Transport

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 8 July 1964.

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Photo of Mr Philip Noel-Baker Mr Philip Noel-Baker , Derby South 12:00, 8 July 1964

Not quite. My lifetime has been rather long, but the population of the country was a little less than 40 million when I was born.

The second fact which the Minister had to face was one which he has mentioned today, namely that the number of our motor vehicles will repaidly increase. In 1948, 16 years ago, there were 3,500,000 such vehicles on the road; in 1964 there are 11,500,000; and in another 16 years, by 1980, there will be 22 million, double what we have now.

The third fact, which he mentioned himself this afternoon, is that, whatever party is in power, even the Conservative Party, the standard of living of the people will rise. The progress of science and engineering will see to that. The Government have set a target for the growth of the gross national product by 4 per cent. per year. At 4 per cent. per year, the output of wealth will have doubled by 1980. Personal incomes will have greatly risen and there will be far more personal travel than there is now. There will be 500 million to 600 million tons more goods to be transported from the factories to the users and from the factories to the ports.

With this prospect facing us in less than 20 years—the prospect of a vast increase in population and in the number of motor vehicles and the doubling of personal travel and the transport of freight—the Minister has proposed to close two-fifths of our railway system; to tear up the lines and to sell them for scrap; to close down many hundreds of stations and many hundreds of goods depôts; to cut off rail connections with the holiday towns and districts; and to cut out stopping trains. If that policy were pursued, all the vast new traffic, which the increase of population and G.N.P. will inevitably cause, will have to go by road, as well as a good deal of what in recent times has gone by rail. The Minister has the effrontery to call this the modernisation of our transport system.

Of course, it suits some people very well. It suits the big contractors who build the roads. It suits the hauliers. Above all, it suits the oil interests who seem to have so sinister a power with the present Government. But for the nation it spells disaster, disaster which cannot be averted simply by increasing the mileage of motorways. As Dr. Beeching has belatedly discovered, motorways cost a lot of money and involve the nation in all sorts of hidden costs which will inevitably mount in years to come.

Of course the railways need modernisation. They needed it desperately when they were taken over from private enterprise in 1947. In 1952, the British Transport Commission had made plans for many things which are still required today. Do hon. Members recall the Commission's protests against the Government's folly, protests made in its Report of 1952 when it said: The announcement of the Government's policy on transport … brought to a halt a number of schemes designed to produce a rationalised internal transport system. … In some minor directions it has still been possible to effect economies and promote efficiency by co-ordination … but the advancing prospect of realising major economies in this field disappeared so far as the carriage of goods was concerned, or has at best been very seriously constricted. The Commission said much the same about the carriage of passengers. Alas, the Commission's protests went unheeded. Its schemes, which would have revolutionised our transport system, were abandoned because of what we believe to be the unpatrioitic, doctrinaire hostility to public enterprise of Ministers and hon. Members opposite.

What should modernisation of the railways have meant since right hon. Gentlemen opposite came to power in 1951? I mention only a few salient points. There should have been a far larger and more ambitious provision of vehicles for what the Americans call the "piggy-backing" of goods—vehicles which take their loads from door to door but which do their long haul on rail; vehicles which could be driven on to a truck and driven off again, or which could have double wheels, one set for road and one for rail.