Wide Terms for Licensing Inquiry
Page 11
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FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
THE official inquiry into the road &III age licensing system, which is -to be undertaken by a committee under the chairmanship of Lord Geddes, has been given Virtually unlimited . terms • of re.fcrence and can thereforehe expected to take an exceptionally wide-ranging look at the whole subject. This is clear from " the terms which Mt. Marples, announcing on Tuesday that Lord Geddes would head the inquiry, revealed; he said the committee's job would be: "In the light of present day conditions, to examine -the operation and effects of the system of barriers' licences first introduced ' by the Road and Rail TrafficAct, 1933, and as subsequently modified by statute; and make recommendations", The Right Hon. Lord Geddes.
Although the Ministry hopes that the committee may start work soon, no date has been given because. I understand, invitations are stilt being sent out to potential members. When finally constituted the committee is expected to have about nine members. • " Lord Geddes, who was a member of the Committee on Consumer _Protection (the Moloney Committee) which reported last year, is 56 and holds an honorary
degree in engineering. Among other posts, he is a director of the peninsnlar and Oriental Steam -Navigation Co. (P. arid O.), a director of the Limmer Trinidad Lake Asphalt Co. Ltd. and deputy chairman of the British Travel and Holidays Association; He ii a Past 'president of the Institute of Petroleum and a member of the Admiralty Fuels and
Lubricants Advisory Committee. '
It can be assumed that the principal operator associations will be asked to give their detailed views to the committee; the Road "-Haulage. AssaCiation is in a slightlydifficult position in that the national council has. • yet . to approve. modify or reject the report ofits own
licensing . study group, while the T.R.T.A.'S licensing survey committee has already done a lot of Work in preparing the Association's case.The main point in any evidence it may give will be that complete freedom of choice must remain a fundamental right of the transport user.
The licensing system which the Geddes Committee is to examine was set up in 1933 following the report of a Royal Commission in 1929-31 and of the Salter Conference in 1932.