BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION BILL (By Order)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 17 February 1959.

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Photo of Sir Isaac Pitman Sir Isaac Pitman , Bath 12:00, 17 February 1959

It is very hard to catch him up at all. I was present at the meeting upstairs, and I support the right hon. Member for Belper, whose union, I believe, was represented, and put the case quite fairly for order and discipline. It was perfectly clear to everybody there that the present system is made to work only because the non-privileged drivers are propping up the deficiences of the existing system. Such non-privileged drivers needed to make their money, and they were prepared to turn out when the other men, having made their money, were not really pulling their weight in the dark hours of the night. I would say that, clearly, in principle, a system which enables somebody to pay money for the privilege of creaming the market must inherently be wrong, and that the onus of proof is on it to show that it is the right way of doing it, and not the other way round.

Secondly, I would say that one thing that has come out clearly is that these consultative committees are eyewash. They are there to justify that which is administratively convenient for the boards, or whatever it is, that are put up. [HON. MEMBERS:"NO."] The whole approach of these consultative committees, and the hon. Lady the Member for Leeds, South-East (Miss Bacon) has mentioned the Yorkshire Consultative Committee, has been to "pooh-pooh" this right from the very beginning.

I have seen for myself the information which was laid before the consultative committee at Oxford and rejected. The taxi-drivers there went to the long queues and saw people who had been waiting for over an hour. Those people wrote their evidence, it was sent to the consultative committee, who turned it down out of hand, saying that it was solicited. How can a consultative committee get information about how the public really feels except from market research? The committee is failing in its duty if the members sit on their chairs and merely expect the public to write in to them if they have anything to say. That is not the way the public behave, and a consultative committee should know this.

We hope that the Minister will do something to provide a well-ordered system which is not based upon privilege.