THIRD SCHEDULE (Hansard, 19 March 1953)

HL Deb 19 March 1953 vol 181 cc219-35 219

§ Meaning of "Road Haulage Capital Loss"

§ 1. In section thirteen of this Act the expression "the road haulage capital loss" means the amount, as determined by the Minister, by which the aggregate of the sums referred to in paragraph 2 of this Schedule exceed the aggregate of the sums referred to in paragraph 3 of this Schedule.

§ 2. The sums first referred to in paragraph 1 of this Schedule are the following sums—

(a) the aggregate net value of the property sold under section three or subsection (1) or subsection (2) of section six of this Act, as at the time of the respective sales, as shown in the books of the Commission but adjusted so as to take into account depreciation up to the time of the sale so far as not already taken into account;
(b) the aggregate net value of the property of any company the shares of which are sold under section five of this Act as at the time when the shares are transferred in pursuance of the contract of sale, as shown in the books of the company but—

(i) adjusted so as to take into account depreciation up to the time of the transfer so far as not already taken into account; and
(ii) increased by the value, if any, as so shown, of any rights of the company as at that time not already taken into account; and
(iii) decreased by the value, if any, as so shown of the liabilities of the company as at that time;

(i) sales under the said section three and the said subsections (1) and (2);
(ii) the making over of property to companies under the said section five; and
(iii) the sale of the shares of any company under the said section five,

so far, in any case, as not included in the sums shown in the books of the Commission as expenses deductible in computing sums shown therein as net traffic receipts;

(d) such amounts as may be just in respect of any sums paid or liabilities incurred by the Commission before any sale under the said section three or the said subsection (1) or subsection (2) or the making over of any property to a company under the said section five, being sums paid or liabilities incurred for rights or benefits which, as results of the sale or, as the case may be, the making over of the property, are not, or are not wholly, enjoyed by the Commission; and
(e) so much of that part of the sums shown in the balance sheets of the Commission as goodwill which is ascribable to the road haulage undertaking as—

(i) ought justly to be apportioned to the property which was the subject of any sale under the said section three or the said subsection (1) or subsection (2) or was made over to a company under the said section five; and
(ii) is not otherwise taken into account under this paragraph;

(f) any losses incurred by the Commission in respect of contracts entered into by them for the purposes of the existing road haul age undertaking, being losses incurred as the result of the disposal of the property held by the Commission for the purposes thereof and not being losses which could reasonably have been avoided by the Commission; and
(g) two million pounds (in respect of assets forming part of the property held by the Commission for the purposes of the existing road haulage undertaking the cost of which has been charged by the Commission to revenue):

§ Provided that, if under the contract for the sale of the shares of a company under the said section five, the price paid there for depends to any extent on the position as respects the company on a particular date, sub-paragraph (b) of this paragraph shall have effect as if the references therein to the time of the transfer of the shares were references to that date.

§ 3. The sums secondly referred to in paragraph 1 of this Schedule are the prices at which property is sold under the said section three or the said subsection (1) or subsection (2) and the prices at which shares are sold under the said section five.

§ 4. In this Schedule— price," in relation to property sold under section three of this Act, means the aggregate of all the sums for which the purchaser becomes liable to the Commission as the result of his purchase of the transport unit in question, irrespective of whether the sums are ascribable to property or to other rights which he obtains as the result of his purchase, adjusted, however,—

(a) by adding the value, if any, as at the time of the purchase. as shown in the books of the Commission, of any liabilities of the Commission to third parties taken over by the purchaser from the Commission; and
(b) by subtracting the value, if any, as at that time, as so shown, of any obligations of third parties to the Commission taken over by him, not being property;

"net value" means value after deducting depreciation; and the references to values and sums shown in the books or balance sheets of the Commission or a company to which property is made over under the said section five are references to the values and sums so shown after, making the appropriate adjustments of provisional items, and, if the Commission or the company in making up their books or their balance sheet for the year nineteen hundred and fifty-two or any subsequent year, 221 depart to any substantial extent from the principles and practice applied by the Commission for the years falling before the year nineteen hundred and fifth-two, all adjustments which are necessary to produce the result which would have been produced but for the departure."

§ The noble Earl said: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Swinton, I beg to move this Amendment. The Amendment is basically drafting. It is the movement of subsections (4) and (5) from Clause 13 into the Schedule, to which I referred yesterday. I should state, as was said yesterday by my noble friend Lord Swinton, that it does include two Amendments. The first is that in calculating the road haulage loss under sub section (2) there will be included a sum of £2 million for equipment and stores purchased by the Commission out of revenue. This was explained in detail by my noble friend.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
That is paragraph 2 (g).

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
Yes. The other point is to make clear the meaning of "net value": that the methods of accounting in 1951 are to be the basis on which the calculation of net value of property is to proceed. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— After the Second Schedule, insert the said new Schedule.—(The Earl of Selkirk.)

§ 3.40 p.m.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH moved, as an Amendment to the proposed new Third Schedule (Meaning of "Road Haulage Capital Loss"), in sub paragraph (a) of paragraph 2, to leave out "as shown in the books of the Commission" and insert "at replacement cost at date of sale." The noble Lord said: My Lords, on the Committee stage I attempted to convince your Lordships that the basis upon which an endeavour is made in this Bill to arrive at the road haulage capital loss is inequitable and unfair, both to the Commission and to the taxpayer. I want to argue the point again this afternoon. We view this as a very serious matter from the point of view of the taxpayer's interests. What we are seeking to do is to arrive at the value of the assets of the British Transport Commission to which this Schedule applies, for the purpose of determining the capital loss after the battle of disposal is over and the curtain comes down.

222

§ If your Lordships will read one or two sub-paragraphs of this Schedule you will see how the computation is made. The basic question is: What is the value of the asset? If your Lordships look at sub paragraph (a) you will see that it says: as shown in the books of the Commission. I argue that no company, no businessman or set of business men, if they were disposing of a business, would ever base the price which they would ask for their business upon the basis of book value. If they were prudent business men—and we must assume that the Commission is composed of prudent business men—they would write their assets down, not only to the limit which would be allowed for tax purposes, but also below that limit. It is well known that many companies write their assets down and down, and their policy is a good policy. It is true that when they come to be assessed for tax, very likely the inspector will write some of those assets up again.

§ We say that it is grossly unfair that the assets of the Commission should be taken at their book value in order to arrive at the loss, if any, which will be established and which the levy will have to recompense. I am not going to say anything about the levy; I have talked enough about that. I hate the levy. I think it is the most atrocious piece of financial jugglery that has ever been instituted by a Statute of this country. But there it is. Your Lordships have decided that you like the levy. All I am trying to persuade your Lordships to do is to say that the levy shall be applied to any loss that the Commission make, equitably and fairly. On the Committee stage I sought to substitute for the words "as shown in the books of the Commission" the sane formula as was used in the 1947 Act, when these self same or similar assets were purchased from the haulage industry and the concerns that were taken over. When I did that. I argued the case as well as my ability would allow ate, and in his reply the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, said quite a lot of things. The noble Viscount started off by saying (OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 180, col. 1272): This would be an odd Amendment coming from any quarter, but t is odder still when moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. When the noble Viscount starts off like that I always know that his case is 223 pretty thin. That I feel instinctively. The noble Viscount went on to say: The whole object of Amendment after Amendment which the noble Lord has moved is so to delay in every way the operation of this Act that it may fail completely. I think the noble Lord has been perfectly frank about this and has not concealed it. His attitude has been: 'If we are not going to win by hook, we will win by crook.' The noble Lord said. 'By hook or by crook'. Well, I said nothing of the kind.

§ The noble Viscount said just now that he hoped that all the words he has used during nine strenuous days would never be enshrined in an Act of Parliament. I am sure he also wishes that no word he has used against me and my arguments—and they have been many, and sometimes they have been potent—will be enshrined in my heart. I can assure the noble Viscount that that will not be so. I bear him no malice. They have amused me considerably at times, but they have not concerned me. I know that the noble Viscount is a good sports man and that he will take that in the spirit in which I mean it. I am not concerned with the noble Viscount's odd pleasantries, but what I am concerned with is that, speaking on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, he should say this (col. 1274): The procedure suggested would be extremely inconvenient. It would be. It would be very inconvenient to have to write these assets up to their true value. As the noble Viscount said: It would lead to the maximum of delay. May I invite your Lordships' minds back to the first Amendment I moved on this Report stage—as to the essence of speed?

§ The noble Viscount goes on: If, instead of a plain statement in paragraph (a), we substituted the current replacement value, as the noble Lord's Amendment seeks to do, every vehicle would have to be valued by reference to the current replacement value of a similar vehicle, depreciated (as the clause in the Act cited runs) at 20 per cent. We should have to revalue every single one of 40,000 or more vehicles which are to be sold. This revaluation, with the revaluation of all other property, would be a difficult and laborious task and would involve considerable delay. That is what we had to do when we took these assets over— we had to have valuers. Suppose we had gone to the road haulage industry under the 1947 Act, and said: 224 "The only value at which we are going to buy these assets is the value at which they stand on your books. If you are prudent men—and we know some of you have been—and have written them off altogether, you w ill have to give them to us; we are not going to pay you any thing for them. If we had come to the House with the argument that all we were going to pay for these assets was the value at which they actually stood in the books of the concern, I wonder what the noble Viscount would have said to my noble and learned friend who was then leading on the Transport Bill?

§ What did we do? We set up a most elaborate system of valuation and replacement value right the way through. We engaged valuers to see that the proper value was established, on the best professional valuation. We then set up a Tribunal to which these concerns could appeal if they were not satisfied with the valuation. Only last week, one of the decisions of this Transport Arbitration Tribunal came before this House, sitting in its Judicial capacity, and the verdict went against the British Transport Commission. And I should estimate that it will cost them about £2,500,000. When the State buys from private enterprise a true value has to be paid. But when private enterprise purchases from the State another and depreciated value is paid.

LORD HAWKE
Can the noble Lord say whence he draws that statement? This has nothing to do with the sale price.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
We are assessing the value of the assets.

LORD HAWKE
At sale price?

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
If the noble Lord will do me the honour of reading my Amendment he will find that it says: at replacement cost at date of sale. That is exactly the valuation that we gave when we took over these assets. I say that the assets that are now left with the Commission should be valued on that basis, to see what compensation is payable out of the levy. The noble Viscount says that this would cause undue delay. He also says that it would mean revaluing every asset. But they have got to do 225 it now, because if the noble Viscount will read the fourth line of the suggested new Paragraph 2 (a) of the proposed new Schedule he will find the words: …as shown in the books of the Commission but adjusted so as to take into account depreciation up to the time of the sale so far as not already taken into account; So every asset has got to be picked out: every one of these 40,000 vehicles—or all that remain of them. They have to be depreciated by the accountants who do the job. I say that if they have got to be depreciated down to that written down value, at the same time they could he appreciated up to their replacement value.

LORD HAWKE
All that happens after the sale.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
Yes—I have explained that. It is one of those peculiar bookkeeping transactions that will have to take place to arrive at the value of the assets after the sale, to see what has to be paid from the levy. I beg noble Lords to look at this as a strictly business accounting transaction. It means that, until the thing is done in the way in which I am suggesting it should be done, in honesty and fairness to everybody, the only compensation which the British Transport Commission will receive out of the levy is that amount by which the sale price falls below the book value. I say that the amount of levy should be that by which tae sale price falls short of the replacement value. It may be that while there will be no levy to be paid, the cost to the taxpayer will be millions of pounds, because the price that the assets fetch over and above the book value but below the market value will have to be met by the Commission.
The Government have conceded my point—that was evident in the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, yesterday. He said that the Commission have now convinced the Minister that they had been so prudent in their finance that they purchased £2 million worth of tyres, tarpaulins and ropes and charged them not to capital but to revenue. The transaction, therefore, did not appear on the capital account of the Commission. So if the book value had been taken at any time in that year—I suspect it was the year ended December, 1951—it would not have shown that £2 million. How many more such cases are there? This 226 is a common practice among business men—to charge what they can to revenue and never capitalise anything at all if they can help it. What did the noble Viscount say on this subject? He said yesterday afternoon (OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 181, col. 146): Naturally I have inquired why this new element has to be introduced at this late stage. The explanation is that, in taking the value of the assets which have been included in the Schedule, the Ministry naturally confined themselves to capital assets, as shown in the books of the Commission. The Commission have now represented to the Ministry that if they"— that is, the Commission— had contemplated that the Road Haulage Executive would have a comparatively short life they would not have charged these items entirely to revenue but would have charged them, or a good proportión of them, to capital, subject to depreciation. I say that that is the very case which I made on the Committee stage—word for word. I said that if the Commission had been told when it started its life in 1947, "You have only five years to run: you will be sold up at the end of that time," their financial policy would have been entirely different. They would have charged everything they could to capital. But, being good business men, they did not. And now they have to suffer for their business acumen by not getting it back under this valuation.
The noble Viscount also said that if you want to make this charge at replacement value, then you have got to take goodwill at replacement value—and that goodwill has gone. With great respect, the noble Viscount used there another most fallacious argument. It does not hold water. Goodwill is one of those telegraphic expressions: you can call any thing goodwill. It was really compensation for the cessation of business on a basis of what profits were likely to be earned. You can call this £33 million "purchase of monopoly," and if the monopoly has been broken the £33million has gone. But the £33 million is only a bookkeeping entry and what we set against that £33 million will be what the Commission get for the sale of their assets over and above what they cost. What is going to be done with the rest? I am not going to enter into an argument on that point this afternoon, and I do not suppose that any noble Lord can tell the how that is going to be apportioned. I 227 have said enough to convince any fair-minded business man that the proper basis to adopt is: at replacement cost at date of sale. "Replacement cost" is a very easy term. You find that valuers use it every day in the week, and it is going to cause no hardship and no harm.
Let me give your Lordships a simple illustration. If any of your Lordships has a motor car insured, and it is written off by an insurance company as a total loss, they will give you back its replacement value—what it would cost to replace that vehicle by another in the same condition as the vehicle was in when it became a total loss. I think I have said enough— at least, I hope I have—to convince your Lordships that in the tax payers' interest the levy should be based on all these other considerations of plus and minus, about which I have no com plaint at all, except that the assets of the Commission should not be taken at book value because it has been proved conclusively by the noble Viscount him self that book value is an entirely fictitious figure. I beg to move.

§ Amendment to Amendment moved— In sub-paragraph (a) of Paragraph 2, leave out ("as shown in the books of the Commission") and insert ("at replacement cost at date of sale").— (Lord Lucas of Chilworth.)

§ 4.2 p.m.

§ VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN
My Lords, at first sight the Amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has proposed looks very clear, and perhaps more simple than it really is. As the noble Lord went on speaking, I began to think that the matter was more and more complicated, whereas, when I read the Amendment on paper, I though it was extremely simple. Let us get clear one thing first: my noble friend's Amendment has no reference to what price the purchaser pays for an undertaking which is sold. He will pay the right commercial value, and if a motor vehicle is worth more than the book value, he will then pay for it; otherwise the Board or the Commission, or whoever it is, will not receive the tender. So what we are dealing with is: what should be paid to the Commission for the loss of the goodwill of those vehicles?
The one word which the noble Lord opposite did not use quite so freely as 228 I thought he was going to at first was the word "goodwill." May we look into that a little more closely? From the bookkeeping point of view, I think noble Lords will agree that, if you write down, if you depreciate machinery or vehicles and want to show them in your balance sheet at a higher value than the depreciated value, the only proper way to do that is to raise the item for goodwill. Are we not getting to the point where, if we want to make a higher value than the depreciated value, we must include an amount for goodwill representing the difference between the depreciated value of these vehicles and the actual value which it is thought they would have in the market? Goodwill comes into this matter already, and the Commission is being given goodwill on the basis of the value they paid for it. That, I think, is treating the Commission very generously. After all, that goodwill, in our opinion, has been very largely dissipated, but we are leaving the figure as it was. If we want to deal with the matter which has been raised by the noble Lord opposite, I think we should deal with it not in the way that he suggests but by dealing with this increase as goodwill. I believe that that is the right way to do it, because I do not think that you can deal with good will differently in one breath from what you can in another. I do not believe that we should be right to do what is suggested. If we are going to reject the book value for the physical assets, we should also reject the book value for goodwill. If we are going to deal with goodwill at all, let us deal with it either in one way or in the other, but let us be consistent. I think the way my noble friend intends to deal with it is the consistent way.

§ VISCOUNT SWINTON
My Lords, the noble Lord who moved this Amendment to my Amendment has said quite frankly that he was asking the House to reverse the decision which they took after a full debate when we were in Committee. That, of course, is quite true, because he asked us last time to substitute for our words the words "current replacement value." To-day he is asking us to substitute "replacement cost at date of sale." Those two sets of words, for all practical purposes, are identical. There is no doubt at all that if we were to do this it would involve Great delay. The noble Lord said we ought not to conduct 229 these valuations by taking the values as they stand in the books but to conduct the valuations exactly as they were con ducted under the 1947 Act. I have just been informed that though the 1947 Act was passed in 1947, the valuations are not yet complete, so even if we speeded up this operation it would take a long time.
Observe that it would mean revaluing 40,000 vehicles, and the delay would certainly adversely affect the price. We all want to get the best price we can for these assets. In a sense, I might almost say, the only people to whom it does not much matter what the price is are the Commission, who get this tremendous amount as payment for goodwill. But everybody who will have to pay the levy is very anxious that the price should be as good as possible. As was pointed out over and over again yesterday, and at other stages in the debate, one of the things which will affect the price is the speed with which this sale can be conducted; and we do lay some stress upon speed. We lay stress upon speed, for two reasons: first, that the trader will get an efficient service as soon as possible, and secondly, that we may get the best possible price, because when you are selling a unit or shares in a company you are selling an asset with an "A" licence attached to it and the value of that "A" licence diminishes as the date for the lifting of the 25-mile limit draws nearer. You have got to build up your trade around what you buy, except in so far as it comes naturally with it; and you naturally want to build that up before a very large amount of extra competition comes in. The moment the "25-milers"are launched freely upon the roads, of course, the competition will be greater. Therefore, this delay would quite definitely diminish the price which these vehicles would fetch on sale.
These assets also include buildings. It really is an odd thing to say that we should take the replacement cost of buildings, irrespective of what may be the market value of the building to-day, or the condition that the building is in. The noble Lord said that it is unfair to take this figure, because no doubt the rate of depreciation has been very generous and because the Commission would have run their finances quite differently if they had known that the Read Haulage Executive 230 was coming to an end. I have just asked whether there is anything in that point, and I am informed that there is not. I am told that the rate of depreciation has been a normal rate of depreciation and very much the rate of depreciation pro vided for in the 1947 Act—in other words, that the depreciation has been normal.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said we ought to make some exception because yesterday I asked the House to bring in £2,000,000 for tyres and these other things. Of course, that has nothing whatever to do with it. The reason I asked the House—I admit at the last moment, because the Commission made their case only at the last moment—to bring in £2,000,000 for tyres was that these tyres and tarpaulins and so on, though they were going to be sold, did not appear in the books as capital assets. They had been bought out of income and had been charged to income, and what we were doing was to write them back from income to capital, treating them as if they had been capital assets. I think the House accepted that as a fair thing to do. But the fact that we are doing that is certainly no conceivable argument for altering the basin of valuation provided in the Schedule.
Finally, my Lords, there is, of course, the overwhelming argument used by my noble friend Lord Bridgeman. Obviously, you must play fair all round. If you are going to take replacement value or current value for the physical assets, you must take current value for the goodwill. You really cannot say," I am going to conduct this valuation on a selective basis. I am going to take the system of valuation which will suit me best, although it may be entirely different for one set of assets as against another. "Certainly the Commission would not thank the noble Lord if we carried out this Amendment to its full and logical conclusion, although the people who are going to pay the levy would be quite delighted to see it done.
If we take current value for these physical assets I do not know whether the amount would go up or down very much, but I think that probably it would not make much difference. But you cannot take current value for goodwill on the basis of the £8 £9 million or £10 million a year which was being made by the nationalised companies before they 231 were nationalised but which to-day, alas! is no longer represented, by reason of the failure of the Commission to make a real profit. I am not blaming them; I think they were given an impossible job to do, and that is why we are getting rid of it all. Where a large profit has turned into either a loss or, at best, on the most liberal showing, one-tenth of what the profit was before, obviously the goodwill is down by something like one-tenth. If this were an ordinary commercial transaction between two companies, the Commission could never have got anything like as good treatment as they are getting under this Bill. We are asking the House to treat this non-existent goodwill as if it still existed, and, for the purposes of the levy, to take it at the value at which it still stands in the books; and we are going to levy the difference in so far as the sale does not diminish that amount. It may be that the whole of that goodwill will have to be found out of the levy, and the only justification for doing that is, that if you do not do it, the taxpayer will have to pay it.
It is said that this is an unfair provision so far as the Commission are concerned. In answer to that, I would say that in the whole of my business experience I have never known any company treated as fairly or as generously as the Commission have been treated in this matter. For all those reasons I certainly hope that the House to-day will reaffirm the decision which it took after a full debate on the Committee stage, and will declare that it thinks the proposals standing in this Schedule are fair and reasonable, and should remain in the Bill.

§ 4.14 p.m.

§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH
My Lords, it would take a long time to answer all that the noble Viscount has said, and I do not propose to detain your Lordships for that length of time. I must confess that it is very strange to me. Perhaps the noble Viscount is suffering under the great handicap of having had to take charge of this Bill at the last moment. He made many erroneous statements—I am sure not wilfully. He spoke of delay. First of all, in this Schedule we are dealing with the question how, in the last and final budget, we are going to get at what really has been the loss, if any. It says in the 232 Schedule "after the sales have been made. "There is no delay in this whatsoever. The sales go on and instalment payments from the levy are made to the Commission. That is quite plain. I know the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, is following that. In the end, how are you going to get your final balance? How are you going to get at what has been the road haulage capital loss? This is the procedure by which you are going to do it. To get at that loss you have to take every single asset that has not been sold. You have got to depreciate it; but nothing is allowed for appreciation.
At this time in the proceedings, and after all the debate we have had over the last few days. I am not going once again to refute this alleged £10 million that the road haulage industry was supposed to have made before nationalisation. In the opening speech which he made on Second Reading my noble and learned Leader disposed of that. The noble Viscount has taken no account of the goodwill. The goodwill figure in any business is what that business will fetch over and above the value of the physical assets. Anybody in your Lordships' House who has done any business knows that you go into a transaction as a seller with a buyer; your physical assets are such-and-such and your goodwill, if you call it goodwill, is anything you can get over and above that, and it is a bargain between two people. I deny completely that there is not a substantial amount of potential goodwill in some of these companies and units that are going to be formed. That will of course be taken into consideration over and above the price.
I maintain that my point is a sound one. Time will tell. I do not suppose that now this loss will be so substantial out of the levy. It may be substantial out of the Commission. It will have to be amortised and perhaps be a cost to the taxpayer. I cannot convince noble Lords opposite, but after all this is over I think they will come to the conclusion that I am right, and that this is the only possible way in which to do it. This would be the course that they would adopt if they were dealing with their own businesses in their own private avocations.
I am not going to discuss the matter further. I do not know how many 233 speeches I have made during the course of the Committee and Report stages—I should not like to count them. But as this is the last speech I shall make on this Bill, I should like to take this opportunity of thanking the whole House for the tolerance and courtesy that they have shown me during all the many arguments we have had, ranging over about 130 Amendments on the Committee stage

§ Resolved in the negative, and Amendment to the Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

§ 4.30 p.m.

§ Third Schedule [Modifications and extensions of section thirty-nine of the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, and section thirty-nine of the Railways Act, 1921]:

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
had given notice of three Amendments to Paragraph 5, the first being, after "body" to insert, "being either a harbour authority or a body." The noble Earl said: My 234 and nearly seventy on the Report stage. I very much regret that my final words on the Report stage of this Bill have to be to ask your Lordships to indicate your opinion on this matter in the Lobbies.

§ On Question, whether the Amendment to the Amendment be agreed to?

§ Their Lordships divided: Contents, 25; Not-Contents, 71.

233

CONTENTS
Jowitt, E.	Douglas of Barloch, L.	Mathers, L.
	Greenhill, L.	Noel-Buxton, L.
Ammon, L.	Haden-Guest, L.	Ogmore, L.
Archibald, L.	Henderson, L.	Pakenham, L.
Bingham, L. (E. Lucan.) [Teller.]	Kenswood. L.	Pethick-Lawrence, L.
	Kershaw, L.	Shepherd, L.
Burden, L. [Teller.]	Lawson, L.	Strabolgi, L.
Chorley. L.	Lucas of Chilworth, L.	Winster, L.
Crook, L.	Macpherson of Drumochter, L.	Wise, L

NOT-CONTENTS
Simonds, L. (L. Chancellor.)	Bridgeman, V.	Freyberg, L,
	Buckmaster, V.	Gage, L. (V. Gage.)
Salisbury, M. (L. President.)	Falmouth, V.	Gifford. L.
	Furness. V.	Hacking, L.
Linlithgow, M.	Goschen, V.	Hawke, L.
Reading, M.	Long, V.	Howard of Glossop, L.
Willingdon, M.	Ridley, V.	Jeffreys. L.
	Simon. V.	Jessel, L.
Beauchamp, E.	Swinton, V.	Layton, L.
Bessborough, E.	Trenchard, V.	Llewellin. L.
Birkenhead, E.		Mancroft, L. [Teller.]
Buckinghamshire, E.	Abinger. L.	Moyne, L.
Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.)	Audley, L.	Palmer, L
	Baden-Powell, L.	Rea. L.
Hardwicke, E.	Barnby, L.	Remnant, L.
Ilchester. E.	Belstead, L.	Rossmore, L.
Iveagh, E.	Carrington, L.	Rotherwick, L.
Lindsay, E.	Cawley, L.	Schuster, L.
Mansfield, E.	Cherwell, L.	Strathcarron, L.
Munster, E.	Derwent, L.	Teviot, L.
Onslow, E. [Teller.]	Digby, L.	Teynham, L.
Radnor, E.	Dorchester, L.	Turnour, L. (E. Winterton.)
Rothes, E.	Fairfax of Cameron, L.	Waleran, L.
Selkirk. E.	Fisherwick, L. (M. Donegall.)	Webb-Johnson, L.
	Foxford, L. (E. Limerick.)	Wolverton, L.
Allenby, V.	Fraser of North Cape, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

234

§ Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Swinton, I beg to move this Amendment. Under subsection (6) of the Third Schedule, the provisions of Section 39 of the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, are applied so that representatives of harbour authorities may make representations to the Transport Tribunal if they consider that they are being unfairly treated in comparison with the way in which the Commission treat their own harbours. The Amendment enables individual harbour authorities to make representations in the same way. May I add one point? It has been represented to us that individual harbour authorities 235 should be able to make representations to the Transport Tribunal on the ground that they are unfairly treated in the matter of railway charges in comparison with other individual harbour authorities, not connected with the Commission. We do not think there is any need to put provision for that in the Bill. Under thesection of the Transport Act, 1947, dealing with consultative committees, it is possible to make representations to an area committee which will come to the Minister, who, if he were satisfied that there was a genuine and proper case, could issue a direction. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 57, line 31, after ("body") insert ("being either a harbour authority or a body").—(The Earl of Selkirk.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
My Lords, this Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved—

§ Page 57, leave out lines 40 to 43 and insert— ("(b) the reference in paragraph (a) of subsection (2) of the said section thirty-nine to coastal carriers being placed at an undue or unfair disadvantage and the references in paragraph (a) of subsection (4) of the said section thirty-nine and paragraph (a) of sub-paragraph (1) of paragraph (2) of this Schedule to coastal carriers being placed at an undue or unfair disadvantage in the competition were references to any harbour authority being placed at an undue or unfair disadvantage; and").—(The Earl of Selkirk.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.

§ THE EARL OF SELKIRK
My Lords, this Amendment is also consequential. I beg to move.

§ Amendment moved— Page 57, line 46, leave out ("harbour authorities") and insert ("any harbour authority").—(The Earl of Selkirk.)

§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.