Mr Albert Davies: In making his request for the publication of charges other than maximum charges, does the hon. and gallant Gentleman also make this request to those who do the work by road, asking them to accept a similar obligation in respect of the publication of charges? If not, what is his difficulty with the railways?
Mr Albert Davies: This is a very important point. The right hon. Gentleman refers to the monopoly value created by statute which will have to be taken into account when the sale occurs, but is it not a fact that the Commission have not been in a monopoly position over the last 12 months but have had competition and have been losing money to original permit holders and C hiring licence holders, and that they...
Mr Albert Davies: The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) sought to justify the proposals of the Government on the ground that it would not be necessary to provide any details about the bases, as was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies). But although there may be some latitude in granting licences to the Commission in the first place, surely they must...
Mr Albert Davies: That is a two-edged question. Neither I nor anyone else can say what number of vehicles the Commission will want to operate when the time comes. I imagine that they will want to operate the lot, but I do not know. Why should they be saddled with the responsibility, in three months' time, of committing themselves by having to apply for licences for every vehicle whether they want to use them...
Mr Albert Davies: The hon. Member has referred several times to a "monopoly." Is he quite correct in describing the undertakings of the Road Haulage Executive as a monopoly? Have there not been permanent holders of C hiring margin licences who have continued to operate, and who have in fact cut the rates of the Road Haulage Executive, and is it not to them that the Executive have lost traffics?
Mr Albert Davies: I rise to support the submissions made by my right hon. Friend. Our great anxiety is to make sure that in the political struggle which is going on over this matter the nation should not suffer. In our view, we have a first responsibility of ensuring that the economic life of the country is so regulated and conducted that it does not suffer from any kind of nonsense which might be introduced....
Mr Albert Davies: What we are anxious to conserve are good conditions for men in the industry. If the noble Lord is prepared at any price to unscramble this industry to suit his friends who, we believe, are the paymasters of the Tory Party, to the detriment of the country, that is not our view. We take the view that the acceptance of this Amendment might save us from the worse results. I hope that the...
Mr Albert Davies: Will that include the Potteries?
Mr Albert Davies: Why did the Government make such a slow start with their business after Christmas? Why did they send us away for seven weeks or so? Why was there all that time lost?
Mr Albert Davies: I am much obliged, Mr. Speaker, because the second Amendment really follows upon the first. The period of seven days is obviously much too short, even though there is the extension of the half an hour each day. If I may adapt a phrase used by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, South, it is not a question of the acreage—the number of pages which we have to get through. What...
Mr Albert Davies: None of us would attempt to defend using the time of this House in a flippant manner by way of filibustering to hold up the business of the House, but that is something very different from the proposition we are asked to consider today by the Leader of the House. Our main objection to this proposal is that here we are dealing with the problem of the reorganisation of the transport industry...
Mr Albert Davies: The Financial Secretary to the Treasury has explained that the Bill is needed in order to provide money for housing and other works by the local authorities. If the purpose of the Bill were as innocent as all that, none of us would have any objection to it, but during the course of the discussion which has taken place certain apprehensions were expressed which I will try to summarise. If new...
Mr Albert Davies: My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) does well to pose these questions this morning, because it will be within the recollection of many of us that when the Labour Party formed the Government of the day there was a very careful scrutiny, and rightly so, from the Opposition benches—in which the present Financial Secretary figured—of the intentions of the Government at...
Mr Albert Davies: We join with our colleagues in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd) on having brought up this subject for consideration tonight. Whatever the State does for the aged, there is a great field remaining for voluntary workers. Whatever our differences may be in political ideology, it will be a sad day when we believe that we can unload old people into some kind of...
Mr Albert Davies: On his argument, is the hon. Gentleman saying that the Commission ought to have had wider powers; that the Government ought to have given the Commission greater powers to get on with the job, which they apparently did not do?
Mr Albert Davies: The hon. Gentleman says that he has no objection to the Transport Bill in that it gives us competition, but in his particularly vulnerable constituency has he not asked for special consideration in terms of transport to these outposts of Scotland?
Mr Albert Davies: But the hon. Gentleman does not want free competition.
Mr Albert Davies: Is not the great snag of this argument that we want coal at a reasonable price; and that if, in some circumstances, we depress the South Wales coal production it will be bad for the nation as a whole? Is it not the fact that we provide electricity and other services, such as railway and transport services, when very often it is uneconomic to do so for the specific reason that we regard it as...
Mr Albert Davies: All right hon. and hon. Members in the House tonight will have listened with appreciation and with some sense of indebtedness to the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Sir A. Braithwaite). The hon. Member was not reluctant to pay due tribute to some of the men, and to some of my hon. Friends, who have contributed so magnificently to any success we may have achieved. Surely, we are all agreed that...
Mr Albert Davies: We are in some confusion here. Is the hon. and learned Gentleman telling us that the Trust, in circumstances where no ex-Service man wants possession of the house, has power to sell the house at a market price? The hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned that the houses were worth £1,500, and yet the Trust has no power—this is the purpose of the Bill, as I see it—to sell to ex-Service...