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LT terminates here
R A CABINET MINISTER in a !vernment solidly opposed to ste ownership, Transport cretary Tom King has had an d start to his new job. Within last 10 days he has scrapped 3 n s for privatising vehicle 3ting and has announced Ins for the renationalisation of -scion Transport, writes ALAN LLAR.
ie probably feels that initial iction to the LT proposals, Itained in a White Paper pubsed last week (CM, July 30) dicate his aims. Of the three :ional dailies currently being blished, The Daily Telegraph sadly welcomed the plans, 9 Times felt they should have le further, and The Guardian d they were disastrous. The ;ater London Council plans a id-on fight with Mr King, and
Bus and Coach Council, playing its tendency to sit on ces when there is a danger of ;r-industry conflict, is saying :hing.
t should be clear from the 3inning that, despite quoting racts in his White Paper, Mr g is planning little of the nd scheme contained in last tr's report on transport in sdon, published by the House Commons transport select nmittee.
.s proposal for a super trans/ quango overseeing public nsport and roads policy ass South-East England, a stropolitan Transport :hority, threatened to be an In harder nut to crack than the 1 It would have drawn repretatives from local authorities oughout the region and uld have had powers to !cept local authorities for lsport finance. Not the sort of ig the Conservative Governnt was elected to create.
sstead, Tom King wants to ssfer LT from GLC to state Aro!, to rename it London Renal Transport and to dangle east a possibility of privatis parts of the component ts. LRT will be a holding cornfly, run by Government ninees (like the British Railys Board), with the existing s and Underground busises as subsidiaries which y be privatised later if the wernment agrees.
place of the 10-year action ns proposed by the Corn mons transport committee, King proposes four initial tasks for LRT, which is to be responsible for the strategic control of its operating subsidiaries and for securing the cost-effective provision of bus and Underground services from its own subsidiaries and other operators in the region. Those tasks are: • To improve bus and Underground services for London within the resources available and to make the services more attractive to the public.
• To reduce costs and the call on taxpayers' money and generally secure better value.
• To involve the private sector in the provision of services and to make better use of publiclyowned assets.
• To promote better management through smaller and more efficient units, with clear goals and measurable objectives.
LRT will be subsidised from Government, rather than local authority funds, but arrangements are to be made to ensure that London's ratepayers gain no advantage over ratepayers elsewhere who continue to subsidise their public transport. Beyond saying that "consultation will take place ... about the mechanisms to be adopted", the White Paper gives no clue about how this problem will be solved.
The London Boroughs will be expected to take over the concessionary fares scheme run at present by the GLC (which the GLC started when the boroughs failed to agree on a scheme) and they will also be able to buy specific additional services they consider necessary for their needs.
One can imagine some conflicts arising between LRT and the boroughs over annual subsidy payments in much the same way as LT and surrounding counties have haggled over the financing of services which run beyond the GLC boundary.
The White Paper believes that the separation of LT's bus and Underground businesses into separate divisions is a good start from which LRT can make further progress. Plans are already under discussion for the eight bus districts to be replaced by six with greater autonomy and, eventually, their own separate operators' licences.
While the GLC has scrapped LT's three-year plan for economies to be made in the running of buses and the Underground, there can be little doubt that as an LRT subsidiary, London's bus business will want to go back to those plans. They envisage a radical review of engineering methods which have been blamed in the past for heavy maintenance costs and which have probably played their part in persuading LT to go on running crew-operated buses of traditional design while selling more modern one-man buses for use in other parts of Britain and the world.
The bus overhaul works at Chiswick and Aldenham are already the subject of a Monopolies and Mergers Commission inquiry and would need to be subjected to a massive restructure if they were to meet the needs of six separate bus undertakings which might emerge from the White Paper proposals.
Mr King has chosen a delicate line of balance between bureaucracy and freedom in his plans to make it easier for private operators to start services in London. While the 1980 Transport Act altered the burden of proof for operators seeking approval for running new services elsewhere in Britain, the London arrangments have remained largely unaltered. They still need to get LT's approval to run in the capital, and LT has to take account of the effects new services would have on the total transport network.
Mr King does not want to create additional bureaucracy by requiring LRT's subsidiaries and those operators which run with London bus agreements to seek licences from the Metropolitan Traffic Commissioners, but he does want independents to be given a better chance of gaining licences.
The White Paper will give new applicants the choice of either seeking a London bus agreement (with the continued opportunity to appeal to Mr King against refusal) or applying to the Traffic Commissioners for a road service licence.
At a later date, LRT could be directed to take over responsibility for financing British Rail's services in the region, but not to take them over. Clearly, the Government is in no rush to do this, and only plans to seek reserve powers for this. It hopes that BR's creation of a London and South-East sector will be sufficient to modify the arrangements in the region.
The Government wants to hear the views of councils, the operators, passengers, and trades unions before translating its White Paper into a Bill, but it is determined to have LRT operating by autumn next year.
Such a timetable suggests Mr King has little appetite for anything drastic, but bus operators look like having little to lose. The LT bus business, freed from the corporate shackles of 55 Broadway and its own slowly-disappearing eccentricities like custom-built buses, should function more efficiently; private operators should get a bigger slice of the commuter market.