Bus Operators, Road Hauliers and Ports and Docks Industries (Nationalisation)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 18 July 1967.

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Photo of Mr Michael Heseltine Mr Michael Heseltine , Tavistock 12:00, 18 July 1967

I am not suggesting anything of the sort. The traffic commissioners, after all, see that certain unprofitable routes are maintained by cross-fertilising them with profitable routes. But that is irrelevant to the argument. It is relevant to the argument only in this way, that if that sort of thing is going on now and the traffic commissioners can use that power now, why cannot they continue to do it without this elaborate P.T.A. legislation?

The next characteristic is the material way in which the memorandum that was published at the beginning of this year differs from the memorandum which has now been so ostentatiously leaked up and down the land. This is a very regrettable lapse on the Minister's part. As I understand it, the P.T.A.s will con- sist of a board which has two-thirds local authority nominees, depending on the rateable value of the authorities involved, and one-third Ministerial nominees. In the original consultations and in the debate that we had in this House it was made clear to the local authorities that they were going to have control of the C.T.A.s, as they were then, and now the P.T.A.s.

I should like to quote from the OFFICIAL REPORT. This is what the Minister of Transport said: It is because I believe that this integration"— referring to the P.T.A.s— must be geared to local needs that I prefer to give the job to transportation authorities, controlled by local people, rather than to nationalised area boards;"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd February, 1967; Vol. 741, c. 1737.] It cannot be spelled out more clearly than that—"controlled by local people".

What happens? They get one-third Ministerial nominees, a chairman who is to be appointed by the Minister, two-thirds local authority nominees every one of whom can be objected to by the Minister and replaced by the Minister if she does not agree with the nominees put forward by the local authorities. Does that statement bear any relationship at all to what the Minister said in February of this year? Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary can explain how he ties up the two sets of circumstances.

I ask hon. Members opposite to bear this point in mind, because we are in the difficult situation of being an Opposition today. Hon. Members opposite enjoy a substantial majority. But the time will come when there are substantial Labour majorities in these conurbation transport authorities, in the way that there are substantial Conservative majorities at present. Will they take kindly to the sort of difficulties in which our party finds itself, where 70 per cent. of the local authority representatives can find themselves outvoted by 30 per cent.? Is that the sort of situation which their faith in democracy encourages them to believe in? I do not believe they would have let us get away with it during the 13 years when we were in power. There would have been a great baying of the hounds, and I believe that I would have bayed with them.

Times will change, and hon. Members opposite will be lumbered with the situation in which local authorities which they control will not have power because the system was rigged, not by the Front Bench of this side of the House but by the Front Bench opposite.