Page 17 in addition to such services, the railways ought, if they wish, to be able to provide both passenger and goods services by road in substitution for a branch line closed down to secure economy, and further that the Bill ought not to be so narrowly drawn as to prevent the railways from providing some small road service if it fitted the existing transport pattern for them to do so. The Bill, while placing no duty on the Commission to provide road services-Clause 22 (1) preserves their powers to carry goods and passengers by road-Clause 1 (4)—and enables them, with the consent of the Minister, to retain assets of the Road Haulage Executive if this is necessary to maintain the efficiency of other parts of their undertaking Clause 5 (3),
5. Before nationalisation the railway companies controlled, through share- holding, road goods transport undertakings, including Pickfords and Carter Patersons, Ltd., which owned some 3,500 vehicles. There are objections to the railways directly operating road goods transport. But just because the Road Haulage Executive's assets are being disposed of, there is no reason why the railways should not, if they wish, retain an interest in road goods transport to the same extent, and in the same way, as before nationalisation. A provision has, therefore, been included in the Bill-Clause 4-enabling assets of the Road Haulage Executive, which would otherwise have been offered for public sale as transport units, to be transferred by the Commission to companies promoted by them for that purpose. The vehicles so transferred would not exceed the equivalent in numbers, type and size of the vehicles held by railway-controlled road haulage undertakings before nationalisation.
The 25-Mile Limit
6. The Bill provides-Clause 7-that the 25-mile limit shall be abolished on a date to be appointed by the Minister. Clause 7 (2) (b) provides that this shall not be done before the Minister considers that there is no further reasonable prospect of the assets of the Road Haulage Executive being disposed of as operable units; thereafter they might be sold as chattels without the right to an "A" licence. The Committee have considered whether the Bill should not fix a date for the abolition of the 25-mile limit, but to do this would tempt buyers to hold off in the hope of buying more cheaply later, and would remove the power of the Minister to control the disposal process in the light of the circumstances. Our general view is that the Bill as drafted maintains the best possible balance.
Relaxation of the Licensing System
7. Clause 8 amends the grounds on which the licensing authorities are to grant or refuse carriers' licences, by permitting the authorities to take into account charges made for services. At present they can do this only if the charges are so high that the traffic does not pass at all. Further, under the present system it is for the applicant, when faced with objections from providers of existing services including the railways, to prove that those services are not adequate for the needs of trade and industry. Under the provisions in Clause 8, it will be for the objector to prove that the existing services are as good as, or better than, those which the applicant proposes to provide. As a sanction against hauliers who obtain a licence by undertaking to provide better or cheaper services and then do not live up to their promises subsection (3) of Clause 8 provides that, where such undertakings are not carried out, the licensing authority may revoke or suspend the licence.
The Transport Levy
8. This is dealt with in Clause 10 and the Second Schedule. In order that, in pursuance of the White Paper, vehicles engaged mainly on narrowly local delivery services should not be subject to the levy, the Second Schedule provides that this shall not be chargeable on goods vehicles, the unladen weight of which does not exceed 1 ton. Above that level, the levy is strictly proportional to the unladen weight of the vehicle. It had been suggested that a higher rate of levy might be charged on the heavier vehicles because of their disproportionately greater earning capacity. But this would unduly penalise the heavier vehicles because of their greater efficiency. On the Second Schedule as it stands, the scale for an initial levy of £4 million a year (as announced in the White Paper) will range from £3 7s. 6d. a vehicle to rather more than £30: over 90 per cent. of the vehicles subject to the levy will be assessed at less than £10 each.
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