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'We can't be made to drive on the right' says Geoffrey Rippon
Page 34
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• Fears that Britain would be compelled to fall into line with EEC transport policy were expressed in the Commons last week by anti-Marketeers.
The Community's requirements in regard to motor vehicles had tended to take the form of directives, said Sir Derek Walker-Smith (Tory, Hertfordshire East), while Mr Peter Shore (Labour, Stepney) spoke of measures being introduced after only 14 hours' discussion in the Commons.
Mr Shore recalled the proposed changes in the maximum length and weight of heavy vehicles, and claimed that if the Community agreed on a directive it would be open to the Minister to legislate by Order in Council or by a Statutory Instrument.
The matter could be agreed by Ministers in Brussels and could be subject to 14 hours' discussion in the House of Commons.
Mr Anthony Wedgwood Benn (Labour, Bristol South East) was concerned about EEC policy on State aid to rail, road and water transport. He noted that the Treaty made it clear that State aid "which distorts or threatens to distort competition" should, in so far as it affected trade between Member States, be incompatible with the Common Market.
He did not want Britain to be bound by this, or by a 1965 decision by the Council of Ministers on State aid to rail, road and water transport.
Mr Benn pointed out that one 1965 decision was that "provisions governing the financial relations between railway undertakings and States shall be progressively harmonized".
This issue lay at the very heart of the present rail dispute under harmonization would it be open to a Minister to give a subsidy to the public sector to deal with a problem of this kind? Other sections of the same decision said that manning provisions for each mode of transport should be standardized and that provisions concerning working and rest periods should be harmonized.
Decisions of this kind had already been taken, would be applied and could not be changed without unanimity in some cases, said Mr Benn.
Mr John Biffern (Tory, Oswestry) said that the road haulage authorities had concluded that if the transport regulations of the Community were adopted it would disadvantage this country. He was fearful that unless Parliament possessed a continuing monitoring process it would abdicate responsibilities which rightly belonged there, and which should not be Mr Ernest Fernyhough (Labour, Jarrow) forecast that possibly within five years Britain would be told it had to drive on the right. It had been estimated that it would cost £.700m to change the signs and strengthen the roads. Less than 12 months ago the Commons had determined that vehicles of a certain size should not be permitted on our roads because they were not strong enough. But if there was to be co-ordination and we were to compete, they would come we would have to have vehicles as big as those in Europe.
The European Minister, Mr Geoffrey Rippon, told Mr Fernyhough that this country could not be made to drive on the right-hand side of the road.
Dealing with European regulations covering aid to transport undertakings, Mr Rippon said it would be invidious to single out State aids for exclusion from the restrictions on aid.
The debate had given an opportunity to raise anxieties about specific matters, said Mr Rippon, but there was no reason to believe that the Community secondary legislation would affect existing United Kingdom practices in relation to any of them.