Lords Sitting of 17 May 1976

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR On the
Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chelmsford.

RHODESIAN RESIDENTS: PATRIALITY RULES
Lord REIGATE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what are the exceptions to the rule that Rhodesian residents, who are British subjects, citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, or who qualify under present patriality rules, are free to return to the United Kingdom.
The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, the exceptions are those persons who fall to be dealt with under the terms of Mr. George Thomson's Statement in another place on 27th June 1968.
Lord REIGATE: My Lords, first, is the noble Lord aware that my Question was tabled before the Minister for Sport took the rather curious action that he did last week? Secondly, rather than relying on Mr. Thomson's Statement, would he agree that Section 13 of the 1968 order is so imprecise as to give no guidance to residents of Rhodesia who may wish to come to this country but who are uncertain as to where they stand?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I do not think that there should be any misunderstanding on the part of any Rhodesian who wishes to come to this country, except of course in relation to the exceptional terms which Mr. Thomson's Statement makes very clear, as does the order that flowed from it. However, I take note of the noble Lord's point about that section of the order being imprecise. I will have a good look at it.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, is the Minister aware that most of us warmly support the action taken by Mr. Denis Howell, in accordance with the policy of both Governments since the unilateral declaration of independence, in preventing the Rhodesian cricket team from coming to this country? Would the Minister agree that, if such a team were facilitated to come here to play these matches in Great Britain, it would seriously damage the relationships between this country and our partners in the Commonwealth?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the latter part of the noble Lord's supplementary question sums up the probable effects of our deviating in cases of this kind not only from the policies of our predecessors in office in this country but also from almost every country whose policies in similar situations I have been able to check.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, from this side of the House may I say that I do not think we should necessarily agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has said. I shall certainly put a question, but I had to clarify the point that, as I understand it, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, was not speaking for all those in this House, as he implied. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, could tell us what kind of distinction is made between Rhodesians who come to this country, and whether it is true that, when Mrs. Hart, a former Minister for Overseas Development, was in office, certain students came from Rhodesia—quite rightly—to study in this country? I am sure all sides of the House supported that. What distinction does the Foreign Office make as to whether students come in from Rhodesia with the blessing of the Government or whether other perfectly innocent Rhodesians also wish to come into this country?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, there is no distinction between students and others who come to this country for proper reasons and what the noble Baroness has described as "other innocent Rhodesians". The distinction is between those who are innocent and those who are not.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, would the noble Lord therefore say that a black is

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necessarily innocent and a white is not? We on this side of the House are not at all racist; but, nevertheless, this seems to be the implication in the noble Lord's answer. Would he say that playing cricket is any less innocent that studying?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I would no more say that black is necessarily innocent and white is not than I would say that white is necessarily innocent and black is necessarily not. As to cricket, my own record in that field—limited as it has been—speaks for itself.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, supposing an individual wants to come to this country and is in doubt into which category he falls, may I ask whether there is any means by which he can find out? If so, what is it?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Yes, indeed, my Lords; if he wishes to renew his passport or take out a passport he is, of course, in touch with our consular officials who know these regulations. Since 1968, as we and our predecessors in office have found, the details of this categorisation, these exceptions, have been widely known in Rhodesia, as they are in this country.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, has my noble friend noted that the refusal of the Minister for Sport to permit a number of Rhodesians to come to the United Kingdom to play cricket as a team was not contained in the original Question? But, since it has been raised, is it not surprising that an important issue of this kind has not been the subject of a Statement made in your Lordships' House? Regarding the remarks by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury—that is, that most people will agree with the decision of the Minister for Sport—it appears that it was not a decision taken by the Government. It is not agreeable to each of us and I regard his decision as damned silly.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, the noble Lord is entitled to his opinion on this as on every other question. As to whether this matter should be the subject of a special Statement, I am beginning to think that, after five or six minutes, it has been the subject of a special
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Statement. Of course, there is no inhibition on any Member of either House from putting down a Question or asking for a Statement. In my experience, Ministers are always ready to agree to do their best, very much as my noble friend, who was such a distinguished member of previous Administrations, was himself ready to make a Statement whenever he was asked.
Lord REIGATE: My Lords, does the noble Lord recall that at the time of UDI Her Majesty's Government in this country appealed to many in Rhodesia to stay there and carry on? What is the position of those people?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I think their position is in accordance with what has been said from this Dispatch Box, certainly by me, and by my right honourable and honourable friends. We strongly urge European members of the Rhodesian community to stay and do two things in that country: to work for the rapid transition to majority rule, and thereafter to take part in the affairs of that country.
Lord BALFOUR of INCHRYE: My Lords, would the Minister be kind enough to clear up one point for me? I understand that the Minister for Sport said that as individuals the team were welcome to come here. Supposing that a certain number of individuals are here and then are wicked enough to get together and start playing cricket, will the Government take action against them and expel them from the country?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, indeed not. Certainly no Government of which I am a member will take action against anybody for playing cricket; but I hope that any Government of which I am a member will take action against people who try to use the noble game of cricket to uphold the spurious representative and constitutional character of an illegal regime in rebellion against the Queen.

BUSHMILLS AND BISHOPS COURT: JOB LOSSES
2.45 p.m.
Viscount BROOKEBOROUGH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question

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which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a Statement about the closure of, and consequent loss of jobs at, the communications centres at Bushmills and Bishops Court in Northern Ireland.
Lord GRAM: My Lords, as part of the Civil Aviation Authority's programme for the modernisation of the air traffic control system, data derived from radar equipment at Bishops Court will from late 1977 be fed directly to the Control Centres at Prestwick and West Drayton. I am advised by the Civil Aviation Authority that this will involve the redeployment of 22 professional staff and the redundancy of one clerical assistant. The Authority's long-range navigational aid radio station at Bushmills was designed primarily for aviation use, but this requirement lapsed at the end of 1974, since when only two staff have been needed for its upkeep. Its marine use does not justify its retention, and transmissions from the station will cease on 30th September 1976.
Viscount BROOKEBOROUGH: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his reply, may I ask whether the Government will bear in mind that, although the numbers of unemployed may be very small, taken with the decision to close the defence establishments in Northern Ireland it continues a situation where the Government's will to win is being doubted? This is one of the areas to which the Government can give employment. It is an area where unemployment is running at twice the national average—in places it is as high as 40 per cent. May I further ask the noble Lord whether the Government are aware that this particular action is giving comfort to those who are attempting revolution? Would the Government reconsider the decision to close down these stations?
Lord ORAM: I think, my Lords, that the considerations put forward by the noble Viscount should be taken in conjunction with the need to rationalise and modernise the communications system. This is the basic requirement. I think the
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more general questions put forward by the noble Viscount go considerably wider than this decision.

DISASTER RELIEF AND NATO
2.47 p.m.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether at the forthcoming meeting of Foreign Ministers of NATO countries authority will be given for NATO forces to be used in cases of disaster relief such as was urgently needed after the Italian earthquakes.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, although the subject of disaster relief is not on the formal agenda for next week's Ministerial meeting of the North Atlantic Council, it is possible that the subject may be discussed in the context of the assistance already being provided to Italy by the forces of NATO member countries, including the United Kingdom. Forces assigned to NATO in peacetime remain under national control, and it is for individual member countries to authorise use of their own forces for disaster relief.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, will the noble Lord draw the Conference's attention to this subject and perhaps suggest that it is worthy of discussion? Would the noble Lord not agree that the channels for asking for NATO assistance should be both well known and quick acting?—because this would help to unite NATO, when we need every possible means of uniting the NATO countries, in what would be a very compassionate task. It was, I understand, very effective in the Italian disaster.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I warmly welcome the noble Lord's supplementary. I will see what I can do to draw attention to these exchanges today. I agree with him that they are particularly apposite at the present moment in relation to our old friend and ally, Italy. I was glad to hear the noble Lord confirm that the disaster relief to Italy is being co-ordinated

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through NATO civil emergency machinery with the use of the NATO-wide communications system. I understand this is proving very effective, as the noble Lord has just informed the House.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, while welcoming what NATO has done, may I ask the noble Lord the Minister whether it is not necessary to have some wider method of assistance through the United Nations with stocks of medical aid, food, blankets, prefabricated huts, and contacts with pilots of different countries who can act immediately on a worldwide scale when such disasters occur?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, it is the view of the British Government that emphasis should continue to be laid on the importance of developing countries building up their own relief plans, but at international level we support the United Nations disaster relief coordinator and believe that we should concentrate our efforts on strengthening his organisation. My noble friend will recall that this country's delegation has for some time taken something of a lead in developing a United Nations' initiative in this matter.
Lord WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that two or three years ago the North Altantic Assembly passed a resolution asking the Council of Ministers to do exactly what has been suggested in this Question? Can my noble friend say whether the NATO Council has set up the kind of organisation which was requested by the North Atlantic Assembly?
Lord GORON WY-ROBERTS: My Lords, not quite an organisation responding to the proposal which was made in, I think, 1972 or 1973, but an emergency system which, as I said in reply to the noble Lord, has proved of great efficacy in the Italian earthquake connection. The reason why there has not been a more formalised approach to this question by NATO is that not every member of NATO, for reasons proper to itself, welcomed it at the time and it was not then found feasible to proceed on those lines. But the United Kingdom's attitude was, and remains, co-operative for the utmost development of an emergency
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relief organisation within NATO and under the aegis of the United Nations.
Lord ELTON: My Lords, will the noble Lord accept that we on this side are united in our support for the motives behind my noble friend's Question? Will he also accept that a comparatively small and simple permanent command structure to act on contingency plans would, at almost no cost at all to the Alliance be able to deploy existing logistic and communications resources, which are of a hundred times more use one day after a disaster than they are even two days after a disaster? We strongly urge the Government to take an initiative in this field.
Lord GO RONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I think I agree. Without being able to go into detail, I think that the noble Lord is absolutely right. Logistic capacity and expertise exist in NATO for this kind of purpose. Indeed, this country made a substantial contribution in regard to the Italian earthquake at the request of the Italian Government, when it made certain RAF facilities available for very urgent surveying operations.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, following the remarks by the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, from the Government Benches, will the noble Lord perhaps consider general approval for such action? I do not think this House is asking for anything too formal. The ad hoc arrangements have been reasonably effective, but we would not wish to see any delay in such terrible disasters, and general approval by NATO would be helpful. Perhaps the noble Lord could take this opportunity of telling us what the United Kingdom forces contributed in the case of the Italian disaster.
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: Yes, my Lords, I take note of what the noble Lord has said, as I always do. I think he has this general approval from NATO and he has it from this country. We are not alone in NATO. There are 16 other countries and they also have their views. The extent to which we can be even more effective in concerting action in crises of this kind depends, of course, upon effective agreement among all members of NATO, but we shall continue to work for a more effective organisation. I

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mentioned the contribution made by the Royal Air Force, of which we are all very proud and for which the Italian Government have expressed very considerable gratitude and appreciation. We have also made available £132,000 in the form of grants and the provision of bedding and other necessary materials, which is a substantial single member contribution to what, I am glad to say, is a very general effort by NATO as a whole.

LUNCHEON VOUCHERS
2.55 p.m.
The EARL of KINNOULL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the maximum value of luncheon vouchers permitted by the Inland Revenue without income tax liability, when this concession was introduced and when the value of the vouchers was last altered to keep pace with inflation.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, luncheon vouchers issued to employees are not taxed provided their value does not exceed 15p for each working day. This concession has applied since 1948 when the limit was 12½p. The monetary limit was subsequently raised to 15p, and the concession was formalised in 1959, since when there has been no alteration; but the matter is kept under regular review.
Several noble Lords: Hear, hear!
The EARL of KINNOULL: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply, and I sense from the House that it is a reply concerning a somewhat farcical situation. Can the noble Lord say what the concession is now meant to provide; what it costs the Chancellor annually, and what considerations are taken into account when this review is made every year?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, the concession is not meant to cover the cost of a meal. The concession corresponds with a tax-free element in the canteen services which are available to many employees. It is merely the subsidy element in canteen services; not the total cost of the meal. The present cost to the Exchequer of this tax concession on luncheon vouchers
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£9 million, and if it were raised to meet the cost measured by the retail price index that would cost £10 million, making £19 million. The main factors under consideration by the Exchequer are these. All tax concessions are eroded by inflation. Their restoration in present day circumstances is very much a matter of priorities, and the Government's priorities were given in the Budget.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, without trying to urge the Government on any really profligate course, does the Chancellor ever read the Bible nowadays? If he does, will the noble Lord draw to his attention the valuable text which says:
" Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn",
and how much corn can he get for 15p?

NORTHERN IRELAND
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m., my noble friend Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge will repeat a Statement on Northern Ireland.

NORTHERN IRELAND (TRIAL OF TERRORISTS AND WITNESS PROTECTION) BILL [H.L.]
Viscount BROOKEBOROUGH: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to amend the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1970; to make further provision with respect to criminal proceedings in Northern Ireland; to provide for the protection of witnesses in criminal proceedings involving terrorists; and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, that the Bill be now read la—(Viscount Brookeborough.)
On Question, Bill read la, and to be printed.

DANGEROUS WILD ANIMALS BILL FOOD AND DRUGS (CONTROL OF FOOD PREMISES) BILL THEATRES TRUST BILL
Brought from the Commons; read la, and to be printed.

COITY WALLIA COMMONS BILL [H.L.]
The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The Earl of Listowel): My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Select Committee to whom the Bill is referred may hear evidence other than that tendered by the Promoters.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMODITY PRICES
The Earl of LISTOWEL: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, on behalf of the Committee on Selection, That the Lord Cobbold be added to the Select Committee on Commodity Prices in place of the Lord Terrington, resigned.—The (Earl of Listowel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SUPPLEMENTARY BENEFITS BILL [H.L.]
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It is a straightforward consolidation measure. It consolidates enactments from 19 different Statutes dating back to 1966. They are set out in Schedule 8 to the Bill. If your Lordships approve, the Bill will be referred to the Joint Committee in the usual way. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

LEGITIMACY BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

TRANSPORT POLICY
3.1 p.m.
Lord POPPLEWELL Lord POPPLEWELL rose to call attention to the Consultation Document on Transport Policy; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, noble Lords will recall that some weeks ago I had a Motion on the Order Paper calling attention to transport needs with special reference to the railways. Since that Motion appeared on the Order Paper events have overtaken us and the Consultation Document has been published. I have therefore altered my Motion, thus:
" To call attention to the Consultation Document on Transport Policy; and to move for Papers".
It is that Motion that I seek now to move.
I am grateful to those noble Lords who have indicated their interest and intention to speak on this Motion. The Consultation Document has not long been published and, to say the least, it is most complicated and complex. However, I hope sincerely that those who are taking part in the debate will look at the broad picture of transport, and that the observations we make here this afternoon will have an important influence in shaping the ultimate result and policy that emerge from this Document. Noble Lords will know that the Consultation Document is open for discussion by any organisation and by members of the public, and that they are requested to submit their observations to the Government at the address stated in the Consultation Document by 15th June. Noble Lords will also know that this date has been put back to the end of July and I hope that notice will be taken of that change.
We are told that this is a Consultation Document, yet it appears that decisions have been taken on most important principles without any consultation with those who will eventually have to carry out the policy. I suggest that this is regrettable because one of the important principles that has been decided is the question of the future structure of transport and the establishment of a National Transport Council, which is to be an advisory body with no power. Already there is in existence the Central Transport Consultative Committee which may perform the same task as that suggested in this Document, which indicates quite clearly that there is no intention to return

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to the basic principles of a nationalised transport undertaking, with the old British Transport Commission acting as a holding company and the various executives being allowed to perform, free from interference, the task to which they are appointed. In addition to others, these are two most important decisions which have been taken.
May I urge the Government not to be obdurate where they have indicated this line of policy, but to be resilient and to listen to the arguments which are advanced. It is absolutely necessary that there should he the fullest possible exploration of how the various forms of transport can best be harmonised to provide a service that is efficient and adequate for all our national needs. For far too long there have been transport lobbies. There is the road lobby and there is what is termed the rail lobby. But I do not like either development. In this small, densely populated island of ours we should look at transport as a whole. If restrictions have to be imposed, they must be imposed when looking at the best form of transport to meet the various national needs. I do not like the fragmentary approach that is embodied in this Document. What should be a long-term strategy for dealing with transport has been a little befogged because of the difficult economic circumstances in which the nation finds itself.
Your Lordships may remember that it is three years—that is, on 6th March 1973 —since we had a debate in this Chamber on the same lines as the Motion to which I referred earlier and which I had the privilege of moving. On that occasion I spoke very strongly in favour of a fully integrated transport policy, and this view was shared by most noble Lords who took part in that debate. I ant sure that there is a growing opinion throughout the country that this should be the policy for a long-term transport strategy. We all know of the congestion that exists, that many parts of the country are literally being cut off from any form of public transport and of the consequent hardships which are involved. It appears that this Consultation Document is the Government's answer to the points previously made by many bodies. The Government having put it forward as a Consultation Document, I hope sincerely that it will be
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dealt with like that and that the decisions which appear to be embodied in the Document will be subjected to argument and discussion without a closed mind. In my opinion the document, like the curate's egg, is good in parts, but there are parts that we want to seek to perfect.
It is evidently—and this is something that many people will feel—a document that has been prepared by the Department of the Environment Transport Section, which has a staff of 1,700 dealing with roads, against 70 dealing with rail. With that background one remembers that this matter has been raised previously. I raised it at one time when there were 38 people dealing with railways. With such a background, and without consultation with outside bodies, it is not surprising that some appear to look upon roads as the basic method of transport in this country. Of course we all know—and I have referred to it earlier—that there has been a very powerful road lobby and in the documents which that road lobby have submitted, and which we have seen, they warmly welcome this Document. The basis of its objectives is in accordance with what the road lobby submitted as early as January this year to the Department of the Environment; if we analyse the two we find there is a great similarity. I rather deplore it and, as I have said. I should welcome a further look at the whole question.
Arbitrarily to decide the financial limits of public expenditure, to impose cuts in development, to restrict investment, to appraise the special strengths of different modes of transport before carrying out a detailed investigation into transport needs of the future, indicates in my opinion many of the past mistakes that have been made in dealing with transport and allows a short-term approach to detract from the long-term strategic requirements.
All nations have found it necessary to impose some control or limitations on traffic movements. All the leading nations of the world are faced with financial difficulties, so far as railways and other forms of transport are concerned. It is not just a phenomenon that is applicable only to this country. Wherever we turn we find various nations are seriously perturbed about that problem and huge sums of public money are allocated towards these transport needs.
That is understandable. Transport is a service and not a commercial or industrial undertaking in the accepted sense. It is not a productive unit, using its own judgment to find markets in the competitive field. Its role is to devise the most efficient unit of transport of goods and people from production to distribution point. It carries many social obligations and implications in its movement and, therefore, if we look upon transport as just a commercial undertaking with profitability, or otherwise, it is a totally wrong line of approach. I would ask the Government to have another look at this problem.
In my opinion the criterion of efficiency ought not to be just profitability. The nation demands that consideration shall be given to social needs, environmental requirements, safety and health standards, plus availability of access to our more sparsely populated areas. I hope that the discussion on those factors that will flow from this Document will be taken fully into account, and that the social and economic objectives will be assessed with the competing claims of housing, education, health and other services in so far as public expenditure is concerned.
Transport enters into the life of every person. It has a very low priority, and quite understandably so, because, in the minds of most people, housing, education and health needs must stand above the transport requirements. I do not altogether object to that, but I suggest that in what is now taking place, with the vast sums of public money that are being invested in all forms of transport, some formula ought to be found for transport to take a higher priority than it does at present. There appears to be a ready acceptance that the growth of the motor car should continue unchecked. We all accept that the ownership of a car is very convenient. We like it ourselves. We use it for work or for pleasure; but we are getting very near saturation point in the use of the motor car. In nine years up to 1973 we spent over £3.000 million in providing new roads and major road improvements, all for the movement of the internal combustion engine. Traffic forecasts suggest that there are now nearly 20 million vehicles licensed for the roads. It is anticipated that by the turn of the
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century, if the present rate of growth continues, there will be about 30 million vehicles on the roads. Those of us who travel in our towns and cities, and travel up and down our motorways, know exactly what is involved at the moment. Can we visualise the growth of another 50 per cent, in the next 25 years and what conditions will then be like?
We must of necessity face up to this increase in motor traffic, which would necessitate additional astronomical expenditure on new roads. We must remember that each new road or motorway is costing anything from £1 million to £3 million a mile. In the rural areas of Scotland it can be £1 million. In the densely populated areas, such as the Ayr Valley scheme, 35 miles is costing well over £90 million—from £93 million to £95 million. This expenditure is astronomical. Each new road generates additional traffic; each mile of new construction takes away land from food production, and often means the destruction of houses and other environmental amenities. I suggest that a halt must be called to this vandalism which is taking place. A solution must be found somewhere, and I hope that in such suggestions as I have to make there might be a solution.
My Lords, we hear a lot about road subsidies to rail; we hear a lot about the costs involved. I think that if we break down these figures it may be helpful. We do not hear much about subsidies to buses. We spend £200 million a year in subsidies to buses. By way of subsidy local authorities spend about another £40 million under this new set-up where local authorities can contribute to buses with a view to providing a service. In addition, local authorities are now paying £60 million a year to the buses for the concessionary fares which are in operation in most parts of the country. Something like £300 million in subsidies is being spent on buses against £490 million, roughly speaking, given to the railways. The public road costs for the three years' average at 1975–76 prices are made up as follows: new construction and improvements, £1,120 million, and highway maintenance and police, £665 million. We are spending over £2,000 million on our roads in addition to the subsidies I have mentioned. This has always been an arguable point.
Rail track maintenance costs £178 million, signalling costs £104 million, police, excluding docks, £9 million. Out of their own resources the railways have to meet £291 million compared with the £665 million that is given to road interests. When we talk so much about subsidies to rail we must get things in their correct relationships. It is argued by the road lobby that the tax they have to pay outweighs quite a lot of road expenditure. The figures are there, and can be broken down. We find that the Excise duty paid on motor vehicles amounts to £768 million; fuel tax £1,425 million; VAT £310 million; car tax £170 million—total receipts from road vehicles by tax or licence amount to £2,630,000, and it costs £1,705,000 to collect that. If we analyse these figures we find there is a surplus of £968 million which we can assess in relation to the cost I have mentioned so far as road maintenance is concerned.
There is a considerable surplus of car production throughout the world. This makes it more difficult for us in the export market. This is one of the reasons why there are so many foreign cars on our home market. With such a labour intensive industry, no one can blame the Government for the Leyland or the Chrysler effort. This cannot be a long-term measure but only of sufficient duration to bring these firms into a more world competitive position. A good home market is necessary, but is not a prerequisite to greater efficiency. With this greater efficiency better relations must be established. If one looks at the repetitive work in our motor-car factories, at the atmosphere created there—people just doing the same job day in, day out, week in, week out—one sees that it is conducive to unrest and makes a breeding ground for grievances, imaginary or real, which lead to many of the unofficial disputes to which the industry is subjected.
A new form of industrial democracy must be devised. No one desires to restrict the individual in the use of his own car, but the saturation point that I have already mentioned must be taken note of. The local authorities and the passenger transport bodies are very concerned about this at the moment, about periphery parking, short-term central parking and underground metro systems—I commend very much the action of
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Newcastle-upon-Tyne in their venture with the metro, and in other ventures in this direction.
Looking at the clock, I realise that already I have spoken for far too lone, but there is such a lot more that I should like to say. I will try to condense my speech. The long distance road lorry, in my opinion, is one of the greatest evils and menaces on the road. We ought to bring about greater control of this type of road traffic. Juggernauts thundering along our dual carriageways and other roads, with their exhaust fumes and noise, are offensive; they are a danger to pedestrians and other road users; they have an insatiable appetite for more road space, totalling ignoring other requirements of land use, with their "king of the road" attitude. All these things are matters which we should show more energy in controlling.
Always being used is the argument that if we diverted much of this long-distance heavy lorry traffic to rail in fact it would amount to only about 2 per cent. of the tonnage on the roads. What a fallacy this really is! No one is suggesting for one moment, and never has done, with regard to the delivery van and the person meeting our immediate needs by delivering goods or collecting goods within short-term ranges of 50 or 60 miles, that we should interfere with such vehicles at all. They will continue. To include them in the gross tonnage and suggest that if the long-distance lorry load was put on to rail it would affect only 2 per cent. of the total road tonnage is an entirely wrong line of approach. If we decided that within a 70-mile or 100-mile radius heavy road traffic be diverted to rail we should find that the position changes quite considerably. At that stage, if we diverted heavy long-distance road traffic we should be dealing with approximately 40 per cent. of the heavy long-distance road traffic, and this is where the difficulty and easement of our traffic problems really arises.
There are so many features of this question. On the rail system, every effort is being made to increase efficiency. There is the new TOPS system, or the operating processing system, the computerising control of every railway wagon. That means a considerable reduction, over 20,000, in the number of railway

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wagons, and it means that it is known exactly where every railway wagon is on any day. This is calculated to save £3 million, which represents a capital saving on replacements of at least £50 million.
A more energetic approach must be made to providing private sidings to industry. As we all know, £9 million is allocated for this purpose. Only £500,000 of that sum has been taken up, and another £500,000 is being talked about. It is along these lines, I suggest, that we should talk, with a view to restoring to many industries the private rail sidings which have been taken out, and also providing them for the newer industries. The very fact of taking out those private sidings has compelled traffic to go on to our roads and to clutter them up. When we do this, there must also be this new line of container traffic, and probably even Government assistance to factories to establish loading bays, in order that goods should be loaded into the containers and never touched again until they reach the distribution point. It is essential that that line of policy should prevail, and it is up to the railway to provide a speedy, safe service, free from vandalism and free from pilfering.
My thoughts centre very much on what happens in my own village of Sherburnin-Elmet in Yorkshire, a country village where we have the largest gypsum working mine in this country, probably in the world. It is sited some little distance away from the rail. When this mine was talked about authority was given for a private rail siding to go into the gypsum works. The gypsum works is in full production, but nothing is happening in that direction; so these huge juggernauts laden with plasterboards clatter along our narrow country roads and through our narrow village streets and are a danger and a menace to everyone concerned. Naturally, the gypsum people are asking the local authority to widen the country roads. I sincerely hope that will never be done. Where there is a good rail service, as there is there, a private line should be put into operation; this plasterboard traffic, coming down to South Wales, to the docks, for export, to the Midlands and elsewhere, should go to where it rightly belongs.
My Lords, I would refer to something that I think is rather disgraceful on the
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part of the Government. To the fear of railwaymen of a reduction from 11,400 miles of rail track to 8,000 or 4,000, the observation "codswallop" by the former Minister of the Environment has created a lot of damage to the morale of railwaymen and public alike. He said he did not state mileage, and I accept what he said. But what he actually stated, the effect of his directive in cutting investment and subsidies, would have the effect of reducing the rail track to such figures as were talked about even in the Beeching days, down even to 4,000, isolating Scotland altogether, vast tracts of Wales altogether, and other vast tracts of the country. If we work on the basis of maintaining investment at a little below its present level, having in mind real values, 1975–76 values, that is the effect of these cut-backs; that is the effect of the reduction of investment; that is the effect of stopping further electrification; that is the effect if you stop developing the signalling arrangements that are so successful.
One remembers that in the last debate we had in this House there was pointed out the tremendous increase of traffic on the Western route consequent on electrification, the tremendous increase that is visualised to deal with the London commuter traffic, with the North London electrification. One remembers that the old 13ritish Transport Commission, under Lord Robertson, suggested electrification throughout the whole country. That was turned down by the Government and Dr. Beeching. We remember that instead of going to electrification, where we could produce our own power from our own coal produced here, we went on to oil, which we imported. We handed the economy of the railways, we handed even the economy of the nation, across to the sheikhs inasmuch as they have exploited us in the price of oil. If we look today at our balance of payments, we find that if it were not for the astronomical price of oil we should be in balance. It is this that is responsible for much of our difficulties.
With those observations, which I hope may bear some fruit in the future discussion on this Document, I hope, when finality is reached, we shall not make any pragmatic, piecemeal short-term approach, but will look to the long-term strategic position of transport as a whole, and at each method of transport, road, rail, waterways, rivers, inland coast, and even

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air, in a real effort to ensure that this nation gets the transport service it really desires and requires. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

NORTHERN IRELAND
3.38 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my honourable friend the Minister of State for Northern Ireland in answer to a Private Notice Question by Mr. Airey Neave. The Statement is as follows:
"The past three days have seen a series of particularly brutal incidents in Northern Ireland. Since Saturday morning, five policemen and eight civilians have been killed. In addition, over 50 people, including three policemen and a five-year old girl, were injured, some very seriously.
"The first incident occurred in the early morning of 15th May. Three policemen were killed and a fourth was seriously injured by an explosive device in the follow-up to an earlier shooting incident near the police station at Belcoo in County Fermanagh. Later on Saturday there were a number of bombing attacks against public houses in Belfast and Counties Armagh and Tyrone which resulted in the deaths of five civilians and 48 injured. The most serious attacks occurred in the Avenue Bar in Belfast, when two people were killed and 22 injured, and Clancy's Bar in the village of Charlemont in County Armagh where three people were killed and 14 injured.
" On Saturday evening, a policeman was killed and two others injured when their patrol car was ambushed near Warrenpoint in County Down. On Sunday evening an off duty full-time member of the RUC Reserve was shot dead at his home at Benburd in County Tyrone. This morning two men were shot dead at their business premises in Moy in County Tyrone.
" The House will join me in expressing sympathy to the relatives of those who
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have been murdered in this latest spate of senseless killing, and in paying tribute to the five members of the RUC who have so gallantly laid down their lives in the service of the whole community. Their sacrifices will not be in vain.
" Let me assure the House that the cold blooded murders of policemen and the crimes of sectarian gangsters will not deflect the Government or the Security Forces from our course in Northern Ireland. We are determined that the rule of law will prevail and that those who commit these brutal acts will be brought to justice. Despite these cowardly attacks the morale and determination of the RUC is high. They deserve the unstinted support of the whole community and of this House.
" The Secretary of State had a meeting this morning with the GOC, Lieutenant-General Sir David House and the Chief Constable, Mr. Kenneth Newman. The Secretary of State agreed that the increasing effectiveness of the police represents a continuing process towards a long-term objective and cannot be achieved hastily. The core of the policy is to secure the conviction of terrorists through the use of the criminal law in the courts. The process cannot be based on some arithmetical equation involving an automatic and simultaneous reduction in the number of soldiers as the strength of the RUC increases. The roles of the Army and the RUC complement one another. Both are needed. The RUC is not intended to be, and will not be, a paramilitary force. The details of the changes are still the subject of study by a Government Working Party, but the essential objective is clear; to make the RUC still more effective in its proper role of law enforcement.
" Whatever they may claim, the real reason why the leaders of the PIRA have ordered attacks on members of the RUC is that they have no policy other than violence. They fear the success which the RUC arc already having in bringing their members to justice.
" The events of the weekend have demonstrated once again how the PIRA's actions bring down retaliation in the minority community whom they

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claim, but are powerless, to protect. Retaliation itself is equally abhorrent. We condemn it, as we have always condemned violence from whatever source it comes."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.43 p.m.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, the noble Lord will realise that I have had this Statement in my hands for only a few minutes. Our first thought must be one of grief at the death of so many innocent people and sympathy with the relatives who stay behind to mourn them, and the sense of outrage at the wickedness of those concerned in bringing about those deaths and terrible injuries. I should also like to associate noble Lords on this side of the House with what has just been said about the sacrifice of the RUC officers, their continued high morale, and the abominable nature of the crimes and the wickedness of retaliation for them, which can only accentuate the bitterness which is already felt.
It is disturbing that either gang of murderers could still mount the operational strength necessary to commit crimes on this scale. I should like the Government to tell us, if they can, what they intend to do to contain this; and to be reassured about the equipment and training of the RUC, who obviously need every support that we can give them, and of their continued liaison with the Army. I feel that these are matters which we may have to probe a little more deeply on a more suitable occasion. I should also like to ask the Government a question which I should like to formulate in this way. Those who actually commit these crimes are not always the most guilty. There are people behind them who skulk in corners, the godfathers, you might say, of the murderers. Can they be identified and can they be brought to justice? If so, how?
Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord the Minister for repeating the Statement, and to join in the expressions of sympathy to the relatives, which I know is felt by everyone in your Lordships' House, and to associate noble Lords on
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these Benches with the tribute to the courage of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. We on these Benches think that the Government's basic policy in trying to combat the terrorism with the strongest possible affirmation of law and order by the use of the police and the courts as much as possible is absolutely the right one. But the whole question of not using the police as a paramilitary force, which I think is absolutely right, brings into question the role and the size of the Army. The only question I have to ask is whether the statement, in which the Secretary of State agreed that the core of the policy to secure the conviction of the terrorists by the use of the criminal law and the courts could not be based on some arithmetical appraisal involving an automatic and simultaneous reduction of the number of soldiers as the strength of the RUC increases, implies that there will not be any reduction in the military strength for the immediate future as long as this scale of murder and crime continues, and indeed whether the Government are considering the restoration of some greater military strength?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, may I first answer those two contributions. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for what he said, for his expression of grief and sympathy and outrage, which I think everybody in the House will share. He asked three questions about equipment and training, about liaison with the Army, and about the godfathers. Over the first two items I am entirely happy that the equipment and training is what the Army desire, ask for and get, and I believe that there is nothing held back from them at all.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I was asking about the RUC's equipment.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: Exactly the same, my Lords. The noble and learned Lord said that he was asking about the RUC's equipment. There is nothing held back from the RUC which they think they need, and this is a matter of weekly discussion between my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, the General Officer Commanding, and Mr. Kenneth Newman, the Chief Constable. In so far as the RUC can

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show this group that they need something, I can assure noble Lords that they get it. Secondly, the liaison with the Army: my belief is that there is nothing to question here. It is totally effective, in so far as these things can be. On the third matter, we are up against a much more difficult problem. Of course the intelligence services would say they know there are people who are really the powers behind the actions which go on; but they cannot give proof which is enough for the Chief Constable to think that he, with the Director of Prosecutions, can act upon it. Here we do not wish to go away from the normal rules of law as maintained in this country, though it would be possible to do so. Personally, at this stage, I should be against it. I think there are people whom intelligence can identify but for whom it cannot provide enough proof for prosecution. As long as that situation remains I do not think we can do any more about it. However, this matter is under constant examination and I assure the noble and learned Lord that there is no weakness or lightheartedness about it; it is a problem which is taken extremely seriously.
The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, asked whether the question of an arithmetical equation between the reduction of troops and the reduction of crime could stand. The answer is that I do not think it can for a moment. The Secretary of State, in conjunction with the General Officer Commanding, has to deal with the situation week by week as it arises. The Secretary of State has made clear time and again that his intention is to withdraw troops and to increase the control of the RUC as and when it becomes possible, but I do not think that there can be an arithmetical equation which will deal with this.
Viscount BROOKEBOROUGH: My Lords, I find this a very sad day indeed because so many of those who were killed were killed in County Fermanagh and were not only my friends but also my protectors. I find it an emotionally difficult occasion when so many people are involved and one knows so much about the people concerned and their families. I wish to associate myself with the Government's conveying to the forces and especially to the Royal Ulster
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Constabulary our admiration of them; especially the RUC because for them it is 365 days and 365 nights a year, seven years running. It is that, which would sap the determination of any other body of men, which causes my admiration for them to be unlimited.
I am afraid that I must ask the Government to try to re-establish their will to win by some dramatic legislative effort or by some dramatic demonstration that that will to win exists, because in the population of Northern Ireland there is a feeling that a position exists in which the Government are willing to contain the terrorist situation at the moment. My noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone mentioned the question of the godfathers and the Minister said he felt that the legislation was sufficiently good to take care of those criminals. In a revolutionary situation we have to suspend certain freedoms. In the situation which we face in Northern Ireland, in my view the legislative attitude of this Parliament and Government has not been sufficiently strong to prove to the IRA that they cannot win. If one cannot use detention—and the Government have made it clear that they cannot—then in my view there must be some legislation to re-establish their determination to win and not to contain.
I was delighted to hear the Minister say that the RUC will not lack in a generous supply of equipment. At the present time the UDR is badly equipped and the noble Lord's colleague, Lord Winterbottom, said that the Government would be looking at the matter urgently. It is well known where those deficiencies are—they do not have to be looked for urgently—and the equipment has only to be provided. May I ask the noble Lord to see that it is provided? Further, we hear time and again that a review is going on. May we have the answer to that at once?
Viscount AMORY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord to accept that these brutal murders can have only one dominating effect on all of us, and that is to make us still more resolute in supporting and paying tribute to all those in that fine body, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, to the Army, the courts, magistrates and all who are risking their lives every day in the defence of law and order and in

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protecting the ordinarycitizens of Northern Ireland, the great majority of whom have only one wish, which is to follow their ordinary day's activities in peace and safety.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I am most grateful for what has been said, particularly by the noble Viscount, Lord Amory; the resolution of the people concerned is extraordinary. This applies not only to the fighting services, the Army and RUC, but to the probation service, prison officers, some of whom have recently been murdered, Customs officers on the Border, and to everyone who is trying to maintain law and order in Northern Ireland. It is very widespread. I think they are absolutely undeterred by what is happening and I respect them very much indeed for it.
The noble Viscount, Lord Brooke-borough, was really opening a debate and this is not a suitable moment to reply. I would only say that certain freedoms have already been suspended in Northern Ireland and I should be very careful indeed before I suspended any more. However, this is something which is in everybody's mind as an ultimate possibility if we fail to achieve what we want without it. I am grateful for the general reception of this very tragic news. There is nothing good to be said about it except that we soldier on.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, I accept that this is not the occasion for a debate, but may I ask the Minister to answer the question put by my noble friend Lord Brookeborough about the equipment of the UDR? Some of us are worried about this. The matter was raised in the defence debate and a not very good answer was given and in the light of what is happening now it is most important that we should be reassured that the UDR will be properly equipped.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I take the point fully and I will make the necessary inquiries; I am not equipped with the answer at the moment.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that noble Lords on this side of the House are as horrified at
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these detestable events as are any other noble Lords? Is it not obvious now that guerrilla warfare is not peculiar to Northern Ireland? It is happening throughout the world and our experience over the years has been that one can deal with guerrilla warfare not by military means but only through a political solution. I am well aware that a political solution is not easy to formulate and have accepted. Would it not be possible, however, to have a reappraisal of our political intentions (I speak entirely for myself in this matter) perhaps by re-establishing the Stormont Government and investing that Government—which I know would be a majority Government, not acceptable to everybody in Northern Ireland any more than our own Government in the United Kingdom is not acceptable to everybody—with full powers backed by the police and the military, who should not be withdrawn until a solution is achieved? Would this not be worth consideration? Is my noble friend aware that some years ago, when we had considerable difficulty of a similar character in Malaysia, it was resolved only by political methods? We sent General, now Field Marshal, Templer to Malaysia and he was able, almost solely by political means, to effect a solution? Would it not be worth Her Majesty's Government considering a reappraisal of the whole situation?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. The answer is, of course, that it would be worth it and that is exactly what is being done at the moment. We have made initiative after initiative to get a political settlement and, in the recent arrangements which failed, we got somewhere near it. My noble friend must not think that because he is reading nothing about it, nothing is happening. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State is continually discussing with political Parties and individuals the possibilities of some kind of political settlement. I agree with my noble friend that, in the end, that is what we have to go for and it is what we have really been going for over the last four years. I feel it is fair to say, however, that a political settlement, even if we had it tomorrow, would not stop violence. I do not feel it would have any immediate effect on the violence, but in the end I do not believe that we shall finish the violence without a political settlement.

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So, basically, I am in entire agreement with my noble friend and so, I believe, is my right honourable friend the Secretary of State.
The Earl of ONSLOW: My Lords, can the noble Lord give some undertaking that the co-operation between the Army of the Irish Republic and our Army in Ulster will be improved? It appears that there is no cross-border wireless link, and this would make an enormous difference in the event of terrorists crossing the border, which they often do. It would make the jobs of the authorities on both sides of the border—both of whom have exactly the same interest in stopping these vile happenings—much easier.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, all I can tell the noble Earl is that the situation has improved enormously. It is under constant revision and is looked at most closely by both sides. There are a number of difficulties which I do not propose to go into now, but the situation is a very great deal better than it was 18 months ago.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I should like to associate myself with what my noble friend Lord Shinwell said and to say that we are all outraged by these abhorrent murders in Northern Ireland—the attacks on the RUC and the retaliatory attacks on the Catholics. What worries me is this. Interviews with leaders of the IRA and with leaders of the paramilitary organisations on the Loyalist side are published in the Press. I should like to ask whether it is not possible to make illegal membership of the organisations which carry out these barbarities, so that procedures can be taken without the kind of evidence for which the Minister asked Endorsing the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Shinwell that Stormont will have to be re-established, may I also ask whether the condition of re-establishment is not that there should be a basis of civil rights which would apply to whatever Government came into force in Northern Ireland?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, with the last point I entirely agree. We could not possibly
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have a devolved Government in Northern Ireland which did not have the backing of the people as a whole. That is really the point at issue. As regards the Press, they used to interview people like Al Capone and nobody could stop them. I do not feel that we should interfere with them. If they like to interview gangsters, they are allowed to do so. I do not believe there is anything further we can do about this except carry on as we are. I believe that attempts to repress this kind of activity almost invariably do more harm than good.

TRANSPORT POLICY
4.5 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, we can now get back to the subject of the debate and I should like to start straightaway by saying—not for the first time in my life—that we are very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Popple-well, for having once again introduced this subject. The noble Lord said that he hoped we would look at the problem as a whole and that a fully integrated transport policy was what was wanted. I welcomed those initial words, but I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me for saying that I feel that his background unconsciously pulled him towards what he was condemning; that is, the railway lobby.
Everyone concerned with the future of transport in this country will have read the Consultative Document with great interest. I feel that it is clear that, whatever one's views as to the quality and comprehensiveness of its individual sections, it is a wide-ranging and serious contribution to public debate. My first thought on seeing what I thought was to be a Green Paper was one of regret that the Government should have turned a Green Paper into a shade approaching red. However, I have since learned that we owe this change of colour to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, whose good taste is surely beyond question. It is gratifying to know that, at least where the noble Baroness is concerned, aesthetics rather than politics will govern her Department's choice of colour schemes.
It was perhaps inevitable that a document which has been so long in gestation

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should arouse expectations which would unavoidably be disappointed on its appearance. I must confess that the Document cannot really be said to have satisfied all one's reasonable anticipations as to further information. For instance, let us take the British Rail deficit. The railways are now costing the taxpayer approximately £21 every second of the day; that is, if provisions for investment are included. That is equivalent to a total of some £650 million a year. It is a terrifying large sum, especially when we are in the midst of a public expenditure crisis. Yet the sections of the document which deal with railway finance are sparse in the extreme. Indeed, there is a reference to £100 million of "unallocated overhead costs". That the Government should acquiesce in such a large sum remaining unallocated is, I suggest, rather deplorable. We need to know where all this money is going and how it is being spent because, unless we have that sort of information, it will be impossible to undertake the kind of rigorous advance planning which is so desperately needed to ensure a viable future for our rail network.
I believe that there is no doubt that, over the last few years, the morale of railway employees has been seriously undermined. We see the consequences in occasional difficulties in industrial relations. It is very easy to sympathise with the railwaymen and the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, in opening the debate, showed great understanding of this problem. The rail unions co-operated to the full in the post-Beeching reorganisation: for instance, the workforce was halved in little more than a decade. Yet the railways are still faced with enormous deficits and, despite all the sacrifices which the rail unions have already made, the question of overmanning on the railways is still a major point in the debate. With the workforce down to 230,000 and some 70 per cent. of all trains now run by single men and the other 30 per cent. only being double manned for safety reasons, British Rail and the unions argue that there is not much scope, in their opinion, for further reduction of manpower unless there is increased investment for such improvements as automatic fare collection, better signalling equipment and better permanent ways.
First, the railwayman must know where he stands. No one can give his best at
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work unless he feels that, for the effort and hard work, he will achieve a secure livelihood. However, the rail unions must also recognise that the railways must become viable if they are to have a sure future. By viable, I do not mean profitable. I mean that the railways must be able to convince the community at large that they give value for money. I suggest that it is therefore to be regretted that the Consultative Document contains no concrete proposals for the improvement of the network, although it argues that the rail subsidy is unjustifiably high. It also suggests that, given international comparisons, productivity on British Rail is unjustifiably low. It was, of course, inevitable that this kind of critical comment would, in the absence of concrete proposals, lead to the kinds of rumour about cuts and closures that we have seen in the Press. I suggest that the Government should get together with the rail unions, the travellers' associations and the Opposition Parties to undertake the kind of evaluative studies which are necessary, and should produce a good 15 year strategy for an efficient and cost-effective railway system. That would be a process of the utmost complexity, I agree, and I do not propose to try to anticipate it here.
I wish to suggest that future rail policy should have as its objective a fusion of the best tradition of the railways' past and the technology of the future. Anyone who has talked to the older generation of railwaymen will not need to be told about their pride in their craft and their traditions. The man who finally graduated to driving a Coronation class locomotive between London and Glasgow after an apprenticeship of shovelling coal into that insatiable boiler would feel a pleasure, indeed a thrill, in his job that, alas! cannot easily be recaptured in today's trains. With the passing of the age of steam, I fear that some of the romance has gone out of railways.
It was rather sad for us the other day to read in the papers of the French Government's intention of building a marvellous new railway line between Paris and Lyons which would utilise to the full the resources of modern transport research to create a railway which would not only provide the highest level of service at previously unobtainable speeds, but would pay its way, as well as fulfilling a social need. My Lords, if only we had

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had the Channel Tunnel, how the British railways would have been able to take advantage of improvements of that type on the Continent.
There was a time when we in this country yielded to no one in our rail know-how. The advance of railway development in the 19th century brought together the boundless self-confidence of the Victorian age and the new technology of the Industrial Revolution. After they had created our own domestic network, British engineers found new fields for endeavour abroad, and indeed laid railway lines all over the world. In fact, I can think of few groups in all history who exported themselves more widely than British railway engineers. They have, I imagine, to concede first place to those Irish Roman Catholic clergy, hut not to many other groups. In fact, my great-grandfather, a Scotsman, undertook much of the building of railways in Mexico, and therefore I also know about that. It is a matter for sadness to recall that we are now apparently being surpassed in railway technology. This is the more regrettable because, as the figures in the Consultation Document make clear, it is our inter-city network which is nearest to profitability; and our high-speed train and the advanced passenger train must have considerable export potential if they are imaginatively marketed, which would not only greatly assist British Rail's finances, but also would help the country's balance of payments.
My Lords, British railways have lost the past and have not yet really found the future. It is a matter of the greatest concern to all of us that this ambiguity, this transitional stage, should be brought to an end as quickly as possible. It is also necessary that the Government, I suggest, should examine the corporate structure of British Rail. I have already spoken of the proud traditions of a previous generation of railwaymen. I have heard it said that the present general secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen describes how his father stood a good few inches taller when he put on his company's full livery. As he says, it is one of the ironies of the present situation that the rail unions are now calling for greater investment in the industry in the full knowledge that this will actually lead to reductions in its own
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manpower. Few managements have had a more difficult role than British Rail's, but I think we have to give fundamental consideration to their capacity to respond flexibly and effectively to the problems they will face in the future unless they get clear directions from Government as objectives.
Another important section of the Document deals with the bus industry. As regards the finances of that industry, it must, regrettably, be said that the Document is even less informative than it is on the railways. No attempt is really made to provide a breakdown of the £130 million and upwards spent annually on supporting the various bus companies' operations, with the exception of the 15 million or so paid to the National Bus Company. Again, this kind of information is indispensable if we are to have a proper debate on the future role of the bus industry. The vagueness, or indeed the non-existence, of the sections on financial information is perhaps the weakest part of this Document, even if this is only a sin of omission. It is so grave in its consequences as seriously to lessen the worth of the Document as a whole.
To secure value for money is surely a prime objective of Government policy, and it should be, I suggest, wholly unacceptable that a major Government document on the future of a major area of policy and expenditure should fail even to provide elementary information on finances and spending. This point is absolutely basic; it requires no re-emphasis or elaboration. But there is, to say the least, considerable public scepticism as to the cost consciousness of some of the nationalised industries.
Apart from its silence on the question of finance, there is another fundamental area on which the Document is weak. I quote from the second paper in the second volume:
" How much net benefit an individual using a subsidised service genuinely obtains raises complex issues that this paper does not attempt to resolve."
I would straight away concede that the issues involved are indeed complex, but it is precisely because of that complexity that one would have expected an attempt at serious discussion of them in this Document.

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One major theme implicit throughout the Document is a tacit repudiation, though, of traditional Labour Party attitudes on public transport, which one could describe, I suppose, as a belief that one can never have too much of a good thing. But if one grants a particular service unlimited subsidies, the first thing that happens is that one ossifies it, which means that one preserves in aspic the technologies and the systems of the previous generation, and one insulates them from change, even if they are no longer meeting a real need, and even if they do not cater for the new needs of this generation. What the public wants is a service, not a system, and yet while we are spending even larger sums on public transport systems, many members of the community are experiencing a drastic decline in the level and range of services available to them, to the point at which they are virtually deprived of public transport altogether.
I refer specifically to the problems of rural transport which, as the noble Lord reminded us, we discussed thoroughly only last March. There are some encouraging noises in the Document, which must have raised hopes. I shall quote a couple of these. The first one is this:
" There needs to be much more willingness to try radical solutions and new ways of meeting their needs through unconventional forms of service have been tried out, but more will have to be done."
This analysis is all very well, but useless without the promise of action. I am afraid that one can only lament the complete absence of suggestions for action.
The fact is, my Lords, that the problems of rural transport are the easiest, not the hardest, of transport problems to solve, if the present inhibitory licensing system was scrapped; if the local garage owner, who could see a way to helping his neighbours and adding a little to his income, is allowed to buy a mini-bus; if—most important of all—the considerable resources already tied up in providing transport in rural areas could be utilised. I refer to school buses, the Post Office vans, to non-emergency ambulances, many of which are already engaged in providing transport of certain kinds for exactly those members of the public who are without other means of transport: that is, the elderly and the disabled. To put matters
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simply, if we could use imagination, diversity and individual initiative in the solution of these problems, then I am firmly convinced that we could bring the greatest benefit to the countryside.
I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to the Traffic Bill 1973 of my right honourable friend Mr. Peyton. It contained many provisions which would have helped, and I would still recommend it to the noble Baroness and the Department to see whether they could not incorporate some of the very sensible ideas in that Bill. The present position of rural transport is a paradigm case of the weaknesses of our present approach to transport. We have a system which is striken by inertia, besotted by subsidy, and yet for want of a little free enterprise many rural areas are facing a virtual cessation of public transport. Public transport will never pay all its way. Those genuinely in need of transport must be provided with it, but this does not happen at the moment. The indiscriminate subsidy to transport leads to a barren, endless vista of losses, cuts and shabby rundown services.
We must all acknowledge the economic importance of road freight. If ton-miles are used as a yardstick, some 85 per cent. of all freight travels by road, and as the Document recognises, there is no real possibility of moving any significant portion of this on to the railways. Indeed, the Document dismisses the whole notion of such a transfer as a pipedream. It seems to me, my Lords, that two points follow from this. First, there is no justification whatsoever for subsidising any kind of freight transport; and it is encouraging that the Government propose to eliminate the subsidy to British Rail freight, and it is to be hoped that they will ensure that the National Freight Corporation makes an early return to profitability. Secondly, while it is perfectly reasonable to insist that the road hauliers cover their costs, there is really no justification for piling extra costs on road haulage. Furthermore, to do so would, I suggest, be very highly inflationary, because the increased charges would immediately be passed straight on to the consumer in the form of higher prices for nearly all the goods in our shops. Therefore, I earnestly hope that the Government will think again on their proposals in this field.

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Now, my Lords, to turn to the question of roads. Easily the most important postwar development in transport in Britain, as in other countries, has been the enormous expansion of private motoring. Strangely enough, my Lords, for some reason much of this took place in the years 1951–1964, when the number of cars on our roads actually tripled and private motoring, hitherto available only to the better off, came to be within the reach of almost every family. When we turn our attention to those sections of the Document dealing with road transport, it is encouraging that the Labour Party, or at least those sections of Labour opinion represented in this Document, have now apparently fully come to terms with the basic economic and social reality underlying our transport policy today, which is (let us be quite honest) the primacy of road transport. It would be hard, indeed, to do otherwise. As the Document acknowledges:
" Private motoring, measured in terms of passenger kilometres travelled, is nearly four times as important as public transport. It predominates for all lengths of journey, and for both business and leisure."
Later on the Document goes on to say:
The Government fully acknowledge the importance of motoring as the main form of passenger travel, and would not lightly contemplate proposals which would lead over time to an increase in its cost."
The Document's basic analysis is therefore beyond dispute; but, my Lords, the logical corollary of the recognition of the primacy of road transport is the recognition of the importance of the future roads programme. It was therefore disturbing, I found, to read in paragraph 9.14:
… it seems right to take a cautious view of the growth of traffic and to accept the risk of under-providing for the future".
My Lords, such a policy is, I would think, very likely to repeat the mistakes of earlier years, and to cause the problems of overcongestecl roads, including the serious accident risks, to be even greater in the years ahead.
We all acknowledge the need to cut public expenditure, and I could not agree more that it would be foolish to suggest that this can be done without sacrificing projects which would be highly desirable were circumstances more favourable. But projected future expenditure on roads has already been cut by 40 per cent. over
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the last three years—easily the most severe cut-back to any major area of Government expenditure. It must straightaway be acknowledged, I also agree, that not all of these cuts were the outcome of rational planning. It has to be recognised that there are powerful political temptations to sacrifice the roads programme. First, this is the one area which is under the Government's complete control. If a cut is decided upon, there is no difficulty in implementing it; the tap can be turned on and off at will. Secondly, putting scissors to paper is, of course, much easier than bringing to an end something which is already in being.
But, my Lords, a high-quality interurban road network is of vital importance to the economic life of this country. The rapid and reliable movement of goods and persons is an indispensable part of the infrastructure of modern society. To make severe reductions in the road programme is dangerously close to eating the seed corn. Our roads are already more crowded and less developed than those of our major industrial competitors, and we are in the midst of a recession. When economic activity eventually picks up, we are going to be even more than ever aware of the deficiencies of our roads.
Given the need to cut public expenditure, it is probable that no Government programme could have remained immune, but if one were drawing up an order of priorities surely it would be decided that economically beneficial activities should suffer the minimum cutback possible, and it is reasonable to consider expenditure on roads as analogous to industrial investment. It should also be noted that although we have abandoned the concept of the road fund, there is a very considerable surplus of revenue from taxation over expenditure on roads, even if the absolute maximum number of items is added to the debit account. I think the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, was a little one-sided in his arguments on this, because the Government are taking out in one form or another, I would suspect, probably over £3,000 million, and if anyone were to tell me that we are spending more than half of that, or at the most two-thirds, on every form of road maintenance and building I would be very surprised.
Lord POPPLEWELL: My Lords, does the noble Lord doubt the figures that I

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used? Because there is documentary evidence available for every one of them.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: No, my Lords; I do not doubt for one second the figures that the noble Lord used. He spelt out in detail every little subsidy to a road and every cost of a road built, but what he did not do after every other sentence was to remind us that there was a surplus of over £1,000 million coming from the motor industry. That is the only point I was trying to make.
Lord POPPLEWELL: The noble Lord should get his figures right. What I said, I think, was that £968 million was surplus revenue over collection costs.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: Yes, my Lords; all I am saying is that the general effect of the noble Lord's speech was to draw it out, £1 million by £1 million, £100 million by £100 million, until it appeared that the Government were featherbedding the roads, whereas the railways were getting a very hard deal. That was the general message, I think, that the House received.
The second aspect of the Document's proposals on road traffic which I am afraid caused me concern was the suggestion that parking charges in towns and cities should be greatly increased. No one is arguing for subsidised parking; it is quite reasonable that the urban motorist should be required to pay the full cost of his parking. But the Document fully admits that he does so already. Also, the Document points out that nearly all the cars in nearly all conurbations move faster today at nearly all times than they did in 1963. It would have been far more to the point, I suggest, if the Government had announced proposals to ease licensing restrictions and insurance regulations to encourage the maximum use of the cars on the roads. We all know that unofficial car-sharing schemes are very widely organised. It would have been far better if these were put on a regular footing. It obviously makes sense to have three or four people in a car going into London, rather than just the chap actually driving. As a final point, we cannot ignore the legitimate aspirations of the vast majority of our people, and it is undeniable that the vast majority of the adult population in
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good health either own a motor car or would like to do so.
I am conscious that in this speech I have by no means done justice to the Consultation Document's contents. I would indeed commend it to your Lordships as interesting reading material. It is lucidly and indeed felicitously written, and contains a great deal of meat. It does not need saying that the matters it treats are of the greatest public concern. I would add one final comment, and that is that it would be a great pity that such a well written document, which obviously took a great deal of time and effort to prepare, should not lead to positive beneficial action.
There is clearly no immediate prospect of any significant increase, in real terms, in spending on transport. This makes it doubly important that we use the limited resources that are available in the most cost-effective manner possible. There is a great need for a new framework for British transport planning, so that we can achieve as many as possible of our desired objectives at minimum cost. It is of the highest importance, therefore, that we have, as a matter of urgency, sensible proposals for sensible action, for it is by that standard, my Lords, that the worth of this Document w ill ultimately be judged. If it fails in that respect, it will be commemorated merely as a monument to Mr. Anthony Crosland's prose style.
4.40 p.m.
Lord CHAMPION: My Lords, I would join with the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, in thanking my noble friend for initiating this debate. Listening to the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, opposite, I must say that I thought his one of the best speeches he has ever made. He has the advantage of saying it in Opposition, and, in a critical examination of this Document, he was able to say many of the things that he might have helped to put into operation when he was sitting on this side and when he bore some responsibility for transport. This is one of the joys of Opposition. I have sat over there myself and savoured the fruits and pleasures of making such speeches as his. But it was an excellent speech. It was critical of the Document in some places, and appreciative of it in others.

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My noble friend who initiated the debate—and it is a debate on an industry upon which the prosperity of this country very largely depends—gave the House a mass of facts and figures in connection with transport, all of which are worthy of our consideration. But even I, a transport man, will have to read them in Hansard to grasp their full import. It is difficult to grasp the import of such a mass of statements in a speech listened to in this House.
My Lords, we are considering today the latest in a long procession of documents dealing with transport. Report has followed report, White Paper has followed White Paper, on the nationalised transport undertakings, on the railways, on the urban bus services, on the rural bus services, on the motorways, on the roads, and on school transport. Just to recite the titles of all of them would occupy a large part of the time that I propose to take up in this debate this afternoon; and merely to summarise their contents would require at least a full Parliamentary day. I can think of nothing in our national life that has been responsible for a greater production of words and a smaller amount of satisfactory action. This leads on inevitably to the question of what we can expect to get from this Document that we are considering this afternoon, a Document which has been impressed on us as being a Consultation Document and not a set of proposals. This we have to keep in mind in connection with the Document.
I am not so critical of the Document as was my noble friend Lord Popplewell. Altogether it seems to me to set out fairly and squarely the nature of the problems facing transport; and it asks the question: Where do we go from here? But it does more than that. I think it sets out also fairly and squarely the economic and financial framework within the confines of which the solutions have to be found. That is important. What emerges from an examination of this Document and study of the history of transport since 1945 is that there is a clear necessity for a longterm comprehensive plan which will have a chance of survival under successive Governments and ever-changing Ministers. If the managers of the transport undertakings, both nationalised and privately-owned, have suffered from anything at all,
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it has been from the changing policies which followed one on the heels of the other with bewildering rapidity. As an illustration of the changes that have taken place, Sir Richard Marsh, in a five-year term of office as chairman of the Railways Board, has served under four Secretaries of State and three Ministers of Transport.
The Report of the Railways Board for 1975 illustrates in moderate terms what that Board is up against. I quote:
"Uncertainty about the Board's long-term objectives was increased in October 1975 when the Minister of Transport confirmed that investment levels, accepted by both the outgoing and incoming Governments in 1974, would be reduced. There has been, therefore, an explicit abandonment of the interim rail strategy propounded by the Board in the Rail Policy Review presented to the Minister in December, 1972, which formed the basis of the Railways Act 1974. Unfortunately no alternative strategy has been agreed with the Government, though short-term financial objectives have been announced."
In the Board's Report for 1972 Sir Richard Marsh, after referring to the growth of private car owning, the increase in road haulage and the rise in foreign travel, said:
"We can now see how the country was surprisingly ill-prepared for such developments. Perhaps consolation to be drawn from these comparisons is the expectation that the nation will never again allow itself to be guilty of lack of foresight in planning for future transport needs."
That was his hope in 1972. One is inclined to say, somewhat sarcastically, "What a hope!" But we can hope that from consideration of the Consultation Document that we have before us we shall not again be guilty of a lack of foresight in planning future transport needs. That is my hope, certainly, that we should not again be caught; but "I hae me doots", about some of them.
My Lords, let me turn to the Document itself. I welcome the statement in the Introduction that,
" despite the advances made in the 1968 Act we still appear to many to lack a proper framework for the co-ordination of transport policy both at national and local level. The authoritative Socialist Commentary report reflected the widespread view that pricing and investment decisions for each mode were not taken within the framework of an integrated approach, but in almost total isolation."
I particularly like the way the word "integration" is used in that sentence. For so long, so many of us have used "integration" as a sort of blessed word.

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We have waved it about on every possible occasion without ever defining exactly what we meant by it or how we thought it might be achieved. An integrated policy—or, perhaps a better way of putting it, a co-ordinated policy—is essentially practicable; but an integrated transport system is not, in our form of society. There is a difference here and we must keep that difference ever in mind.
In Chapter 4, the Document admits that there has been too little co-ordination and coherence in transport policy in recent years, and the conclusion it reaches is that on the wider issues it is for the Government and Parliament to assess the wider issues but always remembering, I trust, that too frequent changes can be disastrous for the industry. It is because I accept that that I go along with the document in about the only positive statement it makes; namely, to reject the idea of setting up a new National Authority—" National Authority", of course, with capital letters. Turning to the objectives of a transport policy, however much in times of economic crisis we feel that we need to cut public expenditure, we must never lose sight of or fail to make provision for those without access to their own means of transport, and particularly in the rural areas.
A Committee in 1961, reporting on our rural bus services, pointed out with real understanding that in this connection there are two influences operating in opposite directions. On the one hand, as more and more people in an area acquire their own means of transport, the number of persons inconvenienced is correspondingly reduced. On the other hand, the effect of that is to reduce still further the number of buses serving that area and so increasing the hardship or inconvenience suffered by those without the advantage of private transport.
The General Secretary of NALGO, who has sent me that union's policy statement on transport, uses a telling phrase in this connection when he says:
" The value of transport cannot be comprehended solely in monetary terms, for without it the country would be reduced to a well-nigh medieval state of immobility."
An excellent phrase. That certainly is the case in parts of Wales, where remote communities have in recent years been without public transport, or transport
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of any kind, partly as a result of the loss of 70 per cent. of railway route mileage, and partly due to the other factors that I mentioned a short while ago. In the same chapter on transport policy, under the heading, "Choice and Local Democracy", strongly support the passage which says:
" Although there are social, environmental and resource grounds for intervention in the market, we shall not solve our problems by the administrative direction of particular movements of people or goods to particular modes of transport. It is an essential objective, in transport as in other activities, to preserve as much freedom of choice as possible within the regulatory and fiscal framework."
Later it says:
Many transport problems and priorities can only be settled at the local level by democratic decision."
In that connection, it seems to me that to take decisions as near to the ground as possible is right; but one is immediately conscious of the difficulties, for transport services must by their very nature pass district and even county boundaries. In the NALGO policy document that I mentioned earlier, that union proposes a system of regional passenger transport authorities covering the needs of a number of district council areas, and it goes on to say that the RPTAs would be organised on broadly similar lines to the passenger transport executives of the Metropolitan areas. Despite some difficulties experienced by the PTEs, it can be claimed that they have had some success and, given reasonable resources and a suitable framework within which to work, RPTEs could do a useful job nearer to the ground than the Government or a national body. Also, they could be fitted into any regional bodies which might follow the setting up of regions as a part of a further stage of devolution in this country.
Generally, I would say that the objectives of transport policy, as set out at the end of the third chapter of this Document are unexceptionable, and those of us who regard ourselves as transport men must not run away from sub-paragraph 7 on page 19, which says as an objective:
" Public expenditure: to recognise the need to restrain public expenditure and in particular to confine subsidy to the areas of greatest need."
Mostly as politicians we tend to say, "make cuts, cut subsidies and so on in the areas in which we have no particular interest but leave our interests alone".

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This is typical of politicians, certainly in both Houses. I have heard it here and I heard it so often in another place.
In present circumstances, or indeed in any circumstances, we must face up to the fact that the public purse is not bottomless. One is bound to support, although very reluctantly, the Government's intention to place some constraint on concessionary fares. What I would urge in that connection is that in the examination which is to take place in the Joint Working Party with the local authority associations, in that consultation an attempt should be made to ensure that there is uniformity over the whole country, for it seems to me to be unfair that the concession to the poorer members of our country should be dependent on where they happen to live. This seems to be all wrong. It is the case at present that in some areas you have a concession and in others you do not. That is unfair to many people, and older people in particular.
Lastly, I turn to British Railways and, as a railwayman, I am bound to say that my first reaction is to assert: "Not an inch off the existing track and not a penny off the subsidies", for that would be the easy and perhaps popular way with those with whom I served on the railway and in my old trade union. But it would be running away from the problem that railways have had to live with since the inter-war years when the appeal was for a square deal for the railways in the face of the competition of the expanding road haulage industry and the later difficulties caused by the massive expansion of the private ownership of cars.
I would support the general statement that the more that can be achieved through higher productivity on the railways, the less need there will be for cuts in the railway services and for higher fares, and the surer will be the future of those still working on the railways. These things must remain matters for discussion with the appropriate unions. I do not think that the unions can be said to have been wholly obstructive in this. The figures of the decline in railway employment given in Chapter 7 show a decline of 245,000 between 1963 and 1976. It must be pointed out that if you take the
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figure for 1948 the decline by 1976 has been 419,000. That means that not much more than one-third of the number employed in 1948 is still employed on our railways, and this reduction has been achieved without a single national strike on this issue over the whole of that period. This is to the credit of the men employed and the unions that represent them.
Perhaps I ought to add that I would be chary about drawing conclusions from the figures of the relative productivity comparisons given in the Annexe as between this and other countries, unless I had at the same time a statement of the capital equipment behind each employee on the relative undertakings. This is a tremendously important factor, as it is in the motor car and other industries when comparisons are made. What is the capital behind them? What capital does each man employ in the work that he is doing? One cannot hope to deal with every option or every conclusion mentioned in this chapter on railways, but in all honesty I am bound to say that I accept the main conclusions mentioned in paragraph 7.63, and the very acceptance of those conclusions answers most of the questions posed at the end of the chapter. I shall not quote them because time will not permit.
I end on the note of integration; that is to say, integration of transport policy and not of the transport system. I would accept that this means increases in taxation of heavy lorries, charging more for parking, restricting non-residential private parking and the more effective taxation of the private use of business cars. I would think there ought to be new initiatives regarding rural bus transport, more Government grants for private sidings to assist railway freight—this was a point made very strongly by my noble friend Lord Popplewell—and temporary grants to assist British Rail and the NFC while in deficit. This note of integration is stressed in the conclusions to be drawn from the comprehensive review of transport policy as a whole in chapter 13. What is desired, I am sure, by most of those concerned with transport is that from a consideration of this Document there will emerge a proper framework for the coordination of transport policy at both national and local levels. I certainly welcome this Document.
5.2 p.m.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: My Lords, it is with some diffidence that I join in a debate on such a technical subject as the one we are discussing. I do so not because I am a person with any technical knowledge of railways, but because there can be few of your Lordships who use the railways more than I do. I spend certainly two nights of every week during the Parliamentary Sessions in a sleeper on the railway, travelling to and from London, Edinburgh, Carlisle or Berwick. So now when I ask for a sleeper to Edinburgh I am always given the same one, coach J, number 5. So I have got practically a permanent room in a railway train! But I am no expert and I speak here only as a user, and a very enthusiastic user, of railways.
This Document deals with all the transport in the country and, if I may, I will speak for a short time about other forms of transport; but the one form in which I am particularly interested and—I will not attempt to disguise it from your Lordships —the one that I am greatly biased in favour of, is the railways: hence my distress when, some seven or eight years ago, the railway in my area in Scotland, which was known as the Waverley line, was axed by Lord Beeching. In this connection I should like to acknowledge the great help that I got from the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, at that time in trying to preserve the line. I firmly believe that it could have been run much more economically had the Railways Board wanted to keep it going. However, it got the Beeching "axe", and that was the final result.
I should like to say just a few things about this Document, and to welcome it. It is a most interesting Document. It does not, of course, point in a direct way as to where and how we should go but, as the noble Lord, Lord Champion, said, we have had many reports on railways and if we could not find an answer to the problems from all these, how can one document in 1976 be expected to provide a complete solution? But the Document offers some interesting comments and lays out a picture of considerable interest.
I wonder whether I might just ask one or two questions about railways, because, as I said at the beginning, I am a great supporter of them. I think they are excellent.
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The lines I travel on are rarely late; they are always comfortable and well manned; and the people who look after one in these great inter-City trains are extremely helpful. But they are very expensive. Is there any possibility of reducing the expenditure in some way? I think the noble Lord, Lord Champion, said that higher productivity was the way to look at this matter, if we possibly can. Are there, for instance, too many stations? Has a detailed survey of all the stations ever been made? Could we cut down on some of them? When I was struggling for the retention of the Waverley line, I remember that I counted fifteen stations between Carlisle and Waverley station. I suggested that that number could easily have been cut down to three or four, although that would have meant that some people may perhaps have had to cover ten or fifteen miles by road. The railway could have been run much more cheaply on the basis of stopping at only two or three key places, and perhaps the train could stop at certain intermediate scheduled places if a special request was made. Of course, that could not be done by the inter-City trains, but there are still other train links with those in some rural areas.
I should like a study to be made of how to keep railways but cut down on expenditure. There are lines in some places, I believe, although I have no experience of them myself, where scheduled stops are made on request. These stops are not manned. I do not know whether or not they work well, but I think such an arrangement would serve a useful purpose in the rural or semi-rural areas where some transport is needed.
The Document is rather gloomy on the subject of freight traffic, and I wonder whether that might not be looked at again. It seems to me that certain non-perishable goods could well go by train—for instance, the usual ones such as coal, iron, steel, timber and chemicals. I live in an area where an enormous amount of timber will very soon have to be transported and at the moment it would all have to go by road. One of the arguments I put up in favour of retaining the Waverley line was this. Would it not have been possible to use it for timber transport? Timber is not spoiled by being transported by rail. Of course, it is easier to handle when it can be picked up on the spot and there is no need to transfer it to another wagon.

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However, one might have been able to transport it by using the type of wagon that is used today in sea-going transport, where freight is transferred on to roads in bulk carriers.
Obviously, there is a certain class of traffic for which door-to-door transport is vital. I cannot imagine what chaos there must have been in the old days in a market town on a market day, when all the animals were driven along the roads to the market. It must have been a nightmare. Today, the lorry that comes to your farm, loads your animals, takes them straight to the market and unloads them there, is absolutely indispensable. But there are goods, such as non-perishable goods, for which that service is not absolutely necessary. Can we not try, even at this late hour, to divert some of those types of goods to the railways? I agree, of course, that the report is rather pessimistic about that.
The noble Lord, Lord Champion, spoke about the rural areas of Wales. I should like to say something about the rural areas of Scotland, where I live and which I know extremely well. Last year, we started to use post buses for services in the very rural areas and they have been a tremendous success, and could be greatly developed. I do not know why on earth they did not start 10 years ago. The mini-bus is another excellent idea which, again, is used only very little. Surely it is possible to encourage its use, not necessarily for the nationalised transport service, by allowing individual people with enterprise to run them in a given area, under the control, to some extent, of the local authority, so that there are not too many minibuses competing on the same routes.
As regards school buses, one often comes across these with empty seats because there are not enough children to fill them. They could easily be utilised in rural areas. Every time I want to travel by air or rail, there is a 50 miles drive to the station or airport and a 50 miles drive back, and I suppose that the situation is the same in Wales. If one does not want to drive there are the buses, but they are so slow, they stop so often and are so uncomfortable that many people do not use them at all. If the buses that are supposed to replace the railways—I am not talking about the
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rural buses which simply pick up people and take them to the nearest village or small town—were faster, then they would be used by more people.
There could also be closer liaison between the bus services and the local railway stations. I do not know whether there are car parking and bus facilities at every railway station, but people would use buses more often if they were run in conjunction with the railways. They seldom are. I do not know why. I should like to commend most heartily the fare concessions which have recently been made by the railways. They are an enormous success. Admittedly, they cost a lot of money but they enable people to use the railways and they get motor cars off the roads. I entirely agree with the noble Lord who spoke about the enormous increase in the use of cars and lorries, and anything one can do to prevent that is to the advantage of everybody, particularly to those people who care about amenities. It may well be that as a result of the fare concessions more people will use the railways, and their profitability may he slightly increased.
Perhaps it is selfish to say this, but I feel that one ought to discourage people from bringing motor cars into great towns and cities, such as London, Manchester, Bristol and so on, where there are excellent city transport services. I have not used a motor car in London for the last 20 years or more, and the services in this great city are such that it seem quite wrong to bring a motor car here unless it is absolutely necessary. I should like to stop people bringing motor cars into cities. The difficulty is that in medium sized towns people use their cars to do their shopping, so that improved car parking facilities are extremely important. Some places are very backward in that respect, and in the integrated transport scheme I should like to see more car parking facilities, particularly at stations. If one can leave one's car for two days at a station and pick it up again on one's return, that is an enormous help.
In the rural areas that I know best, a great deal of factory transport is provided because the industries import many workers from the country. Some of the buses used are only half full, and I wonder whether it would be possible

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for local county councils to arrange with factories for their buses to be used not only by factory workers but also by the public, with a due fee being paid to the factories. There are probably reasons for not being able to do that, but it is something which is well worth considering.
Finally, Chapter 12 of this Document refers to Scotland. I entirely agree that there is a very varied picture there, and it is difficult to see how the services can be made to pay. But this Document makes many good suggestions, and it deals very fairly with the problems of areas of that kind. There are the shipping services, which are essential for the Highlands and Islands, and huge rural areas with a very sparse population where public transport would have a very difficult problem in getting buses around. The shipping services will never pay; they have not done so for many years. Then there are very good and useful air services to the Islands, but because the population is so small it is impossible to make them pay. So that, as the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, said, these facilities have to he treated as a service, and not as a commercial enterprise from which there will be returns. Nevertheless, I strongly believe that we should make inquiries into these aspects.
I am afraid that my suggestions are all very amateurish, but they are the suggestions of someone who has worked for many years in local government. I have tried very hard to provide services of this kind and I know how difficult it is. But if, as both the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, and the noble Lord, Lord Champion, have said, we are to have a definitive integrated policy for transport, this Document forms a very interesting basis, and I hope that after the policy is worked out we shall have something which lasts longer than the previous seven or eight Documents to which the noble Lord, Lord Champion, referred when he talked about his long service with the railways. So, my Lords, I support this Document and I hope very much that we shall be able to go a good deal further on the lines indicated.
5.l0 p.m.
Lord HAWKE: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord. Lord Popple-
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well, for opening this immense subject. When one reads through the papers before the House one realises that if we were to do justice to this subject our speeches would all be quite unconscionably long. Therefore one must exercise restraint. For that reason I shall not be taking up the points made by preceding speakers, although I should love to answer my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood because I believe that I know the answers to most of her problems. About 20 years ago the late Lord Swinton said to me: "What I really fear is that we shall be paying sixpence on the income tax to keep the railways alive". I do not think that he was far wrong. Indeed, I am not sure whether he underestimated the amount.
One has to consider that there is a mental disease known as "railitis". The essence of the disease is that the victims of it believe that railways represent the summit of man's creative powers and must be preserved at all costs to give a living and pleasure to the operators. A great many railwaymen are a little dotty in this direction. I knew two general managers who used to play with toy trains in their spare time. I rather think that the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, is not quite so immune from "railitis" as some other railwaymen such as the noble Lord, Lord Champion.
May I make one point to the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell. If the noble Lord gave me the pleasure of coming to stay with me, went out in the rush hour to watch working men in their own cars pouring into Crawley New Town from every direction and considered that it would be impossible to move them by train and quite uneconomic to move them by bus, I think he would realise that the private car has a very important part to play today in industry.
I should add that I have not been immune from "railitis". For a dozen years of so I was on the board of an overseas railway company and met many people suffering from the disease, and about 20 years ago I wrote a memorandum and presented it to the Minister of Transport suggesting that we should put down fares and put up season tickets. I expect that the memorandum was torn up or that it still rests in a pigeon-hole there. At any rate, no notice was taken of it.

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I wonder whether or not that ploy would be relevant today. I know that the Consultation Document says that to put down fares would decrease revenue, but what in practice are British Rail doing? They put up their fares sky high so that a great many people cannot afford to pay them, yet day after day British Rail are producing new and different forms of concessions. There are short weekends, long weekends, midweek fares, tickets bought three weeks ahead, excursion and cheap day tickets, old age pensioners' half fare mid-week second class travel, old age pensioners' half fare all week travel, second and first class, accompanied children, unaccompanied children. And there may be more of these concessions. What are British Rail doing but raising their fares too high and then finding that they have to give these concessions in order to get anyone to travel? Why not have a straightforward, cheap, basic fare for all travellers, including seasons, and then charge extra for special trains, as they do in Italy and in other countries of the world, too?
My other point is that, as my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood has said, the long-distance fares to Scotland are quite prohibitive. Why should not we have more telescopic fares? After all, an appreciable proportion of the cost of conveying a traveller from London to Glasgow consists of popping him into the train in London and taking him out of that train in Glasgow, and the cost of doing that will remain constant. Therefore it would be quite logical to reduce the cost of travelling the intervening distance in order to try to get more people to use the service.
If we turn to the question of taxes on travel to work, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that he is going to tax business cars in some way or another. But whatever he does, in terms of the extra administration I have not the slightest doubt that the recipient of a business car will be better off than the person who has to buy a season ticket to travel by rail. I believe that season ticket holders who buy tickets covering an appreciable length of time—a minimum of one month or something like that—ought to be able to allow some or all of that amount to be set against taxation. It
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would be part of the package deal that if the ordinary rates were put up that blow would be softened. However, to a large extent season ticket holders are a captive trade, and one wants to encourage them without killing that trade.
So much for the revenue side. At the moment, roughly the entire receipts of the railway go towards pay. This is a quite intolerable situation. In a book by a retired locomotive engineer which I read the other day, after saying how skilled was the driving of a main line Pacific locomotive and how skilled and how hard was the labour of firing it, he continued:
" 90 m.p.h. is regarded as normal for an unromantic Deltic snorting across the country With nearly twice the power of the Pacific, demanding no special effort from its driver and no exertion at all from its redundant second man".
Those are his words, not mine. I know the arguments about training drivers, career structures and all that kind of thing hut we simply cannot go on paying three men to drive a loose-coupled freight train. If one speaks to railwaymen, they nearly always say that there are far too many superintendents, and I think that this may well be the case. I have a feeling that the railways have discarded more staff on what one might call the manual than the office side, and I think this is something that ought to be looked at. Certainly the author of my book, who was writing about ten years ago, said that there were more superintendents in certain workshops—I will not mention their names—and no greater output than there was when he was an apprentice there before the war. I think that that may well be true. If, therefore, there are to be any reductions—and there must be further reductions—the office grades must be looked at as well as the outside work people.
Turning to loans, during 1975 British Rail appeared to have taken up £72 million of loans at a rate of nearly 15 per cent. This is a crippling rate. You cannot expect profitable investment at this kind of rate and it will not come down until Her Majesty's Government stop trying to mop up every penny that they can borrow. Dear money suits the banks, the pension funds, the insurance companies and the charities, but it is extremely bad for all forms of capital investment by services such as the railways or by industry, and Government borrowing must come down.

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We must recognise that the railways are a sponge for unlimited capital investment. We could go on putting £500 million a year into railways for 10 years and at the end of the time we should have a more beautiful system; it would be faster, it would be cleaner and more comfortable than at present; a delight to all the victims of "railitis" and the people who run it but used by probably precisely the same number of people who are using it at the moment and at no higher fares, and we should have to service the £5,000 million capital out of the same amount of money. So all capital expenditure on railways should be looked at not through the eyes of a railwayman but through the proverbially jaundiced eye of a Scottish accountant. The high-speed train projects ought to be looked at in this light. It would be very nice to get to Plymouth in two and a half hours and to Glasgow in three and a half hours, or whatever it may be, but will this entail huge expenditure on track and signalling? If so, will there be sufficient growth in traffic to be able to service that huge expenditure? I am inclined to doubt it. People speak about exports, but where are the countries in the world who can afford to invest very heavily in track and signalling in order to put an extra fast train on the line? I do not know where they are.
All in all I do not believe that British Railways can pay and it is unrealistic to expect them to pay. On this I differ from my noble friend on the Front Bench, but I think that the subsidy ought to be cut very considerably. In my view, something between £100 million and £200 million is quite enough to pay for the running of it. I do not think that they will get an improvement in their situation by putting up charges because they are too high at present. It can be done only by persuading the unions that it is better to reduce numbers voluntarily than to have them automatically reduced by savage cuts of the mileage.
We could of course do without railways except for the suburban services. Indeed, some people say that we could do without them, but I do not agree. In the United States of America railways had almost faded out, but they are coming back a little now. It would be most inconvenient to do without them in this country and I should be very sorry to see it happen; but it is far better to keep the existing
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system going by the more efficient use of manpower.
5.24 p.m.
Baroness GAITSKELL: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, has identified the disease of which I have an attack—that is, "railitis". We should be grateful to my noble friend Lord Popplewell for calling attention to the Government's Consultation Documents on Transport Policy, even though these are not the easist times in which to rationalise or make improvements in co-ordinating different kinds of transport. It is the same today when we discuss the difficulties of any large industry. The causes usually hark back to inadequate investment and short-sighted planning in past years. The two Consultation Documents are full of information and statistics, but neither of these documents is reassuring—I suppose because as a country we are going through hard times.
I was surprised and rather shocked to read that by 1973 80 per cent. of total domestic passenger mileage was in cars, 12 per cent. in buses and coaches and only 8 per cent. in rail. At their best, the railways are the smoothest and the most civilised form of transport. They allow people to work, study or read for pleasure while being transported. Meanwhile the suffering which people in the cities continue to endure from congestion and noise of cars and lorries increases every day. Private mobility inflicts a real punishment upon us.
The arguments contained in Document No. 1 do not hide the many disagreeable effects of car travel, but this does not lead logically to a strong case for an upgrading and strengthening of the public transport system, especially the railways. There is the argument against tackling, for instance, the freight problem, which would benefit the railways financially by shifting freight on to the railways; and I have noticed that there have been 50 private sidings established in 1974. It is admittedly a difficult problem but it is left in the air and I think it should be given a higher priority when our economic position has improved.
I do not think that a bright future lies in a gigantic traffic jam of cars enclosing the circumference of the whole of the

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British Isles, which is what we may come to sooner than one would expect. I can find no firm attempt in the Consultation Documents to stress the important role of the railways and to condemn the rundown, despite a rather mandarin phrase that—and I quote:
" the Government cannot absolve us from the need to examine in the most vigorous fashion the proper function of the railways in a modern transport system".
Because the railways have experienced successive financial crises and have had to be rescued by the taxpayer, this does not justify the savage cutting out of railway lines or a drastic reduction in staff. Both these measures might produce a situation which required to be rescued by the taxpayer, as the railways were rescued before.
The Government should be looking at other means of dealing with the growth of road competition. There are other means and the Government should be taking them up. In the Documents, the private car and the lorry form of mobility is absolutely sacrosanct and everyone assumes that this will go on for ever. It is a thoroughly defeatist attitude. It is of course true that railway subsidies have risen dramatically from £75 million in 1970 to over £400 million in 1975. But this might require some reorganisation rather than just relying on financial constraints.
Financial constraints are not a major strategy for the integration and coordination of all the modes of transport that are needed. After all, British Rail have made large manpower economies of about 7,000 in staff, at a time of high unemployment. The truth is that few of the financial economies proposed at present take into account the long-term plans for the railways. Railways are crucial for the movement of freight, especially coal, for the inter-city passengers, for London commuters, and for the major commuter network in the South-East. If none of these is profitable at present, surely much of the blame rests with the under-investment of past years.
Co-ordination and integration is the key to any solution of transport problems, and the foundation for a healthy transport policy. Whether it is for a transport authority or a transport council, only experts can judge. Whichever body the
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Government accept for discussion of their proposals, there should be full involvement with the trade unions and the consumers. We need to extend public transport, not to shrink it. Socialist Commentary had an exhaustive and interesting study of transport in April 1975, and whether or not we all agree with everything that Socialist Commentary suggested in its serious study, we surely can agree with its conclusions. It says:
" A transport policy must bring about a more rational allocation of traffics and the co-ordination and integration of the transport service".
5.32 p.m.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, before I address your Lordships on this matter, may I offer an apology to the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell. because I was unable to be in my place when he commenced his speech. However, I find I was greatly in support of much that he said. May I also say to the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, that whatever lie may think, I am not a member of the railway lobby, although I am a great supporter of the railways.
My Lords, these two Documents, Transport Policy, are splendid documents, which generate thought. Volume 1 in particular gives food for thought. Not being particularly well educated. I find Volume 2 rather difficult to digest in some of its technicalities. The words I found most interesting of all in Volume 1, and they were in brackets, were these:
" First, as car ownership increases (and should increase, for personal mobility is what people want, and those who already have it should not try to pull up the ladder behind them)…".
If one is going to consider these documents in such a way one has to consider the individual. One must start off with the man who wants to get from here to there, or the business which wants to move something from here to there. Ultimately, whatever is decided by the Government, the economics of people's pockets will be the decisive factor in what ultimately will be decided. If one accepts that, then one must take a very long-term view of these things. and not look at them from what I call the tramway mentality. One must not look at the matter from the mentality of what is happening today, or even what will happen in five years' time or ten years' time, but probably long after I

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and most noble Lords present will he dead. That is the viewpoint from which I try to look at this transport policy.
On what is the future of transport being based? In rural areas, the motor-car is an absolute essential. Within what I can see of the future, the motor-car must be the method of transport of people who live away from bus routes, railways, and everything else. Bearing that in mind, any Chancellor imposing taxation to try perhaps to control the growth of motor transport must never, never forget the people who are compelled to use car transport. Having said that, let us look at the bulk of the users. The present economic circumstances probably have slowed down the expansion of transport of all kinds, and maybe will continue to do so for some period of years. But as the standard of living of people improves again, the desire for mobility will increase, whether it is mobility which they control or mobility which is provided. I may be entirely wrong in this, but my view is that demand for personal mobility in cars is going to far exceed capacity on the roads which we are going to be able to produce in the time, so we shall have all these vehicles on the roads. We are going to be forced, just in order to keep people mobile, to have more and more regimentation. We have enough of it now. Legislation flows through Parliament daily to regiment the private motorist. Everywhere he turns he is told he cannot do this and he cannot do that, he has got to do this or he has got to do that; hut, nevertheless, he continues on the road, in a large proportion of cases ignoring the law entirely.
If we allow things to proceed as they arc, we shall have not only regimentation by law but regimentation by use, because we shall have traffic on the roads piled up nose to tail, travelling only at the speed of the slowest. Ultimately we shall get outselves so congested that we shall not be able to move. Drivers of vehicles are individuals, just as the train driver is an individual or the pilot of an aircraft is an individual. But the driver of the vehicle on the road is an individual who wants to get from one place to another, and he will get there whether anybody likes it or not. Half the trouble, the damage, the danger, and the accidents are caused by ill-tempered people who cannot stand congestion on the roads. If we cannot produce roads where they can travel quickly we shall have
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more and more danger. I get the impression from these transport Documents —although I may be wrong—that there is a tendency to think that road transport has got to be the ultimate, and that rail transport is merely to be added on the side as something to use to take a little of the surplus. I do not like to accept this and I do not feel we should accept this.
Something which congests our roads today, and will do if we allow it to continue, is the enormous heavy super-vehicle, multi-wheeled vehicle, yards long, which in my youth we would never have dreamt of even being able to see on the roads. Behind them you get the tailback of traffic, with people trying to pop in and out here and there. Must we accept this? We also see our motorways: people go up and down them, heavy vehicles go up and down them. What do you find? As an example, take the exit from the M.6 to Blackpool; you hear on the radio the police saying, "Please try to avoid the exit to the motorway at Preston going to Blackpool, because the traffic is tailed back for miles". What on earth is the use of building these stupendous motorways so that people can get somewhere quickly, when they have to sit at the other end and make up their minds whether to go on the normal road. This will get worse, not better, if we have all these vehicles on the roads. If I was going to Blackpool, I would make a beeline for the nearest train and get in it, because at least I would know I would get to the other end at the time I was supposed to get there, rather than sitting and waiting for a load of people to get off the motorway.
Another thing I dislike intensely—and it frightens me and it is getting worse—is that there are a number of commercial vehicles which use our roads, motorways, main roads, everything else, which are loaded with deadly acids and things like that. They are potential disasters going up the road the whole time. Something of which I am absolutely petrified is hearing of a pileup on the motorway in the winter. I always think, "Please, do not let there be one of these appalling vehicles in it which has spilt everything." Not so many years ago a woman went to help a driver and just vanished. These are disaster vehicles. I know that, and the noble Baroness is going to tell me, there is a voluntary code of marking of these vehicles, but it has one basic fault;

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that is, the markings are very small. People do not know about them; they do not know, if they see a marking, whether it is a vehicle they can go near if it has an accident. These vehicles are absolute disaster potentials. In my view, and I am putting it forward purely as a personal view, all these loads should go to the railways. They have a system for moving them. They know where they are. They know what they are doing. If anything happens to them, they know what to do about it, and they can do it quickly and efficiently. These chemical loads, these danger loads, should never be allowed on roads. I am going to be told that at the end of this you have got to take them off the railway to move them somewhere. I entirely agree. Let us fix distribution points for them. Let us use smaller vehicles which are so easily recognised on the roads that everybody will stand back and let them go. But do not let us have those enormous bulk vehicles.
This, in my view, can go for a lot of commercial traffic. If we put the bulk loads, which can be container-built, back on to our railways, took them to distribution centres and put them into smaller vehicles when they got there, I am sure we should do far better. I am sure we are ultimately going to be forced to do it, purely by the congestion on our roads; it is in that way that I think our railways are going to triumph.
When it comes to people, to the individual, I have a feeling that over the past few years we have got the impression that the people who work on the railways, and for that matter on the buses, have forgotten that they are providing the public with a service. The railways and the people who work on them are earning a living from providing the public with a service. They are not there by right; they are there because they provide a service, and if they do not provide a service they should not be there. I would ask the unions to bear very strongly in mind that they are providing a service, and that if they do not provide a service which the public want they will not have a job. For the future that has to be very closely borne in mind. At any time from now until the year 2000 the public will have a choice as to how they move from here to there; commercial people will also have a
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choice as to how they move, and they will move where the service is quicker, more economical, reliable and convenient, for them, and not for the people who are operating it.
I have spoken for too long. What I think one should study over the next few years is this. If we put an equal investment of public money into the railways and into the roads, which would produce the results quickest? I back the railways every time. The people who are running them depend on them for their livelihood. In the case of the person who produces a road, his livelihood depends merely on whether he has another road to make later. I feel that we must try to get more commerce off the roads and on to the railways. My noble friend Lord Hawke lists all these concessional fares and everything, but they get people on to the railways. What is the use of running trains if people do not travel on them? If they can get them there, let them get them there any way they like. They provide a superb service. Unlike my noble friend Lady Elliot, I do only a short run; I use the Inter-City service from Birmingham to London. I think it is a superb service. It is very much better than any bus service I know. You can roll up, and every half hour there is another train. They can do things well, they will do things well, and I will support the railways every time. I think far more should be made of them in the future.
Lord BOOTHBY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one question before he sits down. I am entirely with him that we should get traffic off the roads and on to the railways. But does he realise that at this moment British Rail provide the worst services to the public in the whole of Western Europe?

SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No.
Lord BOOTHBY: Does not the noble Lord think that ought to be put right?
Lord de CLIFFORD: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, does not travel between the places I travel between, because I think that British Rail produce a tremendous service. If anybody can take himself over 112 miles in a car in one hour 25 minutes, as happens regularly with me, I shall be most surprised.
5.50 p.m.
Lord SAINSBURY: My Lords, may I first pay my thanks to my noble friend Lord Popplewell for giving us the opportunity to debate this very important subject today. Transport policy is the concern of all citizens, whether as private travellers or as business people. Above all, it is not a subject which should be left only to the self-styled experts, whose theoretical plans have in the past all too often ignored the reality of how people behave and what they actually want. I therefore welcome the Consultation Document as a valuable basis for the discussion and consideration of transport problems and priorities. That it covers the entire range of transport facilities, both public and private, and that it is so clearly addressed to the public at large, means that when a policy does emerge at the end of the discussion it will enable us to plan for the 1980's and the 1990's, confident that all who wish to do so have had the opportunity to make their views known.
In certain political and planning circles there has been for a long time far too much prejudice against the motor-car and far too little appreciation of the benefit it brings. I am therefore especially pleased that the Document places such strength on the role of private motorised transport. It is certainly right that road users should pay the full economic, social, and environmental cost which they impose on society, and we must ensure that they in fact do so. That said, however, there should, as the Report says, be no attempt to check the growth in car ownership, and the use of cars should be restricted only in congested urban areas. Those who argue otherwise ignore the simple fact that people want social mobility. Though there may be certain benefits to be gained from reducing society's dependence on the car these are, in my opinion, only one side of the coin. I am afraid that the pundits seriously underestimate the advantages that the car has brought, not least in broadening the horizons of so many people. Personal mobility should not be undervalued, and those who enjoy it should not wish to deny it to others.
The topic of personal mobility brings me on to the particular point of detail which I should like to raise; that is, the shopper and the journeys she, or he, makes to shop. These journeys are mostly made
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on foot, by car, or by bus. Journeys on foot are obviously mostly made to what are known as neighbourhood shops, and are often made by housewives who do not have the use of a car, at least during the day. Car shopping has increased with car ownership, but where stores are located in town centres can often have disadvantages. Traffic congestion may slow up journeys, and car parks may be sited far away from the stores the shopper wishes to visit. The car parks may be full, and, even if they are not, are frequently difficult to enter or leave, particularly the multi-storey variety. Nor is bus shopping at all convenient. Bus journeys are often slow (an important consideration for the busy housewife), and carrying heavy shopping bags on buses is neither easy nor enjoyable, especially if you have a child or two in tow.
So I believe there is a strong case for the edge of town store, and here I had better declare the interest that my name makes obvious. Such stores are mainly devoted to frequently purchased goods—that is, foodstuffs, and items such as cleaning materials. Their immediate advantage, as your Lordships will already have realised, is in relieving traffic congestion in the town centre. In the town centre are found shops selling consumer durables —clothing and fashion goods, all of which are less frequently bought, and these shops will, no doubt, continue to flourish even after edge of town developments have received planning consents. Only at the edge of town store is it possible for the retailer to provide extensive ground level parking. I cannot overstress the importance of this. Between 1970 and 1974 the proportion of grocery expenditure brought home by car rose steadily from 24 per cent. to 32 per cent. The trend was not affected by large increases in the price of petrol since the end of 1973, though the length of the journey may have been affected.
The habit of car shopping will undoubtedly continue to grow in line with the growth of car ownership, and if I tell your Lordships that a week's shopping for an average sized family weighs no less than half a hundredweight I am sure you will realise. Why many supporters of the anti-car lobby I mentioned earlier will now be saying, "Edge of town stores may

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well help the motorist, but what about the large minority of the community which does not have access to a car—the old; the infirm; the poorer sections of the community; the single person households, as well as those who quite simply choose not to have a car?" To the anti-car lobby, I would say that as many people live within ten or fifteen minutes' walk of an edge of town store—I am not talking about hypermarkets in the middle of the countryside—as can walk in the same time to the centre of a town.
Moreover, in a town with several edge of town stores, a great proportion of the population will live within walking distance of at least one large modern store, certainly more than can easily walk to the town centre. Car-less families, hitherto forced to rely on local stores, which have a restricted range of goods at generally more expensive prices, will thus benefit from the construction of edge of town stores. In addition, land is cheaper on the outskirts of towns than in town centres, as are building and operating costs, and ground level parking can be provided without difficulty at less cost and can also, of course, be used by motorists attending other activities outside shopping hours.
All these factors mean that the retailer can give his customers what they increasingly want, which is good stores, easily accessible by car, and, because of lower costs, goods at cheaper prices. At the same time, the retailer will be making a valuable contribution to solving some of the problems of transport and congestion in our town centres. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that the construction of edge of town centres, which can become the focal point of local activities, is the only alternative to the massive and costly reconstruction of many of our existing old towns and city centres. I believe that there is no case, either on economic or environmental grounds, for the latter course. In my opinion, land usage and planning consents cannot be separated from transport policy.
One of the weaknesses of the Document we are discussing today is that it fails to recognise the importance of this fact. I hope that when the Government come to publish their proposals for the future development of the transport system, they will take note of this important link
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between planning and transport. I have touched on one small aspect of a vast problem in the solution of which social, economic and environmental considerations have to be reconciled. I hope that my remarks will have been of some slight interest to your Lordships.
6.4 p.m.
Lord O'NEILL of the MAINE: My Lords, like previous speakers, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, for having made this debate possible. He may not remember that over a cup of tea last week he encouraged me to take part in the debate, so I am doubly grateful to him to be on my feet today. Like other noble Lords, I have found this Document extremely interesting and I am grateful to the Government for having published it. We must recognise that transport all over the world is in a difficult situation. We remember the Penn Central crash in America about the time when we had a little trouble with a firm called Rolls-Royce. It is a world problem. Sometimes, however, one can learn a little from the experience of others, and perhaps noble Lords will forgive me if I remark on experiences in Northern Ireland.
In 1920, bus companies sprang up and gave a surprisingly cheap and efficient service. This of course was a signal for the bureaucrats to intervene. An official from London came over and advised that a Northern Ireland Road Transport Board should be set up modelled on the London Passenger Transport Board, despite the fact that there was no relation whatever between London and Northern Ireland. It was of course an outstanding failure. I remember in particular when I was nine or ten years old watching with great thrill the marvellous buses which were run by the Catherwood family—Sir Frederick Catherwood's father and his uncles—as they thundered past our gate at 70 mph between Belfast and Londonderry, and they made a handsome profit despite the fact that their strict Protestant principles would not allow them to run their buses on Sundays. All that was swept away and the companies, including the Catherwood family, were heavily compensated, and so far as I know the Northern Ireland Road Transport Board never made a penny and gave a far worse service. After the war, not content with all those experiences, a juggernaut was set up called the Ulster

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Transport Authority, which swept all the railways under its umbrella as well, and that of course produced an even worse system at even greater loss to the public. I will leave Northern Ireland now; I thought that your Lordships might be interested to hear of our experiences.
The problem—several speakers have dealt with it today—of road versus rail must receive our consideration. Some people are jealous of the success of road transport and feel that additional taxes should be placed on it; on the principle, I suppose, that if anything succeeds it should be crippled. But in Britain, with our present troubles, we should reinforce success. We should not tax it. Having had the good fortune to visit America frequently in the last 20 years, I have a suggestion to make which I am sure will prove impossible but which we should consider in the difficult economic situation in which we find ourselves. Other noble Lords who have had the good fortune to go to the United States will know that the New York throughway, which goes through New York, up-State and North towards Canada, was built on the system that one pays something every 25 or 30 miles; one slows down and throws a quarter-dollar into a steel basket and then drives on again. At first I was rather horrified at the system. I had never seen anything like it and I thought that our system was so much better. But when one bears in mind the fact that we are paying for our motorways through taxation, I am not sure that that system has not something to offer us.
The noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, was pointing out that it could cost up to £3 million a mile to build motorways and, if economies are to be made in this country —as I think they will have to be, as indeed is already happening—I doubt very much whether some of the motorways planned for the next few years will ever be built under the present system. So I throw this out as an idea which has worked well in America. Your Lordships may ask what a lorry or a car which decides not to use the motorway because its occupants do not want to spend, say, 50p for 100 miles will do. They can go by the old roads if they do not want to pay the extra 50p. I believe that this is something which should be looked at, even if it is eventually discarded, because otherwise I do not
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quite know how we are to complete our motorway programme.
I should like briefly to move on to freight. In my view, it is not possible in the 1970s to force firms to use the railways when they are making satisfactory use of road freight. I shall never forget opening an extension to a factory in Northern Ireland where I saw containers being loaded with merchandise and was told that they were going over by the ferry that night and that the merchandise would be in Manchester next morning at nine o'clock. The roll-on/roll-off container service operating today between Northern Ireland and England has made it possible for new factories to be established in Northern Ireland.
Your Lordships may say that this system would apply only to somewhere across the water, but I do not accept that. I feel that, if a firm can load its own containers and have them driven, for example, from Manchester to Devonshire on a motorway, it will know that its goods will arrive when it wants and that there will be no pilfering on the way and no hanging about in stations and sidings. It is the modern way of transport and no amount of pressure to drive the goods back on to the railways will, I fear, work. I am very sorry because I know that the railways always used to carry freight, but I believe that the new system has come to stay and that we must recognise and make the best of it, despite the fact that the railways would like to have it all back again.
I should now like to say something about air fares. Page 81 of the Consultation Document deals with the air. I wonder whether those of your Lordships who do not live in the North realise what is the return fare between London and Glasgow, and London and Edinburgh. It is £48. It is actually £50 to Belfast, which is closer, but we will leave that on one side. Then one opens one's Sunday papers and sees an advertisement which askes, "Why not have five days in Majorca all found, £30 return? "Some of your Lordships may have been reading about a little problem with regard to the air fares from London to Portugal. I do not want to say anything which may upset British Airways, but I have read in several papers that British Airways

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have, wittingly or unwittingly, been overcharging.
The other day my wife and I thought of visiting relatives in Portugal and I went to a travel agent to ask what was the return economy fare and was told that it was about £190. I looked very surprised indeed and I was then told that of course if I liked to go for longer than six days it would be only £119, not £190. I said I certainly wanted to go for more than six days, and, on that basis, I made a provisional booking of two seats. In the end, we had to cancel, but that is neither here nor there, but, as I was leaving the travel agency, a very charming lady behind the counter said, "Of course, if three of you go, it will only be £56 return." I am sure that there is a moral in that tale somewhere, but I was very interested to see from the Sunday Press that there is now quite a row going on about the matter. This is the kind of thing that happens when one has a monopoly in public transport.
Finally, I cannot restrain myself from reading out the final paragraph of the first page of the conclusions to this very interesting Document. It seems to me to he pure Conservative doctrine. It reads:
" But there is no doubt at all that public expenditure is under severe constraint; and this fact alone will entail the most rigorous reappraisal of priorities within the total of public spending on transport. We must re-examine the role of indiscriminate subsidies which tend to benefit the better off more than the poor …".
I shall not bore your Lordships with any more, but that paragraph struck me as being pure Tory doctrine and I cannot help thinking that people live and learn.
The other paragraph which struck me was in the middle of the next page of the Document. It was paragraph 13.9 which deals with what is perhaps the chief recommendation contained in the Document, that is, the recommendation for the setting up of a National Transport Council. On paper, that seems a sensible and excellent idea and I am sure that if only the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry, were here she would be delighted to see that consumer interests will be represented on that body. However, if it is set up, I hope that it will not turn into nothing more than a talking shop. It is amazing how people talk and
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talk and nothing ever gets done. Nevertheless, that seems to be one of the main recommendations of this most interesting and excellent Document. Once again, we are most indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, for otherwise we should not have had the chance of taking part in today's discussion. I was also delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury—and if it was not he but some other speaker, I apologise—say that this matter should not be left to the experts. I quite agree. I feel that we ordinary, unlettered folk should be allowed to have our say on this most important matter.
6.18 p.m.
Baroness BERKELEY: My Lords, I, too, wish to thank the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, for having initiated this debate on transport. It is a most important subject and the debate will enable us to discuss the matter very fully before any legislation is proposed. I am indeed glad to know that Her Majesty's Government realise that rural transport needs to be improved and that they intend to give it priority over other forms of transport. As the Document says, there are a large number of persons, including old-age pensioners, who do not own a car and who are dependent upon public transport. I am one of them, having no car and, owing to the expense, rarely being able to afford to hire a taxi except to take me to the station. I am dependent upon trains and buses for travelling purposes. Even if a family has a car, the husband may go to work in it, leaving the wife stranded. Mothers with small children, as well as old-age pensioners, need to get to the shops and to the doctor; they need to go to clinics and possibly to visit those in hospital.
All these things are important, but without adequate transport it is impossible for the country dweller to enjoy them. A network of buses is required, radiating from some central county town or provincial city to the outlying villages. Different types of buses may be needed for different areas, depending on whether the area is thickly or sparsely populated. A double deck bus would be needed for the former, while the latter might do with a single deck, run be a combined driver and conductor. Lastly, there is the minibus. Small, scattered villages might do with these, and here parish councillors

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should be consulted. They are in a position, if asked, to find out how many persons would be likely to use a bus and what would be the most convenient time for it to run. It may not be necessary to have such a bus running every day, but merely so many days a week.
Buses are needed for what I call every day travel in most places for short distances. I do not favour them for lengthy journeys—say above 20 miles. They are slow, and after a few miles one finds the jolting rather tiresome. In winter, they are very cold and draughty. Trains are much to be preferred for longer distance travel. They are more comfortable and are usually heated in winter. Some form of heating is provided in station waiting rooms, too, whereas bus shelters are few and far between on country roads and this often means waiting by the wayside without any shelter at all, in all weathers for a bus which sometimes fails to turn up! Where I live, the buses have recently been rerouted and this has improved the service enormously. I am very glad to say this, and I trust that this state of affairs may continue. For some time old age pensioners and others eligible for a reduction in fares have been able to travel at half price. But next month this ceases and some other form of fare reduction scheme, with tokens, is to be tried. Exactly how this is to work remains to be seen.
Passengers other than the old age pensioners grumble a good deal about the cost of fares. I note that on page 35 of the Document it says:
… wage costs which represent 70 per cent. of all bus costs have increased sharply."
A little propaganda is needed here, as the general public do not understand that the constant rise in wages for the bus staff must mean an increase in the fares. Often there is a gap of months between the wages increase and the rise in fares, so the public cannot relate the one to the other. If the bus services are to be maintained, these increases are inevitable, but they should be explained.
Turning to trains, I do not pretend to know how the railways are run, and can look on them only from a passenger's point of view. It seems to me that it would be an enormous mistake to make drastic cuts in rail services, causing much depri-
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vation to the inhabitants of small towns if their stations are closed and the rail tracks done away with. Buses are a poor substitute for those who are used to rail travel. The question of luggage also arises in this context. Very little luggage can be taken on a bus. Let us suppose that a mother, with a small infant and perhaps two other children, wants to travel. She will have suitcases, a pram, a cot and all the paraphernalia which a baby needs. All this could never be taken on to a bus. Only a train can serve the needs of this family. Then there are those who are confined to wheel chairs. They expect to be able to travel around these days—and it is quite right that they should. It must not be forgotten that it is easier to get them on to a train than into a bus.
I notice with concern that the Consultation Document seems rather biassed against those persons who are referred to as "commuters". But nothing should be done to discourage these people, because those who travel to London each day are, mostly, those who work in the city—bankers, stockbrokers, insurance brokers, et cetera—who produce the invisible exports which are of such enormous value to our country's finances. I am glad that the Inter-City trains are such a success and are to continue, as they must be a great help to those who work in industry and commerce.
I suppose that a few branch lines could be closed without undue hardship, though probably not very many. But I hope that it will not be necessary to close many. Surely it is better to keep the trains moving on tracks which are already there, than to build more great trunk roads, thus taking up more agricultural land, every inch of which is needed for farming. The effect on the environment must also he considered, though I know that recently these roads have been rather well landscaped.
There is also the prestige point of view regarding railways. A country without a good railway system is indeed a poor-spirited thing. Have we really sunk as low as this?—to talk of doing away with our railways or with much of our railways. If these facilities are to continue, how are they to be paid for? Some Government subsidies will be needed for the buses; this is inevitable. But the local authorities must do their share by making economies, by not starting more or new, social

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services which would require more money and more salaries for the extra officials needed to run them. It must also be remembered that education takes up so much of the funds of the local authorities. Can economies be considered in education? Perhaps not very many economies can be considered in that direction, but what I call the frills of education might be cut; no more sending school children on cruises abroad. Such things are very nice for them, but are not, I believe, suitable in these hard times. Roads to by-pass some of our ancient towns and villages—and thus save them from destruction by the constant flow of heavy traffic through them —will have to continue to be built. But, if no more trunk roads were constructed, much money would be saved which could be used to subsidise the buses.
The railway deficit seems rather appalling, but the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, has given reasons why this is so. If we wish to keep our rail service in good order—I think it vital that we should do so—and, if, after some economies, investment and subsidies are still required, where is the money to come from? Will it be from Government saving? Will they save? Will there be no more nationalisation? They might save there. Will there be no more taxation? We could not stand any more. The only other source of revenue that I can think of would be obtained by cutting out aid, not trade, to the so-called undeveloped countries. As a poor country we cannot afford to give millions in charitable aid when we need it for our own purposes here. The savings would surely provide money for investment and sufficient to put our buses and our railways in good shape, so giving this country a transport system which is both efficient and viable, and of which we can be proud.
6.30 p.m.
Lord PITT of HAMPSTEAD: My Lords, like other speakers, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, for introducing this debate. However, I hope he will not mind if I do not follow the last speaker but confine myself to commenting on the Document as it affects London. The Government's first comprehensive review of transport policy since the late 1960s has been conducted against a background of pressure for cuts
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in public expenditure in a depressed economy. The shape of transport policy is crucially affected by the amount of money available. The Document outlines social, environmental and financial objectives, and contains suggested policy developments for roads, traffic restraint and management and freight upon lines which are broadly in parallel with the policies of the Greater London Council; and it sets out much factual comment which is not in dispute. But on public transport it is on less sure ground. While the Document implies priority for public transport, in many instances this must be seen against a background of proposed cuts in public expenditure on transport of 8 per cent. between 1975–76 and 1979–80 and a cut of 22 per cent. in the previous forecast figure for 1978-–79 in last year's public expenditure estimates.
So far as London is concerned, the crucial questions are: what level of public transport is to be provided? What should be the balance between bus and rail services? What resources are needed to support the desired level of service? And how should the services be both planned and run as an integrated whole? As to the level of public transport service, it is worth noting that against a background of decreasing patronage due to falling population, switch to private transport and change in employment locations, the total level of service has remained relatively static. But within this total the bus service is declining and the underground service is increasing. An improvement in public transport is essential for London, but the expenditure proposals indicate a cut of 11 per cent. in capital expenditure on the underground up to 1979–80 and of 40 per cent. in operating subsidies over the same period.
My Lords, the consequences of allowing a decline in public transport services in London would be more cars on the roads and more congestion, with its attendant environmental and economic costs and demands for more road space—or, of course, journeys will not be made. People cannot be forced on to public transport; they must be attracted to it. The very minimum requirement must be to maintain the existing level of service in the short-term and to increase it as soon as financial circumstances permit. The proposed capital cuts will seriously interfere with the programme of essential

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renewals on some of the underground lines, with the prospect of badly impaired services as a result; and the cut in operating subsidies will necessitate some substantial increases in fares at the existing level of service or, of course, a cutting down on the level of service. There are strong arguments against this, especially as the underground is well used by all classes of Londoners and not largely by the better-off, as has been implied about the rail services. The Government should therefore reconsider their total financial priorities, and at least maintain a reasonable level of capital expenditure and operating subsidies.
As to the balance between bus and train services, the Document's bias is in favour of support for bus services at the expense of rail, but this is at variance with London's requirements. Buses may be the principal form of public transport in most cities, but London's size and complexity would never allow for a rundown of rail services in favour of buses; and the maintenance of Central London's prosperity depends on the ability of the railways to bring and take nearly a million workers to and from work each day. As for the resources to maintain desirable levels of service, although bus subsidies are said to be fairer than rail because a far higher percentage of lower-paid workers use buses, they are planned to be substantially reduced while subsidies to British Rail are maintained at the present level in spite of the planned elimination of grant for inter-city and outer suburban services.
It is obvious, my Lords, that the size and distribution of public transport subsidies will be a major policy issue. This can be inferred from the fact that the public expenditure estimates show a sum of £60 million for all passenger transport services other than British Rail, whereas the Greater London Council alone paid more than £90 million towards London Transport's operating deficit in 1975–76, and it is estimated that in 1976–77 it will be about £80 million; so there are obviously going to be some difficulties somewhere. If the level of service remains the same and subsidies plummet down, then rapidly-increasing fares are inevitable and this, in turn, means a significant loss of patronage. The lost passengers will either take to their cars or not make the journeys. My Lords, I should have
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thought that both consequences are in conflict with the Government's objectives.
Now for the co-ordination of public transport. The Government advocate the formation of a National Transport Council for monitoring developments and for examining pricing and investment strategy over the whole field of transport. It is important to know more about this. Like the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill of the Maine, I should like to hear from the Government exactly what they have in mind. I should like to know how independent of the Government it is going to be; how efficient the Government hope it will be; what power it will have; and at what stage it will in fact be consulted and to what extent it will be listened to. I am quite sure that authorities like the Greater London Council would need to know these facts before they can decide whether or not it is a council with which they wish to be associated. For London, the crucial question appears at the bottom of page 59 of Volume 1 of the Document; it is quite straightforward. It is:
" How can the Government and Greater London Council promote the integration of bus and rail services in the London area to give a better service with less need for financial support?"
That, I think, is the crucial question.
The Document discusses the Rail Advisory Committee and whether it should also cover bus services. But I think that the more fundamental questions are whether a new organisation concept is required and how it should be financed. Between £200 million and £250 million a year are being spent by the Government and the Greater London Council on British Rail's London network and London Transport. The question that needs to be asked is: Should the responsibility for ensuring that the money is spent for the benefit of London as a whole and that the public transport services are run as a whole be unified? On the face of it, the answer I would give, the answer that I think comes out most clearly is, Yes. But I recognise that there are problems to be overcome. One of the things that I hope is that this consultation process, in which the Government will have the opportunity of hearing the views of all interested parties, including the Greater London Council, will point the way ahead. I hope that this Consultation Document will enable us to get an answer

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to this particular question. May I say at this stage that, of course, the Greater London Council has not yet discussed this Document. What your Lordships are getting is the first reaction of a member of the Greater London Council who is a member of their transport committee.
My Lords, before I sit down may I comment for a moment or so on roads and traffic. The greater part of the proposed reductions in expenditure on new road construction and improvement is in local government expenditure. The consequence of that is that a growing imbalance is being created between road expenditure in London and trunk roads in the South-East. Although London's first priority is for improved public transport, the need for some road construction in London will continue. A reappraisal, therefore, of the total roads investment programme is called for to ensure that London and other metropolitan areas have a fairer allocation according to their needs. In spite of proposals to reduce the overall allocation in road maintenance, there are no grounds for reducing maintenance where traffic is heaviest. I am afraid that that includes the majority of London's network. London, therefore, the other main cities and the main trunk roads should have priority for the more limited allocation of funds.
Comments on traffic restraint do not generally bring out anything new; although the forthcoming document on the question of controlling private non-residential parking space is to be welcome. The Greater London Council have already put forward proposals for control and in the light of this Document we shall be looking to the Government for support. The Document also urges full use of traffic management techniques. In London we are ahead of the field, but further extensions of traffic management measures depending on enforcement are likely to be limited, particularly in view of the Government's reluctance to increase the manpower required for this purpose. I hope, therefore, that the Government will also look at this one in that light. I hope that my comments have been of some value and that the Government will bear some of these things in mind—plus the Memorandum they will eventually receive from the Greater London Council when it is finally deciding on its transport policy.
6.45 p.m.
Viscount LONG: My Lords, may I join with other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, on the very experienced speech he has made on the Document we are debating this afternoon. It was a speech which we thoroughly enjoyed. In case noble Lords are wondering about the enormously large papers in my hand, I may say that, last night being unable to find any notepaper, I "grabbed" my wife's typewriting paper (to her fury) and proceeded to write over it. No doubt I shall have to pay for it at another time.
I was interested in the Foreword to the Consultation Document and, if your Lordships will allow me to do so, I shall be delighted to read the first few lines:
" In past ages, the subject of transport by land was never much debated. No doubt (or so historians tell us) the invention of the wheel, the introduction of the camel into Africa, and the importation of the horse into the Americas were events of momentous significance."
I should like to see added to that list the high-speed train now about to go into operation on the Western Region.
We are debating a subject of vital industrial importance, that of our transport system. If your Lordships turn to Chapter 7.3 on page 49 of Volume 1 of the Document, you will read of some of the difficulties that the railways have been going through since the 1950s. I quote:
" Since the early 1950s the railways have experienced successive financial crises and been rescued by successive subventions from the taxpayer. There has been policy review after policy review; the Beeching Report, the Railway Policy Review of 1967 and latterly the 1973 Review. All have failed to provide a stable financial framework for this important national asset."
Each of us this afternoon has tried desperately to find an answer or to query the Document to prove that something can be rescued from the dangers apparent in our transport system. The problems go on and continue year by year. Now we are at the crossroads. Passenger and freight continues to suffer enormous losses. The Document says in Chapter 2.14 on Page 6:
"… since the 1950s despite revenue and capital grants and capital write-offs over the last twenty years totalling over £3,000m in current prices. Under the Railways Act 1974, following the breakdown of the financing system established under the Transport Act 1968, the Government gave financial support to the whole of the rail passenger system. The Act set aside a total of £1,500m for this purpose, which was intended to cover a period of five years."

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When that was dealt with in 1974, within a short period of time it was established that the money was not enough. Again, the Government had to step in with further subsidies. Reading on, one sees that the freight also now contributes a £17 million loss as well. The railways required in 1975 a subsidy of no less than £400 million.
Looking also at a further depressing and serious side; that is, the staff, one sees that in 1963 there were over 476,000 employees. Since then, of course, we have had the Beeching "axe" and stations have been closed, trains taken off and we are now down to just over 235,000 employees. I notice from the Document that the railways are seriously considering further redundancies in staffing. Wages and salaries account for more than two-thirds of the cost of operating the railways. That is only one part of what we are looking at. There is the cost of inflation; the cost of raw materials; the cost of oil, and so it goes on.
My Lords, we can easily understand why the staff are so demoralised. The demoralisation affects only the drivers, signalmen and the people who actually operate the railways as a whole and not, as I see it, the management. I certainly believe that there is overmanning in the offices with inexperienced young men and women who have not been there long
enough for them to have had a proper training. I believe that the staff who operate the trains, signals, lines and so on, fully realise that whatever they do—and they are very proud people—they are always combating the feeling that there are odd instructions coming from the offices. I believe that on the railways—which is the transport I always use—the management should be looked at thoroughly. To do so would encourage those who operate the trains.
On top of this depression we have the feeling that we cannot any longer send certain freight by rail and the industrialists or people who want to use the railways are being turned away. So we are looking at a very unhappy picture. I fully understand that no railway in Western Europe is in fact making a profit because of inflation and because the passengers, the public, request better services.
We are trying to keep the passengers on the railway, but with heavy increases in
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fares (and in 1975 they amounted to 50 per cent.) I do not believe anyone will be able to continue travelling by rail as in the past. I know that there are certain concessions to pensioners. Leaving that aside, there are the self-employed who have to use the trains and they are finding it increasingly expensive for them. By increasing the fares, you are driving people on to the bus services. Fares cannot be reduced, but I feel that they could be frozen for a period so that the travelling public regain confidence in what they are paying for when they travel by rail.
Unfortunately, against my argument page 54, paragraph 7.33, states:
" In the present situation then, further increases in fares must form part of a long-term strategy."
We had a 50 per cent. fares increase in 1975; we are probably going to have further increases towards the end of this year. Are we really going to have increases annually? That is defeating the object and the public are not going to continue to travel by train.
The Document is interesting, giving varied information over a large area. I doubt whether any of us have been able to take it all in immediately. On page 2, at paragraph 1.11, it says that the idea of the Document is simply:
" to stimulate discussion, not define hard and fast solutions".
I do not think we have the time just to stimulate conversation or discussion; this year we must get down to a proper solution for the next 10 to 15 years. We cannot go on as we are. The Document goes on to say:
" The Government now seek the views of interested parties and (just as important) the interested public on the facts and ideas set out in this document".
I go partly with the idea that the public should have its say. It will take the area managers a great deal of time to sift through some of the arguments put forward by the public. My Lords, is there any one of us in this Chamber who could really say, "I have my train; I am not interested in your train"? But some of the public selfishly—if I may say so—worry only about the train they want and not about anybody else.
I know that on the Western Region they are now adjusting the timetable for the high-speed trains. This year, high-speed trains from Paddington to Bristol will run

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at a speed of 125 mph. I am given to understand that at the moment they are only being tested; they are not at their full pace. The timetables which are being brought out at the moment are designed so that the 125 mph high speed train can travel at that speed without crashing into the back of an ordinary express train travelling at 70 mph. The public do not realise this at the moment.
I understand that we are to change over to the way lines are used on the Continent. In other words, a train will he able to move to another track to overtake. If the Government or the railways want to ask the public to voice its opinion, I suggest that they get the best public relations lecturer to go round the areas to describe the technical difficulties that would arise if the public were allowed to have its complete say in running the railways. In any case, I feel that this Document should be explained by a lecturer, who should go to the women's institutes, visit stations, junction stations, and so on, to describe what is really going on. At the moment, even in my area nobody seems to know how long a station will remain open or what is going to happen. I know that the noble Baroness has to attend a further engagement and so I will not speak for too long, but I felt that the rural areas needed mentioning.
At this rate we are becoming increasingly isolated, and I notice in the Document that licensing for buses was to be reviewed again. I think we need this restriction eased, so that more buses can take over where trains are taken off. There is little we can offer on the financial side. Trains are running at a loss of something like £500 million a year. We have to encourage the Board to inspire the men to work harder and enjoy their work. I am sure there could be ways other than just bringing in subsidies from central or local government to help the railways, and using those subsidies to keep the railways going. My Lords, I am cutting short my speech in order that we do not stay too long this evening. I will conclude by saying that I think this is the first opening for us all to begin to understand the difficulties of transportation in this country.
7.1 p.m.
Viscount SIMON: My Lords, I apologise for addressing your Lordships
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without having put down my name to speak, and I apologise also to the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, because I was not in my seat to hear his speech. I hate to tell him that that was because the train I came here on was, quite exceptionally, 50 minutes late in arriving in London. I say "quite exceptionally" because I agree with the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, that we have a splendid railway service. I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, at all. Certainly in the West Country we have a splendid railway service, and it is very rare indeed that a train arrives late, as mine did today.
I promised the noble Baroness who is to reply that I should be short, and I can be short because I agree with almost everything the noble Lord, Lord Champion, said in his speech, and he put very much better than I could myself almost all the things I wanted to say. I find myself in almost complete agreement. I differed from him only on one very small matter, and I will just mention that. He was anxious that the concessionary fare arrangements should be the same all over the country. I understand his feeling about that, but, on the other hand, if the belief is that these things are better done by local or regional decision, there is no real meaning in regional democratic decisions if everybody has got to decide the same thing. This is one of the dilemmas we meet over the whole idea of regionalisation and devolution. If it is to be the real thing, there will be different conditions in different areas. Some regions may like to give free bus transport to elderly people, and so on, while others may like to give concessions in a different form or, indeed, very ill-advisedly, they may decide to give nothing at all. But if democracy is real, we must accept there will be different decisions in different places.
I should like to turn to one point which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Champion, and with which I very much agree. While it is right to seek for an integrated or co-ordinated transport policy, that is quite different from an integrated transport system. The latter, as the noble Lord said, is something that is really not attainable. Indeed, even if we could attain it, I am not sure that it would be desirable.
A number of speakers, and especially the noble Baroness, Lady Berkeley, have

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referred to the problems of rural transport. This seems to be one of the most difficult areas to be tackled in this whole subject. Unless I misheard him, the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, seemed to be saying he thought it was quite easy to solve this problem. I must confess, if that is so, I wonder why the previous Conservative Government did not do something about it when in office. Quite frankly, I think it is a difficult subject. The noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, said that cars were essential in rural areas, but it appears from these reports that one-third of families in rural areas do not own cars and have to manage without. This is something which must be tackled, probably again locally, because the right solution for one place may not necessarily be the right solution for another.
The noble Lord, Lord Champion, referred to rural Wales, to which subject we shall be returning on Thursday. What he said is true of many other rural areas in this country, including Devonshire, which I know well. I have sometimes wondered whether some difficulties could be overcome—although this is perhaps going a little wide of the mark—by arranging for some of the social services to go, as it were, on circuit. Instead of sitting in the towns, they might perhaps go out to the villages one day a month, rather than requiring people from the villages to travel 30 or 40 miles into the towns.
I am endeavouring to be brief so as to help the noble Baroness. I was interested in the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, that in certain conditions season tickets might be subject to tax rebate. I do not know whether the noble Lord was in his place when the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill of the Maine, spoke, but I would suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, that such a system would benefit the better off more than the poor. I understood from the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill of the Maine, that this was something the Conservative Party thought was wrong.
Finally, I want, rather boldly, to differ from the noble Lords, Lord Sainsbury and Lord O'Neill of the Maine, over the suggestion that this is a matter not for experts but for the ordinary man in the street. I venture to disagree completely with that. The problems involved in
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transport are exceptionally difficult to solve. Of course, because they have an immediate impact upon us we all think we know the answers; but in fact this is an area in which the answers must be found by people with a deep knowledge of the operation of different kinds of transport, both railways and road. Therefore, while no doubt all the people who want to express their views will express them to the Government in reply to the suggestions made in these documents, I hope the Government will listen to them but will listen much more to the experts, because these are the only people who will find the right solution to this problem.
7.7 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk): My Lords, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote:
" It is hatter to travel… than to arrive".
I have often felt that, but certainly this evening I feel rather pleased that we are now getting towards the end of what has been an extremely interesting and, I think, extremely valuable debate which has been initiated by my noble friend Lord Popplewell. It is the first occasion since the publication of the Consultation Document on Transport Policy that it has been debated in Parliament. I welcome the debate, because it has been of great interest to us all, and not only to me, to hear the views of your Lordships. I can assure my noble friend Lord Popplewell that the Government will be resilient and listen to the arguments advanced. There is no rigidity at all injected into this operation.
I do not think anyone will expect me to answer all the points, or indeed any of them, since they are now part of the consultation process. What has happened —it has been absolutely fascinating—is that we have had this debate and now there will be a total of some 14 points of view covering a vast number of subjects going right through the whole Consultation Document. These will be fed into the whole consultation machinery by way of the record in Hansard tomorrow morning. We have heard from my noble friend Lord Pitt that his references to London were just a trailer to the submissions the GLC will later be making to the Government.

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I was also delighted to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, is prepared to answer any of the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, so I can leave that over there.
At this stage, the Government are asking the questions rather than answering them. That is why it is a consultation paper dealing with what I like to call the crucial Ps of transport—problems, priorities, planning, participation and preferences. All of these have been raised in one form or another this afternoon. The noble Lord. Lord Mowbray, has now rejoined us and I should like to say to him that my first choice for the cover was a bright, cheerful lettuce green. But the argument against that was that the Government were so anxious that it should not be felt that this was a Green Paper in the formal sense with a policy laid down to discuss, but was something thrown open to discussion, that I got my second choice of tangerine.
What we arc trying to do, at a time when transport is quite literally on the move, is to marry two themes—the economic, social and environmental needs of society, with people's preferences. I believe that choice is a basic tenet of democracy, so how far in a democracy should people be forced to send goods by rail, or to use passenger trains, or to forget about their cars, regardless of cost or convenience or their own idiosyncrasies? The hard fact is that the scope for transferring freight from road to rail or waterway is limited, and we have heard this argument backwards and forwards across the Chamber this afternoon. But as the economy picks up there will be more goods to be carried by rail and road. We expect car ownership to increase, and those who try to go by car from door to door should not try to pull the ladder up behind them.
On the other hand, I can see very clearly the problems that arise. Those of us who live in London, or any of the other big cities, are very conscious of the congestion whether driving ourselves or being passengers, and I have sympathy with what my noble friend Lady Gaitskell said on this matter. However, my noble friend Lord Sainsbury and the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, both put the other side of the picture and spoke about the important part which the private car has to play in industry today. It is perfectly true, particularly when one gets outside
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London, that so many workers—and here I am not referring only to management or employers—are dependent on their cars for getting to work, and finding this very sensitive and delicate balance is what part of the discussion is about. How far could or should personal preferences be overridden for the social and economic good? I think your Lordships will agree that we should live in a fantasy world if we ignored the difficult questions and the distasteful facts of contemporary economic life.
But the Consultation Document, rightly, does not evade them. It supports a transport system based on a managed market with significant Government intervention, which will guide rather than compel transport users. Our object is to secure a transport system that meets social as well as purely commercial objectives, and takes account of the growing concern for the environment and the quality of life. Therefore, it is vital to have a transport industry which is both efficient and cost-effective, and which also provides a flexible service which is responsive to changing social needs and allows the consumer a choice.
As has been recognised by almost every speaker, one of the basic problems is that our resources are not unlimited and this is particularly acute at the present time. Two very significant paragraphs in the introduction set the scene. Between 1968/69 and 1975/76, transport subsidies more than doubled and public transport investment increased by 50 per cent. Yet overshadowing everything is the present public expenditure situation, and the Document reiterates the Government's decision expressed in this year's White Paper that higher priority must be given to expenditure designed to maintain and improve our industrial capability. The noble Lord, Lord O'Neill of the Maine, seemed to find this rather amusing as he equated it with Tory policy. It means a painful reappraisal of the priority for transport. I do not always know quite how painful the Tories find this kind of social reappraisal. Certainly, we on these Benches lead the way in that area, because it is very much more difficult to try to sort out these extremely intricate problems and achieve our economic ends, when one is also trying to do the compassionate, concerned and socially most beneficial thing.

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The Government have not only to plan our priorities in the short and middle terms within the current financial straitjacket but also to keep within range the longer term where we have to plan ahead. So we have not made any short-term panic cuts in investment which would prejudice the future. Public spending on transport, currently £2,400 million at real prices, is at a record level and it is something of which we ought not to be ashamed or even be modest about. Even by 1979/80, expenditure will be £2,000 million in real terms which is a lot of money. The trouble is that transport's share of the national cake cannot be increased, unless the resources to do this are cut from other equally essential slices of priorities. But which ones? This is always the rub.
Within the global budget there is, however, scope for reallocation, and this Government have already gone some considerable way in changing the spending pattern of transport. Less is being spent on roads and more on public transport, and I think my noble friend Lord Pitt referred to this when he discussed the problems of London. It is easy to argue that we should stop building roads and spend the money on the railways; or, alternatively, abandon the railways and concentrate on buses which, of course, need roads. Yet, as the TUC say, road versus rail is a barren argument. So if I may say so, the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, was wrong when he said he felt that the Government were very biased against the railways.
Money is not the only problem. Implicit in the Consultation Document is the limit on short-term dramatic changes that can be made. We are tied not only by our geography: "If I were going there, I wouldn't start from here", as the Irishman is supposed to have said in answer to a lost motorist. That is how I feel about our transport system. If we could wipe our island clean, tailor railways and terminals to our society, and put roads where they fulfil functional and environmental requirements, the whole system would be more responsive to our economy and social needs; and that, I am sure, is the transport system we deserve. But life is not like that. Our major cities, industrial areas and transport networks are fixed, and it is this which makes our transport system so heavily dependent upon roads.
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To get our priorities and planning right for an integrated transport system—and I very much liked the distinction which my noble friend Lord Champion made between an integrated system and a coordinated approach, which it is very important to bear in mind—the big three policy determinants are vital. These are economic policy, social policy and environmental policy—the main themes which constantly run through the Government's review. We are pledged to maintain and develop the basic transport network for people and industry for their work and leisure. Many people, as has been pointed out, have no cars. In fact, 45 per cent. of households do not own a car, and even in car-owning households many people never have the use of one when they need it, or are either too sick or disabled to drive. As has been said by many speakers, they are dependent on public transport, and hopefully on adequate public transport services, with costs kept as low as possible so that fare increases can be kept down. This is essential.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness whether she is certain of the figures that she has just given? I think I am right in saying that the figure I was given showed that in cities the ownership of cars per family was 55 per cent., and in the country 70 per cent. Therefore, the noble Baroness's figure of 45 per cent. overall seems, on the face of it, to contradict that.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I understand that this is the correct overall figure. In one place the Document refers to "rural areas" and in another to "other areas". Also there is a difference between households. I am assured that the nearest to correct figure which I can give is the one that I am using. It is 45 per cent. of households.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, is it not, therefore, 45 per cent. per head?
Baroness BIRK: No, my Lords, 45 per cent. of households do not own a car. It is not 45 per cent. per head. I said that many people within car-owning households do not always have the use of a car when they need it, or may be unable to drive one.

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In spite of alarmist reports—and one of the most unfortunate and dangerous appeared in the Daily Telegraph of 5th May—the Government have no plans for railway line closures. While some closures may prove necessary we see no case for substantial, certainly not massive, changes in our present rail network, and it would be a great pity if alarmist reports like these got around and worried people unnecessarily.
Lord POPPLEWELL: My Lords, if that is so, will my noble friend explain how she expects the railways to be more solvent financially unless branch lines are closed or there is a very steep increase in fares. That article in the Daily Telegraph, which all of us saw, pointed to astronomical branch line closures and has created quite an amount of concern.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, the reason why I mentioned it was the unnecessary concern. Perhaps my noble friend will allow me to continue, since I shall be discussing the question of subsidy. In the long term we have to be prepared for some increases in fares. However, I am referring to the almost panic reaction to large railway line closures, which, following the discussions and talks about it, is entirely different from finding the best co-ordinated system and the best integrated approach.
The plain fact is that the overall quality of railway services is not declining. In fact, there have been very significant improvements in recent years. My noble friend Lord Popplewell mentioned one of these improvements. In addition, there has been the rebuilding of Blackfriars and London Bridge stations, the Great Northern Suburban Electrification Scheme, the new rolling stock for the Liverpool Street-Shenfield service and the work being done on Merseyside on the Loop and Link.
Both we and the Board wish that wholesale and immediate improvements could be made, but we simply cannot afford to allocate the very substantial additional resources needed to make across-the-board improvements at once. Despite recent economies, subsidies to the railways in 1976–1977 will take about two-thirds of the total subsidy available to inland transport. British Rail investment,
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currently running at a higher level than at any time since the mid-1960s, will amount to some £260 million. This represents over 20 per cent. of public investment in surface transport and is spent on a network of 11,300 miles carrying about 8 per cent. passenger movement and 18 per cent. freight, compared with 200,000 miles of road. I think that my noble friend Lord Champion was absolutely right when he referred to the need for increased productivity. Again, this is one of the features which should eventually improve the viability of the railways.
Outside London, however, especially in rural areas, public transport generally means the bus. Twenty per cent. of all journeys to work arc by bus; 40 per cent. of all journeys to school; and 25 per cent. of all shopping trips. In many areas there have unfortunately been substantial increases in bus fares recently, but bus operators' costs, like other costs, have been rising and can be met only by higher fares or higher public subsidy. Yet the current provision for bus revenue support at the end of the decade is still three times the amount spent in 1973–74 in real terms, and any further increase now means transport cuts elsewhere. This is part of the answer to one of the many valid points which were made by the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton. Public transport, being highly labour intensive, is getting more expensive. If, therefore, we are to get value for money, subsidy must go to areas of greatest need. It has to be more specifically directed rather than open-ended and general. The noble Viscount, Lord Long, suggested the freezing of fares, but I would point out to him that the only way to freeze fares while costs continue to rise is to pay a bigger subsidy. Then the question arises; where does the extra subsidy come from? Does it come from housing, hospitals, or schools? I am afraid that we are in this awful circle, unless a way is found to break out of it; and that is the object of this very intensive exercise.
Our social policy, therefore, must be to concentrate Government help where it is both most needed and most effective. An example of this is the concessionary fares, which again my noble friend Lord Champion highlighted. We spent £60

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million last year on concessionary fares, and also on Inner London commuter services and buses in rural areas which are the other high priorities. The transport drought in rural areas which has been referred to by most noble Lords is why we are looking at possibilities for experiment. Although there will be concern on the one side, or enthusiasm, as expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, and the noble Viscount, Lord Long, for relaxing bus licensing, both the concern and the enthusiasm are understandable. We have no intention, however, whatever happens, of letting in cowboy bus operators.
If the impression is that the Government believe that all commuters in London and the South-East are rich, this is totally wrong. The noble Baroness, Lady Berkeley, feels that the Government are biased against commuters, but I should like to put straight her misapprehension. In general, the statistics show that people in the high income groups use the railways most for work and business and that the less well-off use trains less frequently. This means that blanket subsidies on fares go relatively more to the better off, although the less well-off commuters also benefit. All commuters benefit to some extent from the Government subsidy and many London workers living outside London receive London allowances. The noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, was quite right when she stressed the number of special offers and concessions that the railways make for day trips and weekend and other travel. This does not mean that there are no cases of hardship.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, the noble Baroness used emotively insulting words by referring to "cowboy" operators. However, since she used those words she has confirmed that the Government give concessions, quite rightly, to commuters where they can. To use this insulting word "cowboy" in connection with licences is, with great respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, insulting. The freedom to make licences easier for minibus operators should not be denigrated in this fashion.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I think the noble Lord is getting excited quite unnecessarily. What I said was that, on the one hand, there was some enthusiasm for
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relaxing bus licensing but there was also concern on the part of other people. My words were, "the transport drought in rural areas is why we are looking at the possibilities for this experiment". If we thought that the experiment was in the terms in which the noble Lord described it we should not be looking at it at all. All I am saying is that one has to be cautious in this area—whatever I say the noble Lord will take offence, I suppose—and not allow the very slick pirates to operate. Perhaps "pirates" is a better word than cowboys". I am not a cowboy, but I do not think that "cowboy" is an insulting word either. If I were a cowboy I should feel very insulted at what the noble Lord said.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, "cowboys" and "pirates" presume profit and there is no great profit in this exercise.
Baroness BIRK: Really, my Lords, I think we have had this rather silly little argument long enough. All it means is that when one is making this sort of relaxation one has to have some conditions and work it out very carefully. That is all. All that the noble Lord has said has only made me feel more strongly that we should take some care about it. To return to the general point of subsidies, does it really make sense to use the blunt instrument of subsidising everyone, including the well-off, to help families on low incomes? This is the problem we are coming to, because there are other ways of doing this. Yet I am sure that currently it is socially right to continue to give priority to those rural areas where subsidies are needed to keep services for men and women wholly dependent on the bus to meet their transport needs. I think that was the point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Simon.
There has been a halving in rail manpower since 1963. It has dropped from 476,000 to 230,000 and any further progress must be in full consultation between management and unions. I think we should congratulate the rail unions on the efforts they have made over the past ten years. When the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, makes some strictures on the railwaymen I think he should remember what in fact they have voluntarily done over these last ten years.
One of the high social priorities which I do not think has been mentioned today is safety. Nothing must be done to impair

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safety on rail. We have already made progress in cutting down road accidents, although I agree with the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, that there is a great deal more to he done in connection with road behaviour. Seat belt legislation will help even further in the area of safety and, as we all know, there is the new report by the Blennerhassett Committee on drinking and driving. On this there will be separate consultations before a Government Statement is made later in the year.
We are concerned not only with finance and efficiency but with the quality of life where transport is an essential factor. The heavy lorry—which has received a fair bashing this afternoon—is being civilised by cutting down noise and fumes and providing lorry routes. More attention is being paid to the visual impact of roads by better design and landscaping. I think the interest that people are showing and the number of complaints about these matters are extremely good, and it is inspiring for our society that they want the environmental issues taken into account with all the other factors that make up our transport. Traffic congestion is a blight on urban life, and the Document outlines possible measures to deal with this, including restraints on parking and the many other points which are set out in the paper.
The advocates of severe cuts in road building often forget that many schemes achieve environmental objectives. For example, by-passing historic towns. The point may come—indeed, it may already have come—when further cuts in road expenditure would be counter-productive even in the limited environmental context —I see that the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, is friends again because there is a smile on his face. Railways are not unequivocally better in environmental terms. I think we are sometimes inclined to feel that there is the straight alternative, but this would be rather simplistic. Building private sidings is sometimes opposed for environmental reasons and railway termini are often awkwardly sited in town centres, which again adds to the congestion, noise and general frustration when goods have to be collected by lorries travelling down narrow urban streets.
The Document has been attacked for suggesting that heavy lorries might be
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made to pay for the environmental damage they cause. The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, has suggested that we are being unfair to the freight industry. This is a point that probably comes more under the economic considerations of road resources than perhaps the environmental or even social. Increased freight costs will make the goods we buy in the shops more expensive, but like so many other transport issues and those mentioned by my noble friend Lord Sainsbury, it concerns all three considerations: economic, social and of road resources than environmental. None has absolute priority. What we must do is to bring together all these aspects. Some have suggested a national transport authority.but there are powerful arguments in the Document against transferring —and I think this is the most powerful—to a non-elected body like an authority or agency sensitive to major decisions affecting transport policy.
We do want to hear views on how to establish a proper framework for the co-ordination of transport policy nationally and locally. Our proposals for the NTC are set out in the concluding chapter of the Document, where not only its role as a high level forum, on which wide areas of interests would be represented, is outlined but also the range of its work. I think I am right in saying that it was the noble Lord, Lord O'Neill of the Maine, who said that the Government had come to a decision about this—or perhaps it was the noble Viscount, Lord Long. In fact if he reads the actual words referring to the National Transport Council—
Lord O'NEILL of the MAINE: My Lords, if the noble Baroness will give way for a moment, what I said was that this seemed to me to be the most important proposal in the Document. Both the noble Lord, Lord Pitt of Hampstead, and I asked what this body would do, and I expressed the hope that it would not be a talking shop.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I think it must have been the noble Viscount, Lord Long, who referred to it as well. The point I was making was that the Government proposed to discuss with those concerned the formation of the

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Council. This was in reply to a comment to the effect that it was already cut and dried, and I wanted to stress most emphatically that this is not so. We certainly do not see it as a talking body but as a working body. But when submissions are put in and opinions given, the Government hope that on this particular issue views will be given. I hope that the door is not shut on this, either.
My noble friend Lord Sainsbury is quite right in pointing out that the Document as published does not make a point of the relationship between transport and land use planning. I think we agree now that this should probably have been mentioned in the Document. The theme will be developed during consultations and many organisations and institutes will probably deal with it in their comments. It is of course a basic theme that the Department of the Environment has been pursuing in its structure planning, transport policy and programmes and in regional planning. In fact, it is an essential dimension in DOE policy, and I can assure my noble friend that we will see that it is covered in the Statement that is issued after the consultation period after the Recess.
Finally, having published the Consultation Document, our major concern is to get views on it. It has been criticised for not making up its mind, for being long on questions and short on answers and also for pre-empting decisions. In fact, what it has done is to set out the options, giving a lead where restraints on resources or facts justify it, but reserving decisions until after the consultation period.
The Secretary of State has extended the consultation period to the end of July, and this allows more time for the internal processes which many organisations will have to go through before giving their considered comments. This is why, as we expected, we have not had comments from many of the major organisations up to the time of this debate. However, we have had a number of letters from individuals, and the majority of them so far indicate concern about the area of public transport, both the facilities, as your Lordships might imagine, and fares. I hope we are to receive comments from sources even if they have not yet been specifically consulted;
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I hope they will write in themselves. I also hope that amenity groups of a wide conservation and environmental range will join in the big debate, and also those statutory and voluntary groups who cover the special human needs, and with whom so many Members of this House are associated. We also want more letters from individuals.
Ministers will be meeting personally the major organisations and industries at the stage that the bodies themselves find most useful. These will be in addition to a heavy programme of meetings at official level. The predominant reaction in Parliament, Press and the transport world has been that the Consultation Document is realistic in its analysis, has set out most of the salient facts, some of them unpalatable, hut that, in going reasonably enough for an evenhanded and balanced approach, it did not announce conclusions and decisions. I think this is not too bad for a start. Those who rightly press for greater co-ordination and integration at central and local level should not criticise the Government for not imposing their own prescription.
It is still early days, but the initial reactions show concern about the future of public transport and its cost. These views, along with points made in today's debate, and other comments which will come in during the consultation process, will be taken into account in preparing for the Statement which the Government have promised after the Recess. Then, no doubt, we shall have a further debate, and no doubt we shall hear many of the noble Lords who have spoken today, including, I hope, my noble friend Lord Popplewell.
7.42 p.m.
Lord POPPLEWELL: My Lords, we have had an extremely useful debate, and I am sure my noble friend Lady Birk and her colleagues will read very attentively in Hansard the observations made today, because I am sure they will form the basis of many other observations coming from more powerful bodies who are interested. With that, I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate, and I ask permission to withdraw the Motion
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.