TRANSPORT HOLDING COMPANY BILL (Hansard, 2 March 1972)

§ THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (LORD SANDFORD)
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.

§ Lord SANDFORD
My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.

§ LORD DIAMOND
My Lords, we on this side have no intention of opposing the passing of a Bill of this kind which comes from another place, which has received a Second Reading in this House and, of course, has received Second and Third Readings in another place. Nevertheless, it would be wrong of me not to delay your Lordships for a moment or two to make clear why we think that this is one of the worst Bills that this Government has introduced—and that is indeed an achievement! The reasons why we take this view are, first, that this is a Bill which, as your Lordships know, deals almost exclusively with the hiving off of a well-established public enterprise business which has served the nation well, which has served the nation throughout Labour and Conservative Administrations without being interfered with. The purpose of this Bill is purely to hive off that business exclusively to the private sector. I am bound to remind your Lordships that this is so because your Lordships will not find one word in the Bill that says that it is so.
Therefore, my second complaint is that not only is this a piece of pure unjustified dogma, because not one word of justification has been put before your Lord-ships, who have been expected to pass it with some unexpressed philosophical approval; not only has not one word been said in justification of the principle of the Bill, but the Bill itself has been drawn so as to make it perfectly clear that the Government have power to dispose of this business either to the private or to the public sector. Of course, the noble Lord in charge of the Bill has made it absolutely clear—nobody could have been more straightforward and candid than the noble Lord, Lord Sandford—that notwithstanding the fact that the Government are taking these wide powers in the Bill they propose to exercise them narrowly by the Secretary of State concerned approving only a transfer to the private sector.
1189 Although I am a comparatively new Member, I have a deep appreciation of your Lordships' House. I should have thought that was something we all wanted to share, and therefore that we all wanted to see that your Lordships' House had good reasons for justifying the way it deals with Bills. Here is a Bill for which no justification has been put forward, for which the only justification in another place was questionable management of Cook's, which, to be fair to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, he has not repeated in this place; he carefully avoided saying one word in criticism of the management of Cook's. This was the sole consideration in another place, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, was, if I may be permitted to say so, extremely wise in his self-denial. First of all, there is no evidence of bad management; and secondly, so far as your Lordships' House is concerned, there were only two speeches from the Back Benches, one from the Conservative Back Benches and one from the Cross Benches, and both were in support of the good management of this business.
The noble Baroness, Lady Elliot, as ex-Chairman of the Consumer Council, said that the Consumer Council had never had any problems so far as Cook's was concerned, although it had had many problems so far as other travel organisations were concerned. They will be familiar to your Lordships and I need not remind you of them. She was also good enough to say that as a Member of Parliament she was anxious to record her appreciation, shared by all those present in your Lordships' House, for the good work Cook's had done for all Members of Parliament and all Ministers in assisting them in their travels. That was the evidence of the noble Baroness.
As I say, there was a speech from the Cross Benches, from perhaps the most authoritative person in your Lordships' House in this particular field, the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, who was concerned with setting up the nationalised transport organisation and, once it was set up, was for many years concerned as the Chairman, and therefore had experience both as the most senior civil servant at the beginning and as the Chairman running the nationalised Board. His view, as he expressed it to us, was that the management had been quite unfairly 1190 criticised in another place. So while not wishing to detain your Lordships longer than is absolutely necessary, I am bound to register our deep dissatisfaction with the way the Bill is drafted, with the determination of the Government not to justify to reasonable, open minds the proposal which they, as the first Conservative Government to do so, now make, Cook's having been left completely undisturbed throughout the 13 years of the previous Conservative Government's Administration.
They have not attempted to justify it, as they could not, in terms of competition. We may not share the same philosophy, but at all events we are under a responsibility to judge any proposal that is put before your Lordships' House. We could take the view that competition is not so simple as it was at the beginning of the century. Nevertheless, nobody has ever attempted to put forward, even within the Conservative philosophy of competition, that this transfer hiving off to the private sector could possibly increase competition. It will either leave it as it is or reduce competition. So in those circumstances, where the only thing one can say is that the decision must have been prompted by sheer dogma, having regard to the lack of candour in the Bill, we are bound to register our regret and our opposition to the Bill: our opposition to what it proposes to do, and our deep regret that the Government has gone about it in this way.

§ LORD SOMERS
My Lords, before my noble friend replies, may I intervene briefly? Yesterday we had a very interesting debate on the interests of the consumer. As one who has been a "consumer" of Thomas Cook's for a good many years, may I say that I have never had the slightest cause for dissatisfaction about the service that they give. I should have said that bad management generally resulted in the dissatisfaction of customers. That certainly has not been so in my case.

§ LORD SANDFORD
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to respond briefly to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond. I am grateful to him for acquitting me of any lack of candour in my handling of this Bill. He referred 1191 to Thomas Cook's recent history and to its existence for 13 years under the previous Conservative Government; but I should like to remind noble Lords that Thomas Cook's is much older than that. It began its existence 130 years ago. It began in the private sector; it prospered in the private sector. We believe that it ought to continue in the private sector, and we are sure that it will continue to prosper in the private sector. That is the reason for our introduction of the Bill; it is the reason I have given all along, and the reason I should like to leave before your Lord-ships.