Orders of the Day — Clause 5. — (The Executives.)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 29 April 1947.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Selwyn Lloyd Mr Selwyn Lloyd , Wirral 12:00, 29 April 1947

According to Subsection (4) of this Clause, the Executives are to be the agents of the Commission in the exercise of such functions as the Commission shall delegate to them. If they are the Commission's agents, why should not the Commission have the initiative with regard to their number and their names? In Clause 4, for example, provision is made for the Minister, after consultation with the Commission, to do certain things, and then it is laid down that the Commission shall act on certain lines which will be settled from time to time with the approval of the Minister. It is apparently vital that in the number and the names of the Executives the Minister shall have a say, but there is no provision for consultation. We are entitled to ask why should that be so? Apparently the Socialist Government are prepared to create these huge public corporations to carry out these functions and at the same time they are scared stiff of them.

We say that if the Government are going to destroy enterprise and initiative in this way by setting up a Commission to carry out these various transport functions, we should at least try to save something from the wreck and give the Commission which are to do the job some independence, some initiative, some chance of being master in their own house, and in that way give them the second best, that is, some chance of feeling that they are responsible for carrying out their job. It would appear that the Government are frightened of the Commission and are determined to hedge them round with all sorts of restrictions and regulations, and are quite unwilling to give them independence in any real sense of the term. We are entitled to know why they do that, and to submit that the Amendment which has been moved by my right hon. Friend is a substantial improvement to a very bad Bill.