§ Mr. Gowerasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will make a statement about his efforts to increase the use of the dock facilities of the South Wales Bristol Channel ports, with particular reference to the ports of Barry and Cardiff, and to the progress of his negotiations and the steps being taken to equalise port and rail charges, including local arrangements for their apportionment and payment.
§ Mr. WatkinsonIt is for importers and exporters, in co-operation with shipowners, to choose the ports they use. It is not for me to influence them in favour of particular ports, but the British Transport Commission and local interests are doing what they can to encourage the use of the South Wales Bristol Channel ports. The Commission has carried out a number of improvements to these ports and others are in progress. In May of this year new works in hand and plant and equipment on order were valued at nearly £3.5 million. This included the electrification of the Commercial Graving Dock Pumping Station and No. 1 Power Station, Queen Alexandra Dock, Cardiff, and the provision of a new bulk cargo discharging berth at Barry.
The possibility of altering the present apportionment of dock charges between shipowners and shippers in the South Wales ports has been thoroughly 301W examined by experts of the Industrial Association of Wales and Monmouthshire, the British Liner Committee and the British Transport Commission. At a meeting on the 8th March last, which my Department arranged between the interests concerned to discuss this matter, the British Liner Committee undertook to inform the shipping lines of the Association's views, but made it clear that they could not commit the lines to any course of action and that the Association would themselves have to pursue the matter directly with the shipping conferences and lines concerned.
As regards the level of railway rates, the new procedure which came into force with the Rail Charges Scheme on 1st July will give the British Transport Commission greater freedom in fixing railway rates, and the Chairman of the Commission has said that it is the Commission's intention that no port or group of ports will be given an advantage over others as far as the Commission's transport charges are concerned.