§ 4.25 p.m.
§ Second Reading debate resumed.
§ LORD TEVIOTMy Lords, while I in no way oppose the basic idea of this Bill, that London Transport should be placed under the regional authority for London, the G.L.C., there are aspects of the Bill which are most disturbing to me, having been in the industry. I see the advantage of London Transport getting rid of its country bus services which are most unremunerative, and passing what I believe the Minister described as "this demented polo mint" to the National Bus Company. No doubt the transfer would strengthen London Transport financially. It would also have the great advantage of reducing to a more manageable size this monopolistic transport undertaking, which in itself is probably the greatest advantage of the Bill.
My Lords, if the Minister is allowed to coin a phrase about "polo mints" I should like to coin one also. I would say that the whole Bill is like the pill cascara sagrada; it has a very nice, sugary outside but a rather bitter and nasty inside. I will go on to describe that. It is surprising, therefore, that the Bill should sabotage its own commonsense proposals by allowing London Transport to extend its field of operations to include express services, excusions and tours to any part of Britain and, indeed, elsewhere; and more particularly to embrace 566 contract carriage operations, a field in which the Traffic Commissioners exercise no control, and in which it seems impossible for the Executive to compete without detriment to their essential function of providing Londoners with adequate bus services.
If London Transport were already fulfilling its obligations to the travelling public in London, this might be easier to understand, but anyone who uses London buses cannot fail to realise that the first need is to provide an efficient service of stage carriages. This is to look at the matter from the point of view of London Transport and the travelling public, but I should also like to point out the gross injustice which would be perpetrated upon those companies already providing express services, excursions, tours and private hire facilities in, to and from London. It cannot seriously be argued that there is not already adequate provision in these respects. Therefore, if London Transport is entering into competition, it can succeed only at the expense of existing operators and, almost inevitably, at the expense of London ratepayers. It is not true, as was claimed in the Joint Review of London Transport annexed to the Blue Paper Transport in London, that
the public will benefit from the wider range of services which will be available".That quotation appears on page 101 of the Joint Review.I should like to remind your Lordships that since 1933, when the London Passenger Transport Board was first formed, it has held the monopoly of stage bus services within this special area. It has never been the intention of Parliament that London Transport should have complete freedom to operate outside London and its suburban areas, though it must be accepted that for one brief period this power was obtained by delegation from the British Transport Commission. However, when Parliament itself has considered the responsibilities of the London Transport undertaking it has always, until now, recognised that the duty to provide a service for London would be undermined by extraneous operations outside the special area.
It has been in these conditions that other concerns in the road passenger transport industry have developed, for over 35 years now, the network of express 567 services and private hire facilities which adequately serve the needs of the community. These operators have been denied the right to run buses in London. Here I would interpose that that is a great pity, because London would have a better service if there had been some element of competition over the years. It may be rather naughty of me to say so, but perhaps we might not be having the further increase that we are having very soon.
While denied the right—as they will still be under the Bill—to carry bus passengers, the coach operators have cultivated and developed a market on which London Transport now sees fit to cast a covetous and plundering eye. I submit to your Lordships that to allow it to succeed in this lustful ambition would be to countenance a gross injustice. There is at present some equilibrium in London's transport services, but this Bill would destroy—I would add unfairly destroy—the balance.
Because of its monopoly background of bus services carrying the overheads of this transport colossus, it is likely that the new London Transport Executive would be able to compete for private hire at basically unfair rates. This does not apply so much to the various types of express services because they would be licensed and controlled by the Traffic Commissioners, but in the case of private hire there would be no such control as the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, has stated. The danger is clearly recognised in Clause 12 of the Bill, which makes provision for a financial statement on the basis of which the Minister is empowered to direct the Executive to modify or discontinue any relevant operation. I hope to explain more fully in Committee the weaknesses of the protection given. For the moment I merely wish to point out that Clause 12 rightly recognises the danger of a total failure to provide the protection that is required.
Before I sit down, there are two other things that I would mention. One is that when it comes to the dissection of the two bus companies—London Transport and London Transport Country Services—I believe that the dissection will be as complex and dangerous as with Siamese twins: there will be hemorrhages springing up in all directions. So I hope that the greatest care will be taken with Indus- 568 trial relations here. The two undertakings have been working closely and happily, side by side, for some 36 years. They have become knitted together, and their parting is likely to be difficult, to say the least. Let us hope that it will be as painless as possible. Secondly, I do not intend to compete with the great exposition which my noble friend Lord Chesham gave of Clause 36. We are both rather surprised that so few noble Lords are speaking this afternoon on a subject of such importance because, as the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, said, many noble Lords have a great deal of expertise in transport matters. The only comment I would make on Clause 36 is that, whatever other arguments there may be, it seems intolerable that the British Airports Authority should have to submit to outside interference.
I hope that I have said enough to convince your Lordships that this Bill, despite its merits, has certain major deficiencies and that your Lordships should give careful consideration to the effects of these proposals before allowing legislation which can do no credit to Parliament to reach the Statute Book.
§ 4.32 p.m.
LORD GEDDES OF EPSOMMy Lords, I have great sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, with regard to the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Winterbottom and Lord Nugent of Guildford. I gathered that they were jointly waving a magic wand which was going to transform the Cinderella of the London Transport Board into the Golden Princess, the London Transport Executive; that once this Bill had been passed, there would be no difficulty in future about public transport services in London; everything was going to be beautiful and perfect. The fact of the matter is that the only magic wand is the financial clause in this Bill, and I submit to your Lordships that if the same financial wand had been waved for the London Transport Board as is being waved for the London Transport Executive the Board would have continued to be viable and therefore, in the minds of noble Lords opposite, would have been an excellent institution.
One wonders why this has not been done. Of course one knows the reason. One of the basic principles behind this 569 Bill is to transfer any possible subvention required for public transport. In my view, unless fares are continually to rise, to such an extent that the result will be that suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, that fewer and fewer people will use public transport and more and more cars will congest the streets, there will continue to be the need for a subvention for public transport. But I wonder whether the idea that this subvention should come from local rates is quite so right for London as it is for the rest of the country. After all, large numbers of tourists use London Transport, and I wonder whether it is quite right that the London ratepayer should be called upon to subsidise public transport which is so largely used by people who do not pay the rates. I am not suggesting that this is a very important point but, as I say, I wonder whether the principle of a local rates subvention, as against a national Exchequer subvention, is quite so sound in London as it is in the rest of the country. I hope that the London public will realise, among the other things happening under this Bill, what is happening with regard to fares.
The noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, referred to the Transport Tribunal as an anomaly. It may be an anomaly, but at least it is a public safeguard. As one who sat for some time on London Transport Board, I have sometimes been, like the rest of the Board, exasperated and frustrated by the decisions of the Tribunal. But at least we knew that there was an independent body considering increases in fares that there was a public inquiry, and that members of the public had an opportunity, through proper channels, by properly authorised people, to put their point of view. Under the new system, the London public will have practically no safeguard against increases in fares. The only safeguard will be that a decision by the G.L.C. to increase fares will be subject to review and authorisation by the Minister. It is true that it will still be possible to make objections to the Minister, but I submit that the public in London are losing a very important safeguard, because politically it is much more difficult to increase rates in order to meet the subvention, and therefore the desire of the G.L.C. will be not to have a sub- 570 vention but to raise the fares, and therefore public transport in London is going to cost the public more and more.
I challenge the assumption behind the introduction of the Bill that its very passage is going to change everything, that we shall have a completely regular service and that we shall no longer have difficulties about getting staff. I wonder if it is realised for how many years it has been impossible to staff London Transport as it should have been under the necessary establishment. I wonder how often it is realised that in West London garages were 25 per cent. short of staff and that the average shortage has been about 12½ per cent. We could no: get the people. Why not? Simply because people are unwilling to work a seven-day week. I do not mean that they were expected to work on all seven days of the week, but they were required to work any time from early morning until late at night, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. In these days, it is not possible to get people to do that.
It is all very well to criticise the management of London Transport. On previous occasions the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, has made general criticisms, hitter criticisms, of the management. But to-day, for the first time, he has made a particular one. He referred to the fact that they have taken a long time to introduce one-man buses and said that this is an example of the weakness of the management of London Transport. I do not think I am entitled to ask the noble Lord what he would have done in the circumstances, but I will deal with the circumstances.
The management had two possibilities before them. They could have negotiated before they built the buses the terms on which one-man buses should be operated, or they could have built the buses and then negotiated the terms on which they should be run. What they decided was to do both. They gave an order fox the buses and started negotiations. These negotiations were very protracted. They were on the basis on which the noble Lord said they should have been—of a fair division, between the staff, the Board and the public, of the saving achieved. And the final agreement is on that basis.
§ LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORDMy Lords, before the noble Lord finishes with that point, would he please deal with paragraphs 33 and 34 of the Prices and Incomes Board Report for 1969.
LORD GEDDES OF EPSOMNo, I will not. I state that in fact the negotiations were started on the basis that the noble Lord claimed were the right lines: that the saving should be divided fairly between the Board, the staff and the consumer. This was the basis of the negotiations. Of course there are so many people who can negotiate in absentia. People who do not have to do the negotiations, who are not part of them, can always tell the negotiators what they should have done.
Let us examine for a moment what they should have done. Should they have entered into an agreement? And if they had entered into an agreement, did they have to accept the best possible terms they could get? Or should they have declined to enter into an agreement? Who was to staff the buses? Would any noble Lord suggest that external forces should be used to staff the buses? If the busmen say that they are not going to use one-man buses except under certain conditions, what then? Do you turn round and tell the busmen that they have got to staff the buses? This is nonsense. You could, of course, say that you could not reach an agreement. You could, of course, have tried to introduce the buses under, as it were, non-agreement, and have the whole of London Transport stopped, including the Tubes.
The noble Lord talks about weak management. No management, neither weak management nor strong management, can get the best terms possible in a situation in which staff are in short supply, and a man cannot be sacked, because he cannot be replaced. It is all very well to talk about discipline. Discipline on London Transport is not good, and everybody knows that it is not good. It is not good because if a man is dismissed for a minor offence, it is impossible to replace him, and so a bus is off the road. The fact of the matter is that the people who criticise the management of London Transport have not the least idea of the problems with which they have been faced. The London Transport Board have been faced with three external 572 influences: the Minister, the Tribunal and the traffic authorities. You cannot run any public transport service if you are not completely free to do just as you want; and you cannot be in that position, because no public transport system can be an entity on its own: to a certain extent it has to be controlled by other influences.
My Lords, I am sorry if in my intervention I have been a little heated, but I have heard time and time again this unwarranted criticism of the London Transport Board by people who fail to appreciate the difficulties, and assume that all that is necessary is to introduce a Bill. This Bill will not alter the fact that it can still take 20 minutes to get from one end of Baker Street to the other. This is not because of parking" for parking is prohibited in Baker Street, on both sides. It is a one-way street and has the best possible traffic conditions. Yet, as I say, it can take 20 minutes to get from one end to the other; and a bus service has to be scheduled to try to secure regularity.
My final word is this. I completely disagree with the suggestion that the difficulties facing the London Transport Board are, or ever have been, due to management. If you like to look back you will find that the Board have been one of the most far-seeing public authorities. The London Transport Board are one of the first public authorities to introduce a fully automated Underground system. This is not done in a year. It was not done last year, or the year before. It is done as a result of ten years' planning; of ten years' going round and finding out what is the best possible system. Anybody would think that all that has to be done with the London buses is suddenly to say: "We will now have a five minute service throughout the whole of London", and "that's that". What you have to do after that is to get the buses, to get the roads clear and get the staff; and then you have the service you want. The London Transport Board have never had that opportunity, and the London Transport Executive will not get it either.
§ 4.44 p.m.
§ LORD ROBERTSON OF OAKRIDGEMy Lords, I have been taunted to stand up for a moment or two by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, who said it was surprising 573 to him that there were so many noble Lords in the House who knew much about this subject but who did not venture to speak on it. I have listened to this debate with great interest. It is a debate which has taken place in this House often before; it has taken place in this city often before, and in other cities in this land and in other lands, and no doubt the matter will go on being debated for many generations to come.
I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, gave a very good introduction to the Bill, and I was glad to hear the noble Lord. Lord Nugent of Guildford, to whose speeches it is always such a delight to listen, commend the Bill to his colleagues. There is a basic principle in the Bill which I think should commend itself to all of us. It surely must be wrong that the Minister of Transport of a great country like this should be responsible for the transport of one city—London. It must surely be wrong that the people of Glasgow, Birmingham, Liverpool and so on should have to pay for the deficits run by London Transport, and it is right to put the responsibility in the right place.
The speech that caused me considerable anxiety was the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Chesham. He told us that he spoke (I hope the noble Lord will excuse me if I do not quote his exact words) as the representative of the private motorist, or the defender of the rights of the private motorist. Well, we are all private motorists and we should none of us agree that our rights should be restricted by what the noble Lord called unreasonable and unfair restrictions. But it was the general tone of the noble Lord's remarks that caused me anxiety. He told us that he very much disagreed with the attitude of the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, which was an attitude with which I personally agreed, and he went on to speak in a way that reminded me of a remark made in a debate on this self-same subject many years ago in London, which ended up in the formation of the London Passenger Transport Board. The proprietor of "The Chocolate" omnibus company stood up and said: "This morning I drove into the City of London, and I saw up there on the Royal Exchange a text which said, 'The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof', but I did not 574 know until I came here this afternoon and heard the noble Lord's speech that that meant the noble Lord, Lord Ashley". It was rather in a similar way that I listened to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Chesham. I hope that when he comes (as he said he will) to the Committee meetings on this Bill he will be—if I may say so with great respect to a man for whom I have respect—rather more careful about this matter, because this afternoon he gave me the impression, and he might have given it to other Members of the House, that what he wants to see is another Los Angeles.
§ 4.49 p.m.
§ LORD DELACOURT-SMITHMy Lords, I do not feel equipped to embark upon some of the wider issues that have been raised in this debate, except perhaps to offer your Lordships the observation, for what it may be worth, that I am one of those who for the last eighteen months has almost completely given up attempting to drive a private car in London, and have felt myself, in consequence, a happier and much less harassed man. I want to address myself to one aspect of the subject which has already been touched upon by one or two noble Lords who have spoken, and to develop for a moment or two the problem of the control of off-street parking as it affects Heathrow Airport. The car-park operating agency there is the British Airports Authority, and I should make reference to the fact that I have had the privilege of being a part-time member of that Authority since its inauguration.
This is not the time, or the stage of the proceedings on this Bill, to develop in detail the problem which could arise for the Authority under the operation of Clause 36 as it is drafted at present, but it is appropriate to Second Reading to give some indication of the size and seriousness of that problem. It is clear that car parks in a large international airport must be provided on an extensive scale for the use of the travelling public and for those who come to the airport in connection with travellers, to see them off or to welcome them, as the case may be. I am sure a few moments' reflection will show how regulations applied by local authorities could affect the task which the Airports Authority has in providing services—and it is Parliament which has the task laid upon it by Statute—the duty 575 of providing for the convenience of those who use the airport for the purposes of air travel.
A large international airport is inevittably a very complex organism. It represents the junction of travel by air with travel on the surface of the earth, much of which in present circumstances is likely to be travel by private car. In relation to its very limited total area, a vast amount of traffic and a vast number of vehicles pass through Heathrow. This, I am sure, is the reason why the Authority is the highway authority as well as at present the parking authority within the perimeter of the airport. Since it seems to be the general principle of Clause 36 to combine responsibility for the highways—and the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, made a reference to this—with responsibility for on-street and off-street parking, it would seem a logical thing to exempt from the operation of Clause 36 an Authority, which is itself, although substantially within the G.L.C. area, at present already both a highway authority and the parking authority. Indeed, in the circumstances of an airport, it is virtually impossible to separate from the general operation of that airport the car-parking functions and the car-parking provisions.
The smooth running of an airport depends to a substantial degree upon constant attention to car-parking needs. The number of spaces available must expand as the need for those car-parking spaces rises. The charges which are applied must be related to the need to ensure the fullest utilisation of the car parking spaces available. This, again, under the terms of this clause as at present drawn, constitutes a serious problem for an Authority upon which Parliament has placed a statutory duty to operate the airports to provide such services and facilities as, in its discretion, it believes the efficient operation of those airports—and service to those who wish to use them—requires.
References to compensation in the clause suggest that it can hardly have been drawn up with such a situation as that of Heathrow in mind, for there is provision in certain circumstances for compensation. That compensation, however, relates to the depreciation in 576 the value of car-parking space, and that is completely irrelevant to a public authority which has to provide car-parking space as a part of its general public responsibility. I hope my noble friend will look into this problem and give it his personal attention.
I am emboldened to make a further point by what my noble friend Lord Geddes of Epsom said a few moments ago. He referred to the fact that London Transport, in doing its work, had had to contend with a number of external influences. I would respectfully suggest to my noble friend, Lord Winter-bottom, that in examining this matter he should consider how important it is that Parliament should resist the temptation to set up by Statute public authorities charged with a particular range of duties, expected to perform those duties in a manner which conforms broadly to commercial standards, and then to subject those public authorities to all kinds of external decisions and overriding influences which make the discharge of the duty which Parliament has specified an exceedingly difficult one. I hope my noble friend will look into this problem to which other noble Lords and I have drawn attention.
§ 4.57 p.m.
§ LORD WINTERBOTTOMMy Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, and to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge, for having given this Bill a general welcome. I am strengthened in my own conviction that it is a good Bill by the fact that both noble Lords are deeply experienced in the fields of road and rail transport, and I believe I am correct in saying that the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, was the founding father of the first institute of traffic engineering in this country. So I am strengthened by their support.
The noble Lord, Lord Nugent, drew attention to one or two flies in the ointment, but the ointment as a whole has a pleasant savour. I want to acknowledge at this point the various warnings about areas of criticism which noble Lords have given to me at this stage of the Bill. In the boxing fraternity there is a phrase "shadowing your punches", and I am grateful to noble Lords who have indicated, by shadowing their punches, that an attack will come on Clauses 6, 12 and 577 36, and I will prepare myself for all-round defence at those particular points.
May I make one or two general comments upon the speeches made to-day? I must say I thoroughly enjoyed Lord Geddes of Epsom's spirited defence of the London Transport Board, of which he was himself once a distinguished member. I do not think that either the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, or I are so unsophisticated as to think that as soon as this Pill is passed the whole problem of transport in the Greater London Area will be automatically solved. I must say that one of the points he made, indicating the frustrations of trying to run the transport system in London commercially, was that these frustrations were due to the fact that so many people were meddling in its affairs. The hard fact is that there will now be one responsible authority and a lot of meddling will be cut out. The important discipline of a single objective—a profitable system of transport—is now placed before the Greater London Council and the electors of the city. I hope Lord Nugent of Guildford will allow me to disagree with him when I say that there was no hint in my speech of any criticism of the Greater London Council during the "horse trading" leading up to this Bill, for getting the best terms that they could for the system which they were being asked to operate. That was surely very sensible.
But I would disagree with the noble Lord when he seemed to imply that writing off £244 million was a gross waste of taxpayers' money. Part of the trouble in life is that not all schemes go right. They sometimes go wrong in public enterprise. They certainly sometimes go wrong in private enterprise. The written-off losses in public enterprise have to be publicised with the maximum of light, and are subject to political criticism. But when private industry has to write off a failure it does it against capital reserves and the fact is noted in very small print at the bottom of the annual statement. It is not only in public enterprise that capital is written off because it is water under the bridge.
§ LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORDMy. Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he would agree that in the case of private enterprise the money involved 578 is that of the shareholders who have made the choice of putting their money in that particular enterprise, and they alone bear the loss, whereas in a public enterprise everybody has to bear the loss because the money has been taken from us in taxes?
§ LORD WINTERBOTTOMYes, my Lords, there is a difference. Nevertheless, I do not think the difference is as wide as the noble Lord makes out because this is basically a commercial undertaking. The fact that it is now to be a strictly commercial undertaking will help all those who are striving for commercial efficiency and competent management. There is to be no split directive; there is to be a single directive that profits must be made. I would agree with the noble Lord completely that a very important element of discipline can be that there should be no subsidy on current account. This must strengthen the hands of management when they enter into difficult negotiations, as indicated by my noble friend Lord Geddes of Epsom, which I think will continue to be difficult right into the future; but, on the other hand, I think they can be conducted because of the framework which has been provided within which they will take place.
I can confirm a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, that the London Transport Board, as a result of the 1968 Report of the National Board for Prices and Incomes, have pressed ahead hard with measures to increase productivity, and quite clearly—I have not been watching it but the noble Lord has—this increased effort is in fact starting to bear fruit.
May I now turn for a moment to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Chesham. I think our main clash of arms must take place on Committee stage. The noble Lord has made a detailed and determined attack on these particular proposals within the present legislation, and since this discussion is running longer than was foreseen, and other noble Lords have Bills which they want to present, perhaps he will permit me to answer in detail the various pints he has made when we get to them later in the Session. But may I answer just one point that the noble Lord made. He tried to imply that there was a conflict between what my right honourable friend 579 the Minister of Transport said—namely, that he was not intending to drive the motorist off the road—with what was indicated as the intention of the Bill by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, and myself. I think the difference is between not driving the motorist off the road, of which there was no intention, and persuading him to alter his habits. This is really what the Bill is about, and there is a difference.
I would support what other noble Lords have said on one point. I have found that since the general introduction of the control of traffic through parking meters and the rest, life is becoming far more tolerable when one has to move about London with a car as a private motorist to make a series of calls. I have more recently always been able to find somewhere to put my car during the limited period permitted for parking. I think we are winning along this front.
I think that no fewer than three speakers have mentioned the problems of the British Airports Authority: the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, I think the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, and the noble Lord. Lord Delacourt-Smith—and may I thank him for being so courteous as to give me a private indication of the problems of the British Airports Authority. We all agree that there is a problem here, but this is not the point at which we should discuss it. As has been said, the British Airports Authority is in fact petitioning—it is one of the Petitioners—against this Bill. Its Petition will be considered, and until such time as the grounds for the Petition have been heard and the findings have been published we cannot go on to the Committee stage of the Bill. That is one of the reasons why this Bill in fact may not reach its Committee stage until early in July. But I understand that each House is master of its own business. The fact that the British Airports Authority was not given a locus standi in another place does not automatically imply that this would happen here. So we must wait until a Select Committee of this House adjudicates upon the locus of the Petitioner. But, again, I would be prepared to try to give the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, and noble Lords who have supported him, the maximum satisfaction on this particular point when we are able to discuss it.
580 Finally, regarding the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, I should like to go back to the subject of compensation. I think he indicated in his speech that in fact no compensation would be paid if private car parking authorities were forced by decisions of the Greater London Council or the boroughs to go out of business or to change their business. I think I said quite clearly that it would be open to the operator to put in a claim for compensation. Compensation in these circumstances is possible. Although he seemed to think that the fact that the Minister of the day could call in an appeal and consider it personally was a small safeguard, I would suggest that this is not the case. I myself cannot conceive of a stronger safeguard than the fact that a Minister is empowered to call in an appeal and study it personally; and that the final court of appeal is not the Greater London Council but the Minister of the day.
§ LORD CHESHAMMy Lords, I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord, but on this particular point I cannot let him get away with the idea that he cannot conceive of a stronger form of appeal. A stronger form of appeal is that one has a right of appeal. This is at the Minister's discretion.
§ LORD WINTERBOTTOMMy Lords, I shall try to answer that point at a later stage of the Bill. I think that at this stage there is very little more that I can say to illuminate or set the framework for our following discussions. I am glad that the general feeling of the House is that this Bill will have an important role to play in preventing London from becoming some Los Angeles in the future; that it will enable us to retain intact the centre of this City, which is one of the great centres of the cities of the world; and that at the end of the day, although I am reasonably certain we shall never achieve perfection, nevertheless we shall be able to keep ahead of the problems brought about by general ownership of the motor car.
§ On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Select Committee.