do contribute something to taxation, the tendency of the Courts is to decline to accept the idea that the traffic is exceptional or excessive. There is, therefore, no inclination on the part of local authorities to try that remedy.
As I have told your Lordships, it is not only that the camber of the road is injured, but the road is pressed down laterally. Consequently, we have to widen the roads and build them up at the side. In several respects heavier and heavier expenditure, both with regard to material and the build of the road, is being thrown upon us, and we very respectfully submit that although the Government has done its best so far, it is necessary and actually just that the matter should be reopened, and that greater assistance should be given to the local ratepayer. I notice in the Press that there is a movement in direct opposition to this, apparently on the part of the automobile manufacturers, and the Automobile Association on the part of users, and that they contemplate a Bill with a view to getting a reduction of the taxation they pay. Therefore, I think I am justified in making the matter as public as I can at the moment, in order to arouse in the counties a very strong movement through, I should think, the Association of County Councils, to bring pressure to bear upon the Government to reopen the matter, but certainly not with a view to making any reduction in the taxation. I feel so strongly on this matter that unless your Lordships show very strong disinclination and discouragement I should propose to take the opinion of the House on the point. It is purely academic and does not raise any question of privilege.
§ Moved, That the burden thrown on ratepayers in consequence of the wear and tear on the roads caused by modern heavy mechanical transport is unreasonable and should be remedied.—(Lord Harris.)
THE EARL OF MALMESBURYI am afraid that your Lordships will agree that it is a very great pity that my noble friend, Lord Harris, by the bad fortune of chance, has raised this Question on a day when the Order Paper is so full of other important subjects, because this is a subject 9 on which I am sure many noble Lords, who are capable of speaking from close connection with the county roads in their districts, would desire to say a great deal. I think the state of things, very largely brought about by the war, is rapidly increasing the damage to the roads in these days. When the war was going on, and while the Government had control of the railways, a very large number of heavy commercial vehicles, and other vehicles of that sort, were placed upon the roads. Since the war has been over, to that large number of heavy commercial vehicles has been added a very large number of exceedingly heavy passenger vehicles, to which my noble friend has alluded.
There has been an inclination to leave these vehicles alone—to wink the eye, if I may say so, at the damage caused by these heavy vehicles—partly because of the enormous cost of railway freights, and partly because these passenger vehicles were said to be democratic in character. It was also said that the man who used a Rolls Royce car was doing more damage to the roads than the persons who travelled by charabanc. I have never yet been able to define the word "democratic," but I would say that the sooner we realise that many of the good folk who go in these eharabancs are not democratic at all, but can well afford to pay a higher price for their tickets, the better. At the same time agree that we welcome those who would not be able otherwise to get down into our beautiful districts.
I have been on the Main Roads and Bridges Committee of my own county council for many years, and I know the theory is that if you repair the surface of the roads that is all that is necessary. The average man in the street, and certainly the average man who lives in the town, thinks that if you repair the surface of the roads that is all that is necessary, but those who have to visit the roads to inspect them frequently, will realise that the real damage is done to the foundations of the roads. It is the foundations which cost the money, and not only is it the foundations which cost the money, but if you are going to use any surface material of a lasting and more durable character you will find yourselves landed in enormous expense, which would startle even the Chancellor of the Exchequer in these days.
In my own county we are using bitumen to a very large extent. This bituminous 10 material is of the utmost value; it makes a beautiful surface, and is also a great protection to the roads. But the cost of the bituminous substance is enormous. The work can only be carried out very gradually, and the cost is so great that many people wonder whether it is worth the price paid for it. Of course, the best thing to do would be to put in new foundations, and make the surface of this expensive material, but I should like to ask any noble Lord, and especially those who are intimately acquainted with road construction, whether they would dare to suggest that any county authority, or the Chancellor of the Exchequer, should go to an enormous expense at the present moment.
The real difficulty, which has already been touched upon slightly by my noble friend, is the question of weight and speed. I believe that if the authorities were more severe in this respect the damage done to the roads would be very considerably reduced. I have here a letter from the County Surveyor of my own county, from which I will read half a dozen lines—
The difficulty of reconstructing the roads would be greatly lightened if heavy vehicles, including, of course, charabancs, could be restricted in speed. If these vehicles would not exceed their legal speed limits the damage to the highways would be very appreciably lessened, and we should be able to make much more rapid progress in raising the standard of the roads.That shows, I think, that one of the first things we have to deal with is the question of speed. My noble friend, Lord Harris, has said that the ratepayers cannot pay more. I certainly think they cannot. Nor am I anxious that the taxpayer, through the Treasury grants, should pay more, because I should have to pay a higher tax myself in all probability. Therefore, I suggest that those who do the damage to the roads should be the persons who should be made to pay for it I believe that the total cost of the upkeep of the roads is £50,000,000 a year, and that towards that amount taxation contributes. About £10,000,000: so that four-fifths of the total expenditure on the roads is left to the unfortunate ratepayer to meet, when probably he does nothing like one-fifth of damage in his own district. We know the objection to higher taxation. I certainly think that the tax on motor cars is high enough already, but if the taxes on commercial vehicles were increased, especially in view of the fact that railway rates are going to drop, it would be found 11 to be the most practical method of raising more money for the upkeep of the roads.There is one thing about these heavy motor vehicles which I suppose every noble Lord has noticed in his pilgrimages through the country, and that is that they all travel, not only beyond the legal speed, but very often at a speed dangerous to the public. Take charabancs. They really ought not to travel at more than twelve miles an hour. Your Lordships will agree that they frequently travel at a speed far exceeding that. In my own part of the world there was a man with a small motor garage who had a car which he used to hire out. He was a poor man. He saw an opportunity—for the part of the country that I refer to is a great place for tourists—and within the first year he not only paid for the first charabanc, which I am told he bought on borrowed money, but he bought a second car and paid for it, and made a very substantial profit for himself. Some of us who watch these vehicles know that the way in which it is done is this. For example, instead of making three journeys, which is all they could do at the rate of twelve miles an hour, they go faster than they should go, and make four journeys. They have an incentive to go at a greater speed because they can snake a larger number of journeys in the day. Lord Harris has alluded to Sir Henry Maybury's Committee, and I believe that was not altogether favourable to the tax on fuel. I am not at all anxious to see the tax on fuel reimposed.
I ought to add that in our own county (and I think it is the general experience) we have received every support from the Ministry of Transport, and I desire to pay a tribute to the admirable way in which we in the county of Hampshire have been treated by that Department. Under the Motor Car Act, 1903, and the Motor Car Order, 1904, Hampshire has now issued a notice warning the drivers of charabancs and other heavy motor cars that proceedings will be instituted where the driver of a heavy motor car exceeds the authorised speed limit. This notice is posted all over the county, and the limit is twelve, or eight, or five miles an hour according to the weight of the vehicle, and according to whether it has a trailer or not. If Lord Harris presses his Motion to a Division I shall be very glad to support him. The evil is one which calls very loudly for redress, because the damage is done to the roads by those who do not sufficiently contribute towards their upkeep.
§ LORD LAMBOURNEMy Lords, I wish to add my protestation to those of Lord Harris as regards the increasing weight, the increasing size, and the increasing speed of certain motor traffic within the County of Essex. Essex is like Kent, the county for which the noble Lord speaks. It has roads which border on the Thames, going through exceedingly pretty scenery, and eventually, I believe, ending in the sea. The increasing damage done to these roads can be noticed even month by month. I sincerely trust that the way in which my noble friend has drawn attention to this state of things may bring about a coalition between the County of Kent and the County of Essex, so that at all events they may take some steps which will lead to a relief for the unfortunate ratepayers in those counties. The ratepayer surely has some ground for complaint. He has to produce the last shilling in his pocket—very often the last shilling in his neighbour's pocket—in order to meet the burdens which press upon him; and we feel that it is the enormous lorries and charabancs and other cars that come down to Essex during the summer day after day which are rapidly imposing a burden upon the ratepayers in the county which is most unfair. I shall be very glad to support Lord Harris in any action he may take to-day in your Lordships' House.
LORD FORESTERMy Lords, I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Harris, in the Motion which he has brought before the House. We have heard of the position of affairs on the East Coast. I speak for the West Midlands and for the rather smaller counties, where the rateable value is not so high as in those counties to which reference has already been made. I am personally interested in the County of Shropshire and I was asked, as a member of the Roads Vigilance Committee of the County Council, to support the Motion that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has made. There are in Shropshire about 700 miles of main roads, of which 365 miles are first-class. 278 second-class, and 112 third-class. During the year 1921, the first year of the new scheme of taxation on mechanically propelled vehicles, a sum of £82,000 was collected and transferred to the credit of the central Road Fund from the County of Salop.
As your Lordships are aware, definite schemes of road work have to be submitted to, and approved by, the Minister of Transport, and grants from the Road 13 Fund are made to the extent of 50 per cent., I think it is, towards first-class roads, 25 per cent. towards second-class roads, and nothing whatever towards third-class roads. Therefore, to enable the county in which I am interested to secure the £82,000 paid by the owners of mechanically propelled vehicles in the county it was necessary for the county highway authority to expend a sum of £220,000—a very serious matter for the rates, because a penny rate produces only £6,000 in Shropshire. Although Shropshire is not quite close to the sea it is not very far from the west coast and almost all the traffic front Birmingham and Wolverhampton passes through Dearly the whole of the county, along Watling Street, to get to the Welsh coast, and the ratepayers are very hard hit by the increasing jumps which the rates make in an upward direction. Therefore, I cordially support my noble friend, Lord Harris, and if he goes to a Division I shall be there with him.
§ EARL STANHOPEMy Lords, on behalf of those interested in agriculture, I am very glad that the noble Earl who represents that Department in your Lordships' House is present. We all object, I think, to pay high taxes or rates, but we object particularly when we are made to pay them for things which we do not require. That is the position of those who are interested in agriculture. We have to pay high rates in order to provide roads which are fit for motorists, and when they are made fit for motorists they are, as a rule, made unfit for horse traffic. I think your Lordships will agree that these heavily studded tyres or solid iron tyres polish the surface of the roads to such an extent that it is almost impossible for a horse to stand up if there is any slope at all. It seems extremely hard on farmers that at a time when prices are falling and wages are still high, they should find their rates going up in order to provide roads over which they are unable to haul their produce, and manure, and other requisites for the farm.
The noble Lord opposite presided the other day at a meeting at which various types of horseshoes were discussed to see whether it was possible to enable horses to stand on these slippery roads. I do not think that the audience as a whole was entirely satisfied with the conclusions arrived at, but an even further expense is put upon the farmer. He is told that 14 he has to pay higher rates because the roads are worn out by those who have nothing whatever to do with his farm or even with the locality. I hope your Lordships will press this Motion to a Division, because I am quite convinced that, in the county in which Lord Harris and I live, the feeling against this increase of rates for the upkeep of roads is growing very strong, and it will not be very long before the Government are made particularly aware of the fact.
LORD SEMPILLMy Lords, I rise to support the Motion made by Lord Harris. We have heard a good deal about the English counties, but I think in the more scattered districts of Scotland the proprietors and the tax payers generally are very much more hardly hit by the cost of the upkeep of roads. Lord Harris said that this question ought to be raised by county councils, and I understood Min to say that they had not done so. In the county to which I belong, Aberdeenshire, we brought up this question as far aback as 1909, when I moved—
That in the opinion of this council all mechanically propelled vehicles should bear an adequate share of the cost of the maintenance of the public highways—I will not trouble your Lordships with the whole of that motion, but it was sent to the Secretary for Scotland, and every county council throughout Scotland was circularised on the subject. Seventy-five per cent., or rather more, expressed themselves in favour of it, and a certain number made no reply. Things were allowed to drift for about nine years, but in 1918 we reaffirmed this resolution. Then a Departmental Committee was set up to inquire into the use of road locomotives and heavy motor cars in Great Britain, and since then a grant of £10,000,000 has been made towards the upkeep of the roads, but the rates continue to rise. In the year 1912 the road rates in Aberdeenshire were nearly £53,000; in 1921 they had risen to £158,000, or more than treble.With regard to this sum of £10,000,000, the man in the street and a great many motorists honestly believe that the taxes they pay on their motors keep up the roads. I will ask the House to listen to this little quotation. Mr. J. P. Holland, who may be a great authority on motors though I am afraid I have not the honour of his acquaintance, writing in Motor Notes, asks 15 where the extra taxes go and what becomes of the surplus, Then, after a long rigmarole, he says: "But can anybody inside or outside a Government Department pretend to assert that £10,000,000 or half that sum has been spent on roads during the past year? Certainly not. Motorists are taxed up to the hilt and over." I agree, therefore, with Lord Harris that the more this question is ventilated the better. It would be a very good thing if the Government made widely known exactly how much is spent by every county in Great Britain on road upkeep and how much is recovered in the way of motor taxation.
Another question arises on this matter. I do not own a single railway share, so that I am not interested in railways, but I think that these heavy motors compete with the railways at an unfair advantage. In my own county the question of sending fish from Aberdeen to Glasgow was discussed recently. When the fish was sent by rail it cost 56s. per ton, but when sent by road I think they made it out to cost 35s. I am not quite sure of the figure, but I am pretty sure that I am not understating it. The real cost is greater probably by road, but the unfortunate taxpayer pays for that because the gentleman in Glasgow gets his fish a bit cheaper when it goes by road, but those who live between Glasgow and Aberdeenshire are really paying for the permanent way, for which, in regard to the railways, the companies themselves have to pay. They are running their fish and all their other goods (because it applies to everything else) at the expense of the ratepayers. I hope the Government will devise some means of putting the burden of the upkeep of the roads on the users.
§ VISCOUNT NOVARMy Lords, the coalition to which my noble friend, Lord Lambourne, referred seems to be spreading, as it ought to do, to other counties besides those of Kent and Essex. It is doubtful whether any more urgent question could be submitted to your Lordships' House than this. The noble Lord who proposed to go to a Division, as I hope he will, has referred to the academic nature of this discussion. It is, at any rate, an extremely practical discussion, and one which is being supported in a most practical way. I hope the noble Earl, if he replies, will consider the expediency of inquiring into the incidence of the cost of the rates not only as between heavy traffic—mechanical commercial traffic and the Ford motor car— 16 but also as between the motor traffic and the ratepayer. I think there can be no question that the proportion of the cost of the rates borne by heavy motor traffic is totally inadequate, and the scale demands immediate revision. The cost of keeping up the roads for this heavy commercial traffic, which falls on the local authorities, ought to be paid by the traffic which renders the upkeep necessary. The whole question needs a thorough inquiry, and a radical change in the incidence is required.
What is the situation? It has been well described by the noble Lord who has just sat down. Rates have gone up three or four-fold, or even to a greater extent. This 2 s. road rate is levied as an Income Tax over the agricultural industry, an industry which is already depressed by taxation and rates to the verge of ruin. The agricultural industry, which by no means derives the greatest benefit from the particular kind of traffic which injures the roads, is the industry which has to bear the brunt of the burden. If this kind of burden is to be put upon agriculture, whether estates be dispersed or whatever happens, the industry will be ruined, and we shall be left without the capital and without. the men to carry it on. This road rate is merely one of several kinds of burden which are tending to that most disastrous conclusion, and I am sure every agriculturist will be grateful to the noble Lord who has put down this Motion.
§ LORD KILLANINMy Lords, noble Lords who have addressed you this afternoon have, perhaps rightly in view of the terms of the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, confined their remarks entirely, so far as I have heard them, to the effect of this wear and tear of and expense upon roads in the country, and no attention has been drawn to the effect of this class of traffic in town, in this very town of London itself for example. In my opinion every complaint that has been made in reference to wear and tear, and to the expenditure necessary to keep the roads in order in the country, applies with double force to such a place as London.
In addition to the actual wear and tear, there is the extraordinary discomfort and injury to people's lives owing to this immense traffic—small trains of engines and trucks and immense vans. Not only do they injure the road by their weight, and cause discomfort by their noise, but by the vibration they cause they shake all the 17 houses, especially in narrow streets where the houses are small. That, I think, is a very important matter and I rose only to draw attention to it. I hope the noble Viscount, in his reply, will be able to give us a promise that this matter will be looked into so far as it affects the traffic in town. It is all very fine to talk about the wear and tear to roads, but what about the wear and tear to nerves and health, and the destruction of the comfort of people who have to live in small houses in the towns.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (VISCOUNT PEEL)My Lords, I am aware that, led by my noble friend, Lord Harris, there is a very formidable combination of complaint—
§ VISCOUNT PEELWholly fortuitous and unorganised, but arising, I suppose, out of the circumstances of the case. I think we are well aware, in our own persons, of the troubles that are caused by this motor traffic on roads. It arises from the well-known fact that these motor vehicles of increasing weight, size and pace are running on surfaces which were designed, for the most part, for quite other weights. I know very well, from the few months that I have been at the Ministry of Transport, where I had to examine into the question of the construction of the roads, how tremendously difficult it is to construct any road at a reasonable cost which will sustain, without the difficulties alluded to by Lord Harris, the pressure of these very heavy vehicles.
He selected the County of Kent, among others, but the County of Kent is a fortunate county, not only in having therein the residence of my noble friend, which is one very dominant cause of its prosperity, but also because it is not one of the through counties in the sense that the counties in the Midlands are. In many of the Midland counties we suffer far more, I think, than does Kent, because we have those great trunk roads, which are not of very great value to us, but which are very much made use of by the inhabitants of other ounties.
There is this further difficulty—if I may allude again to Kent—that, although a great objection is made on the part of the local authorities to the increase of rates 18 owing to these vehicles, these vehicles are, nevertheless, very popular in some counties. The reason representations are not made more often by local authorities to the Ministry of Transport about the roads on which these vehicles may run is that the local authorities are really not very much afraid of the vehicles, but are influenced rather by the great popularity of charabancs and other large vehicles. I know something about the County of Kent, and I am quite certain that when these great charabancs go into that county, though they may not be charged enough as vehicles, the good people of Kent take very heavy tolls upon them of another kind.
§ VISCOUNT PEELThe question has further been raised, who is to pay for the increased damage and wear and tear of these roads? Several suggestions have been made only to be discarded at once. Lord Malmesbury raised the question as to whether taxpayers should pay, and instantly dismissed it on the ground, among others, that he himself might have to contribute a little more. Every one is, of course, familiar with the difficulties at present of asking the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make a further grant for the upkeep of the roads. I need not dwell upon the question of the ratepayers. We all know the terrible burdens that are cast upon us in the country as well as in the town. I have not the exact figures as to the contributions of ratepayers, and I understand that the figure of £50,000,000 given by several noble Lords may be approximately correct, but I do not want to put it forward in any sense as an official figure.
The question of making the people who use the roads pay for them, according to the Goschen formula, sounds very simple, but at the very moment when Lord Harris and others of your Lordships are stating with a good deal of weight, that these particular vehicles should contribute far more than they have done to the upkeep of the roads, all these authorities are beating at the doors of the Ministry and saying they are contributing far too much. They say, "Really the next thing you have to do is to reduce our charges, because if you do not our business and our motors may be driven off the roads." The attack does not come only from one side. It 19 conies from both sides, and with a great deal of energy from both sides.
With regard to the argument that these vehicles do not pay enough I will only say that if they do not pay enough they pay a great deal more than they did two years ago. Their contribution has been heavily increased, and I hope your Lordships will give full weight to that consideration. You know well the difficulty of piling taxation on taxation on any individual or industry. May I remind you also that many of the proposals which have been carried out in the last two years are really ancient history. In the year 1914 proposals were made for the classification of the roads into first and second class, to do away with the old system of assigned revenues and make a definite Exchequer grant. The whole of these possibilities were swept away by the war, and when Sir Eric Geddes took up the position he found it was impossible to obtain any direct grant for these roads from taxation and had to fall back on the system of a contribution from those who used the roads.
It was suggested that there should be raised some £8,000,000 or £9,000,000 from the users in order to contribute to the upkeep of those roads which were specially used by motor traffic. Representatives of the different users of the roads were brought together, and, in effect, were told that they had to distribute the burden among them, being informed the amount that was to be raised. After infinite discussions and balancing, no doubt influenced by Sir Henry May-bury, they arrived at their conclusions, and their scale of taxation, a most elaborate one, was finally embodied in the Act.
May I give one or two figures which show the difference between the burdens imposed on these vehicles three or four years ago and the burdens they have to bear now in consequence of the new taxation. Take the heavier types of mechanically propelled vehicles. Before January 1, 1921, when the new taxation came into force, commercial vehicles paid no licence duties, and further obtained a rebate of 50 per cent. on the petrol consumed. Hackney carriages, such as charabancs and omnibuses, paid a hackney carriage licence of £3 18s., and in addition a small local authority licence fee for plying for hire. Heavier types of road locomotives paid a county council licence fee of about £10 per annum, and there was in addition a 20 Petrol Tax of 6d. per gallon, and 3d. a gallon in the case of commercal vehicles.
What is the position now? Your Lordships know that the Petrol Tax has been abolished. As to reimposing that tax it is a matter of discussion as to whether it should be so much on the vehicle or so much on the petrol used. There are administrative difficulties in the way. The second system is the fairer, but a difficulty specially arises with regard to other fuels which would have to pay a tax, and it might possibly stop the progress and discovery of new fuels. Under the Finance Act of 1920, in which the new Duties were embodied, commercial vehicles between three and four tons, unladen, pay a licence duty of £28, and exceeding four tons in weight, unladen, a duty of £30. The largest types of charabancs and omnibuses pay licence duties of between £60 and £70 per annum in the provinces and £70 and £84 in London; while the heavy road locomotives pay licence duties of £24 or £30. The licence duty on the heaviest type of motor car has been increased from £21 to £50 or £60.
It will be seen that the increased duties on the heavier vehicles is extremely large. It may not he sufficient to meet the whole burden, but it is undoubtedly a very heavy increase. The net revenue for the Road Fund in 1921 was £8.500,000, and though it may not bear the proportion your Lordships would like to the total cost of the roads, it. compares favourably with the £2,000,000 which before the war was obtained from the Road Improvement Fund. If these Duties were increased the whole question of their distribution would, no doubt, be referred to a similar Committee, and the matter would have to be gone into over again. The Government view, in short, is that these new Duties have been working for so short a time that it is really very early days to consider now the reimposition of heavier and other Duties. I do not wish to say that this question should be kept out of sight, or that it should not be reconsidered and carefully examined from time to time. I am only laying it down that the time is so short since these new Duties were imposed that it is difficult to know what their effect has been on the different industries concerned.
The classification of the roads, to w[...] Lord Stanhope alluded, has already be effected; that is the classification of 21 roads of this country into first and second class roads. Your Lordships may not have seen the figures, which are extremely interesting. The mileage of class one roads is 22,189, and of second class roads, 14,400, out of a total mileage of roads in Great Britain of 177,306. For the current financial year 50 per cent. of the approved expenditure on the maintenance of these first class roads will be paid out of this Fund. On these roads, therefore, there is this half and half payment which was looked upon by Lord Harris as an almost ideal state of things.
§ VISCOUNT PEELWell, very nearly an ideal state of things.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYWill the noble Viscount give us the proportion again?
§ VISCOUNT PEELI said that the first-class roads were 22,189, and the second-class roads were 14,400, out of the total mileage of over 177,000 miles to which I have alluded. Out of the money for this year, therefore, apart from new roads, road developments, and so on, something like £7,000,000 out of £8,500,000 will he expended upon these particular roads. I do not, of course, pretend to your Lordships for a moment that that is the proper amount which should be contributed by the users of these roads towards the roads of the country. My contention, a far humbler one, is that the new rates of Duty are very much in excess of what they were two years ago, that this has already laid a considerable burden upon these particular industries, and that before proceeding largely to increase these Duties I would urge your Lordships to give a little more time both to the Government and to those interested in the roads to examine the effect of these very large additions to taxation. I do not know whether I can persuade my noble friend to withdraw his Motion. I suppose that is almost more than my persuasive powers are equal to. I can only assure him that all these contentions, all these arguments, and the great weight with which these points have been urged, shall certainly be placed most vigorously by me before my successor at the Ministry of Transport as soon as he is appointed.
LORD HARRISMy Lords, with your Lordships' permission I may add a few words in response, chiefly to thank my noble friend for the good humour which he invariably shows in treating questions of this kind, and also to congratulate him on his adroitness, for I am sure your Lordships will see that, having a very bad case, he has drawn a red herring across the trail by comparing what is being contributed now by owners of motor vehicles with what they were contributing sonic years ago. I do not think that affects the question. The grievance inns been partly remedied, but not sufficiently, and my noble friend did not attempt to deal with my point that, if it is fair to tax a light pleasure car at so much, then obviously the heavy pleasure car ought to be taxed in proportion. But it is not now so taxed.
The grievance is generic. The Act of Elizabeth has never been carried out. The burden of the rates has been thrown upon real estate instead of being assessed, as was intended by those wise men of old, on all classes of property. The difficulty has been to assess personalty for local taxation, and the result is that every day more and more burdens, which ought to be borne by the whole of the community, are thrown upon one class of property. That is the generic grievance, and I submit to your Lordships that this is a very prominent and very gross case, and that if you wish to make a protest on behalf of the ratepayers you have now a very good opportunity. There is no question about the legitimacy of the grievance and the justification of an appeal to Parliament. I am not sure that this House has always been so active as it might have been in the interests of the ratepayers. It has always been hampered, of course, by the question of privilege, and, speaking as I am in the august presence of one whom I am sure we welcome here with all fervour, one who has recently been the arbiter upon what is a Money Bill, Lord Ullswater, I still dare to think that on many questions where the rates are concerned even he would not have been obdurate if your Lordships had taken a stronger line than you have taken upon Money Bills as regards local taxation.
I submit that this is an academic Motion, and that you need not allow your consciences to be affected by any idea of invading privilege. The case is so good that you need not listen to the siren tones of my noble friend in his discursion upon what 23 is not the point at all—namely, what these cars used to pay ten years ago. The question is now whether heavier cars are taxed sufficiently as compared with light cars. That is the point of my Motion, and I sincerely hope your Lordships will think that it has sufficient justification to enlist your support.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORDMy Lords, I do not suggest that the Government should divide against this Motion, and I am prepared to that extent not to oppose Lord Harris, but I hope your Lordships will understand from the speech of my noble friend, the Secretary of State, that the Government does not see its way to accept the terms of the Motion.
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.