Commons lifts LTE restrictions
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• One of the last acts of the Commons before rising for the summer recess was to remove the restrictions on bus services and manufacturing powers imposed on London Transport by the House of Lords. Both curbs had been imposed by Upper House amendments to the Transport (London) Bill (CM July 18 and 251—decisions reversed by the Commons.
Mr. Bob Brown, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, said the limitation of regular bus and contract carriage services to Greater London—other than in exceptional circumstances—was quite unacceptable. Its effect would be to place on the LTE restrictions which at the moment applied neither to the PTEs nor to local authority operators under the terms of the 1968 Act.
As a matter of basic principle it had to be resisted on the ground that the LTE had a duty, in the light of the policy guidelines laid down by the GLC, to provide such services as were required to meet the needs of Greater London. This duty could not be discharged by an unrealistic limitation on its commercial and operating freedom.
Mr. Brown also opposed the Lords amendment which placed on the LTE an obligation to act as if it were a company engaged in a commercial enterprise when exercising its manufacturing powers. The Government accepted that some further safeguards should be applied to ensure that the Executive did not compete unfairly, but felt that the right course was to require the publication of financial results of this sort of trading by the Executive and also to lay this activity open to the possibility of Ministerial intervention For the Opposition, Mr. Michael Heseltine maintained that the Lords had been right, and that Mr. Brown had not given the Tories any reason to change their minds. But they would not vote against the Government.
When the Lords were told of what the Commons had done they did not insist on their amendments remaining in the Bill.