Orders of the Day — Ports Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 9:25 pm on 28 January 1991.

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Photo of Joan Walley Joan Walley Shadow Spokesperson (Transport) 9:25, 28 January 1991

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden) admirably illustrated the detailed concerns of Opposition Members about the ports industry and how it should fit into an integrated transport system. I have not heard Conservative Members express the same detailed concerns this evening.

Until now we have been forced to debate the merits of privatising trust ports in respect of particular ports—Clyde and Tees and Hartlepool. We discussed their privatisation under the pretext that it was private business. Yet throughout those debates Opposition Members knew that the private Bills were really Government measures introduced in response to Government pressure.

If there is still any doubt about that, we need look back no further than the Committee proceedings of the Finance Bill last year. Government amendments made it clear that the new private legislation would be out of the question unless it was accompanied by changes in the financial arrangements. The amendments passed assured the Government of receiving half the proceeds from the sale of the assets which, until then, were assumed to belong to local interests and the local community which had built up and developed the local trust ports undertakings, albeit with some grant from Government many years ago.

Only when the Treasury had spotted the pots of gold of which we have heard this evening did the Government make time for what had until then masqueraded as private Bills to be converted into a public Bill. Now at last we have the opportunity to debate the underlying principles of trust port privatisation. The comments by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) at the beginning of the debate underlined the fact that no real case has been made for privatising trust ports.

There will be time in Committee for the Opposition to oppose this privatisation measure. The time that will be available compares well with the limited amount of time in Committee on the two private Bills. Procedural problems thwarted real debate. Presumably the many Conservative Members who have spoken tonight will ask to serve on the Committee. Perhaps they will join the Opposition in tabling some amendments. It seems that a majority of those who have spoken favour the proposals that we suggest rather than this blatant privatisation measure.