HL Deb 20 May 1924 vol 57 cc494-507
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE)

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)

On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed, the Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.

LORD DENMAN had given Notice to move, in the event of the Bill being committed, That it be an instruction to the Committee on the London County Council (Tramways and Improvements) Bill to strike out from the Bill all powers relating to Tramway No. 4. The noble Lord said: My Lords, it will be noticed that I have placed a Motion on the Paper to omit Tramway No. 4 from the scope of this Bill, and I will state very briefly why I have done so. Provision is made in this Bill for tram lines to be laid along the Waterloo-road. In that road stands the Royal Waterloo Hospital, a hospital of considerable size for the treatment of women and children. It does admittedly good work in that district of South London where it is situate. A well known member of your Lordships' House, the Earl of Athlone, was for some years Chairman of our board at the hospital until he took up his appointment in South Africa the other day. As I happen to be the only other member of your Lordships' House who is a member of the board of the hospital, I have undertaken to put their case this afternoon.

The hospital authorities fear the noise that will be caused by the tramway and its injurious effect on the patients of the hospital. I think your Lordships will agree that of all noises caused by road traffic that made by tramcars is the most penetrating. It is bad enough in the clay time, but it is infinitely worse at night. Some idea of what would happen to the Waterloo Hospital can be formed from the experience of St. Thomas's Hospital, not far from this House on the opposite side of the river. The authorities there know how injurious are the effects of this noise on their patients, and the medical staff and the clerical staff and all connected with that hospital would say the same thing. If this Bill passes into law unaltered the position of the Waterloo Hosptal will he worse than that of St. Thomas's for two reasons.

The first is that St. Thomas's is situated on a wide roadway and there is a broad space of several yards between the kerb and the tram lines. The Waterloo Hospital has a much narrower road in front. There will be only two or three feet, as I understand, between the tram lines and the pavement, and the trams will run right under the windows of the hospital. Secondly, as your Lordships probably know, St. Thomas's has a wide river frontage where, no doubt, the worst cases can be put; but the Waterloo Hospital, unfortunately, is a very narrow building and every ward faces the Waterloo Bridge-road. The worst of the noises occur at night when the roads are clear and trams accelerate their pace. They then cause vibration and lead to humming or rumbling noises which, as your Lordships must realise, have a very injurious effect upon the patients. The secretary of St. Thomas's Hospital, who was kind enough to see me yesterday, told me that on several occasions he had approached the tramway authority of the London County Council, and they assured him that they would see that these trams should run more slowly past the hospital. For a day or two after he made his protest that was the case, but afterwards the drivers reverted to their former practice, and came swinging past the hospital at a great pace, with consequent disturbance to the patients. These tramways cause a noise which I think would disturb the sleep of any healthy person, and to any one whose chances of recovery, as is sometimes the case, depend upon getting, a good night's rest, the consequence of disturbance of this kind may easily prove fatal. Furthermore, the hospital authorities fear that this noise would seriously retard the recovery of convalescent patients.

One other point that I would venture to bring before your Lordships is this. This is not a very important length of tramway. I think it is 631 yards, or about a third of a mile, in length. I understand that the London County Council have entrusted their case to the able advocacy of my noble friend Lord Monk Bretton. My noble friend will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe I am right in stating that this particular scheme, or a similar scheme, has come before Parliament on five occasions, and on each of those five occasions Parliament has rejected it. I hope this will be the sixth occasion on which that will happen.

There is also this peculiar circumstance which I would ask your Lordships to consider. The proposed tramway line is to terminate at the south end of Waterloo Bridge. As your Lordships are aware, that bridge has recently subsided, is now closed to traffic, and is to undergo reconstruction. Building, and particularly any public building in this country, is rather a lengthy business and judging, for example, by the time that it takes to build houses—a process which I am bound to say shows no signs of acceleration under a Labour Government—it will take a long time to rebuild this bridge. Obviously it will be a matter at least of months, and probably of years. I suggest therefore that it would be no hardship in this case for the London County Council to wait until the work of rebuilding the bridge has been, completed, or is near completion. They could then come to Parliament with the scheme which they now propose.

And there is the further point of traffic congestion. I am not an authority on traffic questions, but I believe it to be the case that many people who know a great deal more about these things than I do consider that before long a limit will be placed to tramway construction in this country on account of the fact that motor transport supplies an equally cheap, at least an equally convenient, and a swifter means of conveyance for the public. Trams are inconvenient on account of the space which they occupy and on account of their rigidity, and, as your Lordships know, they add to the congestion of traffic, particularly in narrow thoroughfares. A few years hence it may well be that more convenient methods of transport will be in existence. I believe there are a good number of means of transport already in existence for the purpose of linking up North and South London. That, I submit, is an additional reason why your Lordships should not include this scheme in the Bill.

Perhaps my noble friend Lord Monk Bretton will tell me, and the Lord Chairman may say, that this is really a matter for Committee, that it is a matter which should be thrashed out before a Committee upstairs. With that I would agree, but we are placed in this unfortunate position. Like many hospitals, we are seriously in debt at the moment, and the board of the hospital do not consider that they would be justified in expending the money which is now needed for their day to day expenditure, in briefing counsel and opposing this matter in Committee upstairs. It is on that account that I have ventured to raise this question on the floor of the House. I feel that I owe an apology to your Lordships for so doing, but I trust you will agree that this is a matter which does merit your consideration; and I would earnestly plead for your sympathy and support. I beg to move.

Moved, That it be an instruction to the Committee on the London County Council (Tramways and Improvements) Bill to strike out from the Bill all powers relating to Tramway No. 4.—(Lord Denman.)

LORD MONK BRETTON

My Lords, in the first place I will try to answer the questions which have been addressed to me by the noble Lord. It is true that this particular part of the Bill has been before Parliament before, I believe on three, not on five, occasions. A great many tramway undertakings, and many other bodies who promote Private Bills, have to try a number of times before they get them on the Statute Book, and after they have got them upon the Statute Book the schemes to which the Bills relate are not found to be so dangerous as was anticipated. I have been a member of your Lordships' House long enough to remember a celebrated Division that took place on the question of whether the tramways should be brought along the Embankment. On the Motion of the noble Viscount, the late Lord Ridley, the Tramway Bill was thrown out, but within a very short period it reappeared, and the tramways were sanctioned, and are now a part of the ordinary life of London.

I want to say one word about tramways in general. Neither in the City of London nor in the West End of London do I want to see tramways, but it is quite different in the suburbs. I have a London County Council constituency in the suburbs, and I know what the trams mean to the people who dwell there. I know what a great convenience is a large vehicle running at a good speed on the wide roads of the suburbs, and how helpful it is in bringing workers to their business. You may dislike trams, but £16,000,000 has been invested in these trams, and £6,000,000 has been repaid, leaving £10,000,000 of public money still invested in the trams. In the opinion of the Tramways Committee of the London County Council it is important that everything should be done to make the trams as paying a proposition as possible. The noble Lord asks you to turn down a particular part of this Bill because of the disadvantage to one hospital. This is a Bill which has passed through the House of Commons. All of us must have a great deal of sympathy with hospitals in this matter; we want to keep the patients as quiet as they can be kept. I wish the noble Lord would bring what he has said about St. Thomas's Hospital to the notice of the tramways manager, and of the London County Council. If he does so, I am sure the matter will be attended to.

The public need for transportation is paramount. In London there are ten large hospitals. In addition to a great number of smaller homes and institutions of the same character, which have tramways running alongside them. It is therefore unreasonable for the noble Lord to come here this evening and ask that a Bill which has passed through the House of Commons, a Bill which is promoted by all parties on the London County Council, and notably by the Progressive Party with which the noble Lord ought to have sympathy, and one which is proposed in order to enable workers in South London to get to their place of occupation, should be rejected. It is true that Waterloo Bridge is temporarily shut, but the powers in this Bill extend for seven years and we hope something will be done before then to get over the river at that spot. This Bill was considered by a Committee in another place under the Chairmanship of Mr. Ormsby-Gore, a very competent Chairman. They had the evidence of the police, who did not disapprove of the tramway, but only asked that one detail should be altered and it was altered. It is said that the Ministry of Transport is in favour of the measure and I can be corrected in that statement if I am wrong. There was a representative of the trades unions representing 150,000 workers south of the Thames, who asked that the tramway should be constructed. The Members of Parliament for Lambeth and South-wark also attended the Committee. In the result they unanimously approved of the Bill.

Can you consider the details of this matter on the floor of the House? Can yon understand these questions unless you have counsel and maps and so forth, as you have in the case of a Private Bill? Is not your Committee upstairs strong enough to hold its own opinion and reverse the judgment of the Committee of the other House if it thinks it is wrong? It has been clone again and again, and I ask your Lordships to rely on the Committee of your own House and be assured that the best and most expedient tiling will be done.

THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE

My Lords, I am sure we are all indebted to the two noble Lords for the clearness with which they have stated their case this afternoon. I do not feel inclind to go into the merits of the question, although both noble Lords have not lost sight of that side of the subject. I merely desire to advise your Lordships on what is the most convenient course to follow in dealing with a question which obviously requires some consideration. Lord Den-man was quite frank in saying—I am using my own phrase—that this is a very ordinary case. It is the case of the promotion of a tramway by a big public authority opposed by a frontager. It is the kind of ease that is heard upstairs every day, and I suggest that this is the convenient course in all these cases. My noble friend made an appeal with which I am sure everyone who has anything to do with the finances of a hospital will sympathise. He said that his board felt the disadvantage of having to brief counsel and appear before a Committee of your Lordships' House. But if that matter came up before the small and not very rich hospital of which I am treasurer, I should feel no alternative but to accept it as one of the disadvantages of my situation. I should not feel justified in asking your Lordships not to follow the usual course by rejecting a scheme like this on Second Reading merely because I felt the difficulty of providing sufficient funds to state my case upstairs.

If I had had to address your Lordships on this subject last year I should have argued that instructions to a Committee were very unusual things, but the precedent of last year in the case of the Whitgift Hospital at Croydon laid down a rather different practice. It is, however, fair to say that the Whitgift Hospital and the present case cannot be compared. In the one instance it was the case of an ancient monument, a beautiful old building, to which your Lordships lightly attached great sentimental value, and the attack on it excited a great deal of public interest which your Lordships rightly interpreted in the decision to which you came. But this is not the case of an ancient monument or a building of great historic value. To be perfectly frank, if the worst really came to the worst I take it that the work of this hospital could be just as well carried on somewhere else by moving the hospital. I do not wish to be misunderstood. I do not suggest that I have been into the merits of the case, and that it is a case in which the Waterloo Hospital ought to move. But if there is that side of the question, them it is the kind of question which comes up when you are considering the matter of compensation, and that can be best considered by the Committee upstairs and not in the course of a Second Beading debate in your Lordships' House. I hope my noble friend will be satisfied by having drawn special attention to this matter. I say unhesitatingly that he is justified in doing so, but I hope he will allow (he normal course to be followed, and that a Committee of this House will consider the matter in the usual way when he and those with whom he is associated can put forward proposals for rejecting the scheme.

LORD BUCKMASTER

My Lords, when the noble Earl asks your Lordships not to interfere with this Bill because it is contrary to the usual practice of the House, I have great sympathy with his argument, but he did not base his case on very sound ground when he said that the only case made by Lord Denman was in the nature of a complaint by a frontager who objected to the passage of the trams. It is nothing of the kind. It is the objection of a small hospital for women and children which is notoriously insufficiently provided with funds to enable it to appear before the Committee. It certainly does not correspond to the ordinary position of a frontager. Another thing was said more than once with which I find it difficult to agree, and that is that this instruction is a rejection of the Bill. Surely it is nothing whatever of the kind. It is simply an instruction to the Committee to exclude a certain part of the tramway system from the operation of the measure. That is a different thing altogether. Finally, I was rather impressed by the fact that Lord Monk Bretton did not deal with what seemed to me to be a very important fact, and that is that this particular tramway is only 651 yards in extent. If that is right, then we are not interfering in any way either with swift or cheap transit. We are merely making a person walk about two-thirds of a mile, and this inconvenience cannot be measured against the misery and suffering which must undoubtedly be endured by the inhabitants of this small hospital.

The noble Earl suggested that they should move the hospital. Yes, but how? Moving a hospital is not a very cheap process. It will cost money, and the funds of this hospital are already depleted. I cannot help thinking that this is a matter which deserves a little further argument here before we decide our attitude to this Bill. The facts, as we have heard them, are that this tramway is only 651 yards long, that it runs through a comparatively narrow street I and that it runs close to a hospital, which will undoubtedly suffer grave inconvenience, and its patients great suffering, if this scheme is permitted to continue. Upon those facts it seems to me that good reason is made out for saying that this particular portion of the Bill ought not to be pursued.

Finally, I should like to say a word upon a point which I think needs consideration. The provision of cheap and swift transport is undoubtedly one of the greatest and most urgent needs of this city. It is essential for the benefit of the poor and for the maintenance of our commercial life. It is always assumed that this is best effected by the construction of innumerable tramways. I am not satisfied that this is so. I am not by any means sure that we are not clinging, as progressive people frequently cling, to an archaic system, under the impression that it represents the last word in progress. I say nothing about that now, because it is obviously rather a matter for discussion elsewhere. I only desire to add that, unless the statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Denman, receives some more conclusive contradiction than that which we have hitherto heard, I shall feel compelled to vote with him if he takes this matter to a Division.

LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU

My Lords, I rise for one moment to support the views of the last speaker and of my noble friend below me, whose position I know very well. I cannot help thinking that, in these days, to build more tramways in already congested streets is to increase their congestion. The present position is that the people who now use the tramways have to change so many hundred yards south of Waterloo Bridge into another class of conveyance namely, a motor omnibus—or else walk. If this were a scheme to take the tramway right across to the Strand, there might be something to be said for it, but, as it is intended to stop short of the bridge, the passengers in each tramcar will have to change in any case. I think Parliament has hitherto been wise on previous occasions in rejecting the extension of this tramway.

I agree with that which fell from the noble and learned Lord about the need of better transport in London, but to encumber our streets with small railways, which is what tramways really are, is not to assist the locomotion of London. I may remind your Lordships also that there is every prospect of a London transport authority being constituted. This is the very kind of subject with which they ought to deal and, I hope, will be capable of dealing. In view of that prospect, considering the merits of the case and in view of the fact that tramways are not really so efficient in conveying passengers through narrow streets to distant places as are other forms of locomotion, I shall unhesitatingly give my vote to the noble Lord who brought forward this Motion.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

My Lords, I should like to say a word upon this matter. I think that those of your Lordships who heard Lord Penman's speech must have heard it with great sympathy. We all feel very acutely the necessity of treating with every indulgence the exigencies of hospitals and the welfare of the patients in them. When I heard the noble Lord's speech I was very strongly inclined to vote with him. But I think your Lordships must proceed in this matter with great care, for we are liable to be setting a very awkward precedent, as I shall venture to point out in a moment, if we strike out this provision at the present stage and do not allow it to go to a Committee. I think it is quite evident that the points made by my noble friend who has just sat down are either an argument against tramways altogether, in which case he ought to reject the Bill, or else they are Committee points as to particular sections of the tramway, and ought to be argued in Committee. That was admitted by my noble and learned friend Lord Buck-master, just now, when he said, quite candidly, at the end of his speech, that the argument in respect of tramways generally was a Committee matter.

Why should we take this matter out of the hands of a Committee of your Lordships' House? I think it is clear from the arguments which have been submitted to the House that it would go to the Committee without difficulty but for one consideration. It is clear that details as to where people ought to change or ought not to change, and all that sort of thing, can be properly considered when we are in Committee. They are pure Committee points. I agree with the noble and learned Lord that to say that a hospital is a mere frontager is an exaggeration. It is much more than an ordinary frontager. Nevertheless, the point is a pure Committee point. Why should it not go to Committee? The obvious reason is that the hospital shrinks from the expense of appearing before the Committee. That appears to be the only solid reason why the matter should not go before a Committee.

The question that arises, then, is whether we are to say that, whenever an institution approaches us on the ground that it is not very well off, we ought to take decisions out of the hands of the Committee of your Lordships' House and settle them in the House itself. That is a tremendous doctrine that would carry us very far indeed. I agree, and have always thought, that one of the great abuses of our system is that you cannot get justice in this country unless you are fairly well off. That is true not only in relation to Committees of your Lordships' House but as regards the Courts themselves. It is very difficult to go before the Courts unless you employ good counsel, and so forth, at great expense. But that is part of our system, and if we are going to lay it down that wherever the expense is very great, the matter should be taken out of the hands of the Committee and decided on the Moor of the. House, it will be a very dangerous doctrine which I think your Lordships ought to hesitate before accepting.

I believe that every member of this House would agree with mo that this matter should be considered by the Committee if we were quite certain that it would be thoroughly thrashed out before the Committee. I believe that would satisfy Lord Denman himself. I cannot help believing that, after this debate in your Lordships' House, the Committee will take every care in considering it. Probably several members of the Committee are themselves present here and have heard the debate. I should shrink from voting with my noble friend Lord Denman, because I think we should be setting a precedent which would give rise to great difficulties in the future.

LORD HEMPHILL

My Lords, as a past Chairman of the Highways Committee, I have been asked to support the noble Lord, Lord Monk Bretton, who is opposed to this instruction. Your Lordships will feel, with the noble Lord who moved the instruction, great sympathy for this hospital. We all feel great sympathy with hospitals, but I would remind your Lordships that this is not a very large hospital. It has only about 106 beds in it, and there are a great number of larger hospitals in London alongside which tramways have run without causing great inconvenience. After all, if we are going to sympathise with this hospital, as we all will, why should we not sympathise with the numerous people who use the tramways? There are 106 beds in the hospital, and tens of thousands of people using the tramways.

I do not know whether your Lordships exactly understand the position of this tramway at the present time. It now stops just short of Waterloo Station, and the proposal is to bring it up to the foot of Waterloo Bridge. One may perhaps hope that when Waterloo Bridge is reconstructed, it will be brought across the bridge into Wellington-street, so that it will bring people right up to the Strand. The terminus of this tramline going to the foot of Waterloo Bridge will be about 300 yards beyond the hospital. The total length of the extension is about three-eighths of a mile. I would like to point out to your Lordships that Waterloo-road is not a particularly narrow thoroughfare, but, on the contrary, as roads go in London, is rather a wide thoroughfare and one of the noisiest. A large amount of traffic passes over it, including lorries, wagons and so forth, and the addition of a tramline will make very little difference to the noise.

It has been proved on many occasions before Committees of both Houses that tramlines do not make more noise than other means of traction. Time after time, when the statement has been made that tramways made more noise, the Committees have been convinced that the statement was not true. And of course the point which is made, that there may be better means of locomotion, and cheaper and more rapid means, is certainly a matter for argument before a Committee. It cannot be argued in this House, It has been argued time after time against tramways, but yet on each occasion the tramways have been approved by Committees. I need not deal with what has been said with regard to the desirability of this going before a Committee, because that is obvious, but I venture to hope that your Lordships will give the promoters a fair chance of having this question considered by a Committee upstairs.

THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (LORD PARMOOR)

My Lords, I think the only matter involved here is not a matter of merit but of whether a question of this kind can be more properly debated on the floor of this House than in a Committee room upstairs, and I was struck with the speech of Lord Buckmaster, who put the case in the strongest possible way for dealing with the matter now and not in Committee upstairs. In the old days, as many of your Lordships know, I had considerable experience of Committee work, both in this House and in the other House, and it appears to me that the question now before your Lordships is eminently one which ought to be dealt with in Committee upstairs. No general principle is involved in it, and I should regret that anybody in the position of a hospital should be put to expense. That is what affects me most nearly, but I do not think there is any reason for departing, as the Lord Chairman said, from the ordinary practice of sending these matters to a Committee upstairs, where all the various considerations which we have heard addressed to your Lordships can be fully considered in detail.

VISCOUNT YOUNGER OF LECKIE

My Lords, may I say that I do not think the hospital committee has lodged any Petition against this Bill, and therefore it would not be competent for it to go before the Committee?

LORD PARMOOR

Oh yes, it would have locus standi.

LORD DENMAN

My Lords, I do not want to trouble you any longer, but I only wish to say that, in my view, this is the last chance which the hospital has. It is all very well for the noble Marquess and Lord Parmoor to say that this might be argued in Committee, but we have carefully considered the matter, and it is a very expensive business to fight these things in Committee upstairs. Lord Monk Bretton said that your Lordships were not fully seized of the points, and were therefore unable to give your decision upon them, after listening to his speech and mine. I should not have said that after listening to his speech. I think your Lordships are very fully seized of the arguments for the proposal in the Bill. The Lord Chairman spoke of compensation, but he was the only person who mentioned that matter at all. Lord Monk Bretton never said a word about it, and that being so I must trouble your Lordships to go to a Division.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Motion agreed to accordingly.

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