§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee has made recently a Report to the Minister of Transport in regard to the London, Midland and Scottish Railway Road Transport Bill, the London and North Eastern Railway Road Transport Bill, the Southern Railway Road Transport Bill, the Metropolitan Railway Road Transport Bill, or any of them, what were the chief recommendations of such Report, and whether he proposes to publish it for the information of Parliament, and to place it before the Joint Select Committee at present considering these Bills; and to move for Papers.
§ The noble Lord said: My Lords, the subject raised in the Motion which stands in my name on the Paper is one of some considerable importance. We all know that a Joint Select Committee is sitting upstairs to consider a group of Bills promoted by certain railway companies for the purpose of extending their road powers. To that on general principles I have, as I have said in your Lordships' House before, no objection. But it is 1094 very important that the Joint Select Committee should have before it all possible information. In addition to that, when the Bills come down to your Lordships' House from that Committee, it is important that members of your Lordships' House should also have every possible means of knowing the facts of the case and the opinion of the Committee. A question was asked in another place on May 3 whether the Minister of Transport was willing to lay on the Table a White Paper containing the Report of a certain Statutory Committee which had been made to the Ministry of Transport. The reply of the Minister of Transport was that it was not usual to publish Reports relating to Private Bills. That, I think, is a weak answer. One can hardly describe as Private Bills measures which affect the public and the future of the transport in this country very largely. They are not in the nature of ordinary Private Bills. That is shown by the fact that the Joint Committee, which is a somewhat unusual Committee, is sitting not only for the purpose of saving time but because of the great importance of the subject with which it has to deal. The Minister of Transport, in his reply, went on to say that the responsibility of tendering advice to such Committees must rest with the Minister and the Minister alone. That is a very good rotund Parliamentary phrase and represents the official view. But, as I have said, this particular Committee is not an ordinary Committee, and is not like a Departmental Committee.
§ Your Lordships will recollect that in 1924 the London Traffic Act was passed. Under that Act the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee was set up, representing all kinds of authorities, official and unofficial, certain counties and various interests which were involved. It was, in fact, practically the same as a Statutory Committee, which has certain obligations and certain powers. So important were the Reports of that Committee thought to be that in Section 1 there is a stipulation that the Annual Report of the Committee shall be laid on the Table of Parliament. That Report, I believe, has been laid every year and has been read with great interest. In regard to the Report which was recently made on these Railway Bills, I understand that the 1095 Minister is disinclined to publish it, and unless the Advisory Committee publishes it—which, I assume, it is in their power to do—
§ VISCOUNT PEELIf the noble Lord will allow me to correct him, that is not the fact. They have no power whatever to publish their Report.
§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUI had better read the actual words of the Act:—
The Advisory Committee shall make an Annual Report of their proceedings to the Minister, which shall be laid before Parliament.The Minister may, of course, edit it and cut out those portions of the Report of which he does not approve, but there is a statutory obligation made upon the Committee, as I have pointed out, to make an Annual Report.
§ VISCOUNT PEELIf the noble Lord wishes me to deal with that I will do so. That, of course, is an Annual Report and it is laid down that that Report should be laid upon the Table, but it has to be done through the Minister. That applies to that Annual Report alone, but does not apply to any other Report. Certainly it does not apply to any Report made by the Statutory Committee.
§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUI think the noble Viscount misunderstood me. I said if they chose to incorporate in their Annual Report the words of this Report or the gist of the Report recently made, they could do so, and that, unless the Minister chose to suppress it, it would become public property. That is all I said and I think that it is perfectly correct.
EARL RUSSELLThat is quite correct, but it would not become public property now. It would not become public property until the Annual Report is presented and then it would not be of much consequence.
§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUI agree, but I say that the Minister would not delay an Annual Report unless he had strong reasons for doing so. This Report is, in the opinion of those who have seen it, a very important one. The reason for suppressing it is, of course, not known, but we may guess at it. I cannot personally conceive why it should 1096 not, at any rate, be produced to the Select Committee. It seems to me that even if it is not made public it should be produced to the Committee. The Committee have power, I understand, as have all Committees of this kind, to insist on the production of the Report, and if they chose to treat that Report as a confidential document they could do so. The noble Viscount who presides so ably over that Committee has a perfect right to say: "This is a private document. We want to see it for our own edification. We shall use it for our own purposes, but we shall not disclose it to the general public." No doubt the noble Viscount will make some remarks about that later on. The question of this Report raises some rather important matters. Why has this Report been, so to speak, suppressed? Is it because it does not coincide with the Departmental view? Is it because the Minister of Transport has formed different views from those contained in it? We can only guess at that, but in view of the somewhat widespread allegations all over the country of anti-road bias, because of the recent action of the Government in regard to the Petrol Tax, it is, I think, important that this Report should at any rate be produced to the Committee.
If that were done there would be no real reason for further suspicion on this point. If the Government decline to produce the Report even to the Committee, or to make it public, we can only conclude there is something in it which it is desired should not be known and which is of some considerable importance. The history of the Report itself is somewhat remarkable. When the London and Home Counties Committee originally reported they were asked, I understand, by the Ministry of Transport to reconsider their decision and to re-write or report again in a different sense. That, in itself, is interesting, to say the least of it. Was that because the first Report, as I say again, did not coincide with the Minister's view? I am informed that the Committee did to a certain extent re-write their Report, that certain recommendations were slightly altered, but that the main recommendations stood and that those responsible for the Report refused to alter them. The Committee apparently had the courage to do that, and of course it naturally produced a certain amount of comment amongst those who knew. That 1097 may be another reason why this Report has been suppressed, but it is rather interesting to note that in the typewritten paper which, I believe, has been put into the hands of the noble Viscount's Committee, which contains the recommendations of the Report of the Minister of Transport, there is a reference on page 9 to one of those recommendations of the Committee, so that he evidently has in corporated some of them, though not all.
The Minister suggests these words:—
Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provisions"—these are the provisions of the London Traffic Act, 1924—nothing in this Act shall affect the powers under the London Traffic Act, 1924, or any Act amending the same of the Minister of Transport…That is a very sensible suggestion and that is one of the results of the original Report of the Committee, but I see no reference to the other point. It would take too long to go into the details of the Report to-day. Take, for instance, the point in regard to the inadequacy of the road to carry increased traffic and matters of that kind. There is no reference in the Minister of Transport's Report to the Committee at all about them.
§ VISCOUNT PEELThe noble Lord is making certain references to a Report. I do not know what Report it is that he is referring to.
§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUThis Report was made, I think, to the noble Viscount—a Report by the Minister of Transport.
§ VISCOUNT PEELYes, the Minister of Transport, whose Report, it was said, did not contain certain points which were in some other Report.
§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUThat is the Report I am talking of—the Report of the London and Home Counties Advisory Committee.
§ VISCOUNT PEELThe noble Lord is referring apparently to some other document which I understand is an official document—a Report made by the London Traffic Advisory Committee to the Minister. That is an official document and I do not understand quite by what right or claim the noble Lord professes to have got a copy of this official document, and 1098 to be giving portions of it to your Lordships' House. I submit he is not entitled to do anything of the kind.
§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUI assume that every thing that can throw light on the subject of the debate in this House or the proceedings in Committee is in order. I am afraid I cannot take it as being an obligation on myself not to refer to something which is known to a great many people at the present time and is freely talked about.
§ VISCOUNT PEELI am sorry to interrupt. What I understand the noble Lord is doing is, that in some of those sentences which he has just used he is quoting from a Report made by the Advisory Committee the Minister, which the Minister, in the course of his discretion, has to consider. That is a private Report. I do not understand how, first of all, the noble Lord has it at all, but if by some means he has got it into his possession, I submit he is not entitled to disclose openly to your Lordships a Report made to the Minister which the Minister has to consider in his discretion. It is not before your Lordships. It is not, on the Table. It is not a public document, and I the noble Lord has no right to refer to any such document.
§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUI am afraid I cannot accept the noble Lord's homily on that point. I was only quoting two points. One that I quoted is referred to in the document that I hold in my hand, which is public property. The other I referred to because of the question of the adequacy of the roads. I am not going to give the House all the details of that Report. I have told the noble Viscount I should not do so. But one of these two points is referred to in a document which is available to everyone. The other point is one of such importance that at any rate the Committee upstairs should know about it. I suggest to the Government that the appropriate way of dealing with this matter, which is a matter of great public interest, is that they should consent to place before the Committee this Report. Whether they choose to publish it at a later date is a matter, I should think, for future discussion. It does seem to me that a Committee of this sort, sitting as they are to consider the whole subject, 1099 ject, should have all the information at their disposal. If the Government do not choose to do it we shall be able to draw our own conclusions.
I am sorry if the noble Viscount thinks I have done anything that is not correct in the Parliamentary sense, but if it cases his mind I may say I have not got a copy of the Report. I could get a copy, I have no doubt, quite easily, but if it eases his mind I will say I have not got a copy. If I had I should have to consider whether I was justified in reading that Report, at any rate in extenso. I do think, however, that the Government should produce this Report to the Committee even if it is done in a quite private way.
§ VISCOUNT CHELMSFORDMy Lords, I happen to be Chairman of the Joint Select Committee which is sitting upon these Railway Bills, and when I saw my noble friend's Question on the Paper I asked the members of the Committee to consider the attitude which they wished to take up with regard to it. I cross-examined learned Counsel on both sides this afternoon to find out what, in their view, was the exact position of this Advisory Committee. It was agreed that the position was that this Committee reported to the Minister of Transport, that their Reports are private Reports made to the Minister of Transport, and that it is within his discretion to say "Yes" or "No" whether he will publish them. There is only one exception to this—namely, that to which the noble Viscount opposite referred just now, that the Annual Report is to be published, but to be published by the Minister of Transport. In those circumstances, and inasmuch as the Minister of Transport had made his final Departmental Report to the Committee, we felt that we had no right to ask him to vary his discretion in this matter, and we do not propose to ask him to send this Report to us.
But—I say this most emphatically—we should very strongly object as a Committee to having this Report sent to us privately, because if a Report comes to us it ought also to be in the hands of the parties to the Bill so that they may know exactly the effect of that Report. It would not be right that we, as a Committee, should be sitting in camera considering a confidential Report to which they have not had access. That is what 1100 my Committee asked me to say this afternoon, and it must be a matter entirely for the Minister of Transport, who is here represented by the noble Viscount opposite, as to what course he will take in this matter.
§ VISCOUNT PEELMy Lords, I think the question which has been asked by my noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu is very present to the minds of your Lordships, and I need not read it again. A Report was made by the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee to the Minister of Transport in regard to these Railway Bills to which the noble Lord has referred, and the Report contained references, of course, to certain matters germane to the questions which are being considered by the Joint Select Committee upstairs. Of course, a Report from so important a body as the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee was taken Into consideration by the Minister of Transport in his Report to the Committee on the Bill, with, of course, other Reports and recommendations on other important subjects which he has received from public authorities and from representatives of important interests. In his Report to the Committee, of course, the Minister has endeavoured to assist the Committee to the best of his ability by certain advice on all the points to which, in his view, he could usefully and reasonably call their attention.
If the noble Lord thinks that the unusual course should be followed of attaching to this Report copies of all the important Reports—I was going to say Reports important or otherwise—on which the judgment of the Minister was formed, I am afraid I cannot follow him on that particular point. All these Bills were referred, as your Lordships well know, with the concurrence of your Lordships' House to a strong Committee of both Houses of Parliament. There need be no fear whatever that this Committee, before whom are appearing parties represented on the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee, will fail to give proper consideration to all the relevant circumstances affecting London and other parts of the country. It is hardly necessary to say that if the Committee should ask for any information or assistance from the Ministry of Transport, or any other Government Department, every 1101 effort will be made to comply with their wishes. But while the Committee are sitting upstairs, I am bound to say I think it would be very inopportune to have discussions in your Lordships' House as to what the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee or other people are thinking. I submit that it is a matter that ought to be left entirely to the Joint Commitee. I must refer to one or two observations made by my noble friend about some Report made by the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee to the Minister of Transport. Several references were made to that Report by my noble friend. I was, apparently wrongly, under the impression that he was referring to a. Report which he had either seen, or had in his possession, or hall read, but he tells me that is not so.
§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUI have not got the Report with me.
§ VISCOUNT PEELTherefore, I understand, the noble Lord has a copy somewhere.
§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUI said I had not got a copy but I could get one.
§ VISCOUNT PEELI understood the noble Lord to say he had not a copy here, and I thought that meant he had a copy somewhere else. I want to know where he saw it.
§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUAh! That is another matter.
§ VISCOUNT PEELHas he read the Report?
§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUThat I am unable to tell you.
§ VISCOUNT PEELThe noble Lord gives quotations from the Report, but he will not tell me whether he has a copy, or whether he has read it, or where it comes from, and on the strength of some hearsay tittle-tattle evidence he comes and demands that some Report shall be placed before your Lordships. I never heard anything so preposterous as that. He comes and says the Committee were told to re-write their Report. I have to tell your Lordships that the Minister of Transport never saw that Report until it was in its present form. I really think it is a great pity that 1102 my noble friend should come with this little tittle-tattle business that he listens to—I do not know where; at some street corner, I suppose—and tell some story about this Committee being bullied by the Minister of Transport and told to rewrite their Report.
§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUDoes the noble Viscount really assure me that the Report was not sent back? The Minister may not have sent it, but will he absolutely state it was not rewritten?
§ VISCOUNT PEELWhat the Traffic Advisory Committee did with their own Report before they sent it to the Minister of Transport I do not know and I do not care to know. All I say is that the Report in the form in which it is now was presented to the Minister of Transport, and I think it is a great pity that the noble Lord should bring here such trivial incidents and such tittle-tattle as that about Reports made to the Minister. I want to make another observation about what the noble Lord said. He has suggested, I think, that there is some anti-road bias in the Government and that there must therefore, because this Report is not published, be something of grave importance in it, and he draws from that the remarkable deduction that, because a Report giving advice to a Minister is important, it is therefore bound to be published. If that argument were applied, it is obvious that no Report could ever be made to a Minister unless it were published, because somebody could always come down and say that, the Report having been made, it must be important and therefore ought to be published.
I submit to your Lordships very seriously that I am fully justified in not complying with the request of my noble friend to lay such a document upon the Table. As the noble Viscount opposite has stated with perfect correctness, these Reports are entirely within the discretion of the Minister as to whether he should or should not publish them or lay them on the Table. It is obvious that if any noble Lord in this House or Member of Parliament in another place could come down and force the Minister to lay any Report or advice upon the Table just because he chose to think it important, it would be almost, impossible for officials or Committees to report freely and 1103 frankly to the Minister, because they would always have before them the suggestion that what they said would be treated, not as confidential but as open. In that case they could not report with the same freedom to the Minister. I regret that my noble friend should have made any reference to this official document, whether it is in his possession, out of his possession or in somebody else's possession. I think that this was really a great mistake. I think that my noble friend will regret that he has tried to press such an action upon me, and I am sure that he will feel that it is quite impossible for me, on behalf of the Minister of Transport, to assent to his request that I should lay this document on the Table. I submit that these matters are entirely within the discretion of the Minister and I think your Lordships will feel that the discretion of the Minister ought to be respected and observed.
§ LORD PARMOORMy Lords, I should like to say one word only. These inquiries are, of course, judicial in their nature and are conducted on judicial lines. I am very familiar with inquiries of this kind—I am sorry to say that they were many years ago—and there is a Standing Order which really regulates the matter to which the noble Lord, Lord Montagu, has referred. It is Standing Order 106A, which says what Reports are to be submitted to the Committee, and it certainly does not include the Report to which the noble Lord has referred. The words are these:
Every Report made on any Bill by or under the authority of any public Department shall stand referred to the Committee on the Bill.That is quite right. You have a judicial inquiry and a Report of that character which is published should be referred to the Committee so that all parties may know what is contained in it. I recollect many cases in old days when such Reports were referred and much comment was made upon them. I think that the noble Lord will agree with what I say when he recollects that we are dealing with what is in substance a judicial body, conducting a judicial inquiry, and therefore fair rules must be observed towards all the parties concerned.
§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUMy Lords, of course I accept entirely everything that the noble Viscount who 1104 presides over the Committee has said and I agree, and in fact it is obvious, that if such a Report were produced before the Committee Counsel on either side would have a right to see it on behalf of their clients, and I entirely accept his dictum regarding the Committee's right to that respect. With regard to the observations of the noble Viscount, Lord Peel, I expressly said, though he evidently did not understand me, that I had not a copy of the Report myself but that I was well informed with regard to it and could no doubt get a copy if I wanted it. Perhaps the noble Viscount does not know that the terms of that Report are known to a great many people and are quite freely discussed. He does not seem to realise that the number of people on that Committee who have had access to this Report is very considerable. I do not think it was quite worthy to suggest that I should have picked up my information at street corners. I do not think that I am quite the sort of person to stand at street corners.
§ VISCOUNT PEELI referred to the tittle-tattle about the Minister having asked the Committee to re-write it.
§ LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEUMy information—I am sorry that I cannot disclose its source but the noble Viscount must take it as absolutely undoubted—is that this Report had to be re-written because it did not happen to fit in with the Departmental view. It may be true that the Minister of Transport did not see it himself until it reached its final form, but that it was re-written I again assert and I know that I am on sound ground. After what the noble Viscount has said, I can only make my protest that this Report has not been made public. I should not think of pressing him further. There the matter must rest and everybody must form his own conclusion. I merely add that, in a matter of so much importance, there should have been more quotations and more information given as to the Report of the Committee. This Committee consists of very distinguished people on the whole, who have been very successful in regulating traffic in the London area, and their Report is very vital to the important question under consideration. I have nothing more to 1105 say except to thank the noble Viscount. I am sorry if he thinks that I have done anything that I should not have done. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.