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 Stephen Swingler Mr Stephen Swingler , Newcastle-under-Lyme 12:00, 18 July 1967

The discussions have been going on with local authority associations and others on a nation-wide scale. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have read the White Paper and will know, therefore, that the discussions concern the whole country.

A great part of the debate has been devoted to the working document published by the Government for the purpose of consultations on the nationalisation of our ports and docks. I am grateful for the speeches made by several of my hon. Friends, including the hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Roy Hughes), the hon. Member for Southampton, Test and my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), who have commended the document and made detailed comments on which they will receive replies later on. I emphasise that the document is put forward genuinely for the purpose of the consultations, and that these will be carried on over a considerable period.

I want now to deal with the speech of the hon. Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Ian Lloyd). I was surprised at the tenor of it. It appears that, whenever he speaks, he has to "knock" the Docks Board, I suppose for ideological reasons. Nevertheless, he put forward the proposition that he was in favour of unified control of the ports and that, as I understood it, he was in favour of centralising information—resource allocation, as he called it—but dispersing decision making. I made these notes from his speech.

If the hon. Gentleman has read the working document carefully, I cannot understand how he imagines that the principles which he wants to see developed in national port policy can be achieved without implementing the principle of public ownership. It appears to us that containerisation, which is the important thing today, makes public ownership not merely desirable, but imperative. Containerisation is having the effect of turning the port industry from a labour-intensive industry into a capital-intensive one, and we cannot afford to duplicate these expensive facilities all round our coasts.

If we try to do that, we shall burden industry with intolerable and unnecessary transport costs. It is, therefore, essential, on the hon. Gentleman's own argument, to have a strong central authority which will see that port investment serves the national interest rather than purely local interests.

During the debate an hon. Gentleman disclosed that he had not read the McKinsey Report. I think that the hon. Member for Langstone has read it, but he attempted to use the argument of the advances in containerisation and modern development in the United States as an argument against the proposal that public ownership was a necessary step to achieve the kind of planning that we want. I would like, therefore, to draw the attention of the hon. Gentleman, and of other hon. Members, to page 58 of the McKinsey Report, where it says: Port authorities face the same dilemma as ship operators—Either they must expand by providing new container facilities or experience progressive loss of general cargo trade to those that have—However, if many authorities decide to provide facilities, substantial over-capacity will result in this industry as well.As indicated, one container berth can replace up to 20 break-bulk berths…The problem is especially acute in countries like the United States where there is no national co-ordination of port investments.On the United States East Coast, most traditional general cargo ports are independently developing container facilities, only a few of which could handle the entire trade if fully utilised.On the West Coast, San Francisco and Oakland may shortly be developing facilities to compete for the same trade.