British Transport Commission (Annual Report)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 29 July 1959.

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Photo of Sir Richard Nugent Sir Richard Nugent , Guildford 12:00, 29 July 1959

It does not surprise me that I get objections from hon. Members opposite, because, naturally, this is not welcome to them, but I am certain that if the Labour Government had been able to raise the rate of capital expenditure and financial provision for the railways even to half the present rate of spending that there would have been paeans of praise by hon. Members opposite for what they were doing for the railways—paeans of praise for themselves. Now that we are doing it, we get this crabbing from them and a thoroughly dog-in-the-manger attitude.

I recognise that a horse coming out of their stable with "Transport House" over the door has a natural jealousy for his tradition as champion of the "Railway Stakes". But he cuts an undignified figure when he retires to the stable and sits in the manger. He certainly will not hold the championship in any stakes; in fact, he has probably lost it to us already.

The right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss), in his speech last December on the Second Reading of the Transport (Borrowing Powers) Bill, evidently seeking to minimise the importance of the massive financing of the modernisation scheme, said that any Government would have to go on providing the money for modernising the railways today. That is true only if the Government have the capital resources available. Hon. and right hon. Members opposite did not finance the modernisation of the railways in their day. I should imagine that it was because they did not have the financial resources available. It is useless to say that this is simply a matter of years. They governed according to their political beliefs and the result was that the nation's earning power was restricted. The nation's earning power has expanded in the last four years under good Tory Government. [An HON. MEMBER: "There was the war."] I am not aware of any war between 1948 and 1951.

The fact is that today the modernisa tion scheme is able to go forward because this Conservative Government has been following sound financial policies which have caused national earning power to grow so that capital formation could also grow. Therefore, there is more for the railways. The Opposition must not be allowed to obscure the magnitude of the achievement by the Government. The Opposition have decided to divide the House tonight—