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John Peyton talks to CM

Interviewed exclusively by CM's editor, the Minister for Transport Industries speaks frankly about 0-licence enforcement; prospects and problems of our EEC entry; the unwanted fetters of rates control and permits; the axle-weight controversy; restricted routes and city-centre bans; transfer terminals; road safety; and the clearing of GV9s.

Editor: Operators' licensing has been under fire in recent months. Hauliers suggest that lack of enforcement and the ease of obtaining a licence are encouraging the entry of below-standard operators and affecting the livelihood of established contractors. You expressed some disappointment with the 0-licence system when you spoke at this year's RHA dinner, Minister. Have you plans to increase the enforcement staffs or to take other measures to make 0-licensing more stringent?

Minister: Well, first of all I am looking now at the question of whether we ate using the staff we've got in the best possible way. When one's exhausted that question we then go on to the next one — are we going to need extra people? If you have extra people, of course, they have to be paid for. They will be paid for by operators by the price of the test.

Enforcement is just one big perennial problem which with the growth of traffic and everything else gets more and more difficult and is quite a strain on resources. On the other hand it is fundamental to the system of operators' licensing — quality licensing — that enforcement should work properly.

Editor: I was interested to see that in the latest annual reports of the Licensing Authorities.* out of 400 Section 69 cases, where operators were disciplined by the Licensing Authorities, 201 were in one traffic area, the West Midlands, whereas in another traffic area with as many registered vehicles there were only six in the course of the whole year. This does suggest there is not a stndard level or an equal enthusiasm in the enforcement of this particular side of the 1968 Act. Is there any way in which you or your Department can affect these levels of enforcement or are the LAs really as independent as is generally assumed?

Minister: They're very independent, you know. I'm sure they listen to what Ministers and Departments have to say but you're bound to get unevenness across the board — though this example I agree is extreme. Obviously it ought to be looked at. I suppose it could be that somebody is having a real drive, which brings out some contrast, but it ought not to be as great as that Editor: If enforcement here is increased are you confident that the standards of enforcement in Europe, which so many people say are much weaker than over here, are likely to be raised to equivalent standards to give British operators a fairer crack of the whip?

Minister: Well, all vehicles operating here will have the same law enforced against them and in the same way. I think it would be wrong to suppose one gets common standards throughout Europe, certainly not the same lower standards; there are, for instance, some countries where the law has been and is very strictly enforced.

Editor: But there are some where it is not. Minister: There are, yes. But basically we have to enforce our own standards here and this will apply to all vehicles whether they are foreign or British owned.

Editor: So we have to hope that they will take the same view over there, in regarding their vehicles and ours as equal targets? Minister: I think so. Mind you, there are always bound to be some differences of standard over a wide area but nevertheless I would hope that, with the fairly considerable consultation which would take place on such matters, one would be able to raise standards all round.

Editor: The Foreign Vehicles Act which provides powers for enforcement of laws over here against incoming vehicles is being brought into effect very shortly. How much is being put into the enforcement of this in the way of personnel and facilities?

Minister: It needs an Order to bring it into force and I think before we made that Order we would definitely want to have two or three weeks of warning foreign governments and foreign hauliers that the law was going to be changed, as to enforcement. And I stress the fact that the actual substance in the provisions of the law is not going to be changed at all. It is simply a question of making our own law enforceable against foreign vehicles in a way that it has not been to date.

Editor: What do you see as the biggest problem in reconciling EEC and UK transport policy?

Minister: Well, of course, up to date, there hasn't been an EEC transport policy. Something of an effort is being made to put bits of one together now. My particular worry, I think, more than any of the other things we wish to discuss with them, is the question of axle loadings. But are you talking about vehicles, or a broader picture? Editor: I was thinking more in policy terms — liberalism vis-i-vis, say, the more restrictive approach to road transport which stems from the railway backgrounds in Germany and France.

Minister: Once you have dealt with the safety problem; once you've got a driver who is a qualified driver, once the vehicle is safe and the driver is safe, I would like to have the minimum of restrictions after that, save for those which are necessary to protect the environment. For instance, keeping excessively large vehicles out of tiny streets. • Editor: Are there likely to be enough allies among the other members of the EEC to circumvent, say, the introduction of capacity licensing?

Minister: Well, there are now. Belgium and Holland don't have any of the rules about which we complain. For my part I would like to see the maximum of freedom so that transport is as flexible and as rapid-moving as possible. I do not want to see any system of quantity licensing — which is usually greatly loved by people who have never suffered from it. It is usually brought into practice for two reasons, one to shore up inefficient operation and the other to protect the railways.

Editor: And yet we have the Road Haulage Association, which has had fairly recent experience of carriers' licensing, voting for a return to some form of capacity control. Minister: The RHA only passed this, I understand, by a narrow majority. I did express to them my own regret that they had not had the salubrious experience of suffering from the system of quantity licensing just for a short space of time because I think this would have cooled off their keenness. If quantity licensing is going to work you have got to have an enormous bureaucracy giving it teeth.

Editor: Which is really what happened under carriers' licensing over here. Existing hauliers liked the protective side of it.

Minister: It is always tempting for anybody to protect themselves.

Editor: How strictly do you think forked rates, that is the published tariffs system, is likely to bear on British domestic hauliers? Is this something that is going to happen fairly soon after accession?

Minister: No, I hope not. Tariffication, an ugly word, is something which we are opposed to now and would continue to oppose. And at the moment there is no proposal by the EEC to establish tariffication throughout, though it's something people are thinking about.

Editor: It's at the moment used experimentally on international traffic, isn't it? obviously you think this is not a good thing to adopt?

Minister: Well, they've only been able to live with published rates by having forked tariffs.

Editor: And a lot of exemptions as well. Moister: Indeed. I think the thing just gets itself into a congested mess.

Editor: Returning for a moment to the weights question. How soon is the EEC Council of Ministers likely to make a decision on axle and gross weights, do you think? Is it likely to be by the end of this year?

Minister: Well, obviously consultations have got to take place now between us and the Six. They will start at ambassadorial and official level, but after that — and probably this will be about mid-September — discussions will take place on a Ministerial level.

Editor: Which is what you had asked for, isn't it?

Minister: Oh yes, between the Six and the four acceding countries. And at the recent meeting of the European Conference of Ministers of Transport it was clear that all four acceding nations were very much in agreement.

Editor: On not going over 10 tons?

Minister: Yes.

Editor: Gross weights don't bother us so much?

Minister: Well, gross weights don't add really discernibly to the overall dimensions of the vehicle — it's only a matter of 18 inches rather than some large addition, which is what I think the public fear most. But the higher axle weight would do very serious damage to roads and to bridges and the extra vibration would undoubtedly cause damage to buildings. This effect goes up very sharply as you go above 10 tons. The cost which we would incur in strengthening our roads would be very high to bring it up to 11 tons and it would have gone up again very sharply indeed if they had gone to 11+, which they've now abandoned.

Editor: There are cynics, or possibly realists, who would say that a large part of the transport industry is probably running at 11-ton axle weight now. Not many bridges fall down.

Minister: I hope that's not the case, though I've no doubt whatever that the law is not always observed strictly, as I would wish. Editor: If we did go to 11 tons, would this Mean restricting vehicles to a very small network of designated routes? Motorways and main trunk roads, or something broader than that?

Minister: It's a very complicated question. It affects the whole of the distribution pattern of the industry, 85 per cent of our freight ton-miles being done by road. We are bypassing the historic towns, we are arranging and constructing adequate roads to connect the ports with the main motorway network. As the strategic network of roads really does gain shape — and it is getting nearer now — I think the feasibility of restricting large vehicles to roads which can take them safely and conveniently becomes much greater. But local authorities—I think this does need to be stressed all the time — do now have very

wide powers of restricting access by large vehicles, or by all traffic, to streets and narrow roads which can't take them. They don't use those powers nearly widely enough.

I have absolutely no doubt that a national network of restrictive routes is going to be very necessary. We are going to face some fairly severe problems when it comes to towns and cities, where distribution is the key. But I have had, and am having, very useful consultations with quite a large body of industry, besides the Road Haulage Association and the Freight Transport Association, and I've no doubt that we will together be able to reach some sensible conclusions about this. But it's a very, very important subject.

Editor: Returning to the EEC for a moment. I think one of the fears of British hauliers in particular is that there will be so many restrictions if some of the EEC countries have their way that any benefits which industry at large might see in membership will not be passed on to the transport operators. Do you think that the restrictive side of the international transport scene will outweigh the new opportunities?

Minister: I rather doubt this, you know. I know people take the view that when we get into EEC we will be faced with a whole lot of rigid rules. I don't believe this is true at all. For instance, the Dutch have a very large road haulage operation which has not been restricted or mutilated by the rules of the EEC and I believe we will certainly be able to hold our own in this respect.

Editor: Perhaps the fear springs mainly from the trouble involved in getting permits for certain countries., The Dutch have suffered from this too.

Minister: This is a far worse thing, but it has nothing to do with the EEC.

Editor: No, but some of the EEC countries are among the worst offenders.

Minister: Oh yes, and I think that our entry into the EEC may not necessarily produce an immediate cure for the evil of quotas, and I do regard quotas as evil. But our entry certainly won't make them worse.

I would rather go away from quotas altogether, even multilateral ones, but multilaterals are an improvement over bilaterals.

Editor: Turning to the home front again. You may have seen several suggestions lately that the transport industry should never have been made partof the DoE's responsibility but ought to be part of Trade and Industry. Do you think that being part of an "environmentally based" ministry has inhibited what you might call "transport industries" at all?

Minister: It would be a confession of failure on my part if it had! But I really don't think so. I hope and believe that the transport industries feel that they are at least as close to the Department of the Environment, or to myself wearing my new hat, as they were to the old Ministry of Transport. I think that one undoubted benefit it has provided is that it has made people more conscious of the claims, rather too long set on one side, of the environment and the need to respect the Road hauliers live somewhere and they're just as much concerned personally with the environment in which they live as anybody else. What I have always said to them; privately and publicly, is that if you really take on the environment, you will lose. Because people will get bored with you and they will want to clamp on every kind and type of control imaginable. It is very much better, therefore, to come to terms with it and realise that there has got to be some give and take — as indeed I think the industry will do, in for instance restrictive routes which we were talking about just now. I don't think this policy will be markedly more harsh on the road haulage industry than it would have been under the old Ministry of Transport aegis. The basic pressure would have been there.

Editor: There's an argument, of course, in exactly the opposite way: that you are in a far better position to present a reasonable case than if you were a separate Department being told by an environmental ministry "this is what you've got to do with your transport".

Minister: I think this is perfectly true, because whenever I discuss the matter with Peter Walker or one of my colleagues I'm always able to say immediately: "You have got to remember the cost to the economy of undue interference with transport".

Editor: One or two cities are talking of banning heavy vehicles from city centres. Is there any chance of a national prohibition of this sort?

Minister: Local authorities have the powers and I have no doubt whatsoever that they should use them. It is extremely difficult, and undesirable, for a central Government to start applying its mind to the local details. Those who are familiar with the problems of their own cities should make the necessary disposals accordingly.

Editor: There has been quite a varied response to the idea of transfer terminals for freight, for which powers are given in the Highways Act. Have there been any Departmental studies on the economics of such terminals? Some people have welcomed them; others are absolutely flat against the idea.

Minister: Yes, I know. Of course, you will always get some people who put forward a cautionary note of opposition against any proposal. But I think it is useful to have these powers. I certainly do not want to use them sweepingly or without consultation with the industry. This is what I'm doing very basically at the moment — consulting, not in a formal way, but having a number of people who are really deeply involved in road haulage give their views in an attempt to recognize and define the problems and work out means of meeting them.

Editor: Have you any plans, Minister, for increasing the scope of the hgv test scheme to vehicles below 3+ tons plated weight or for bringing them inside the 0-licensing scheme? There's been quite a strong lobby for this almost since the 1968 Act came in. Minister: It is still — I'm sorry to use this classic phrase — under consideration. I haven't made up my mind. There are advantages and disadvantages, and one of the disadvantages is this wretched enforcement problem.

Editor: Is the present network of testing stations big enough to cope, or would it have to go on a 24-hour working basis or something similar? There could be vast numbers of vehicles involved.

Minister: I think you would almost certainly have to increase the stations; I don't think we could get the throughput from the existing ones.

Editor: This may seem a very detailed point but it has been put very strongly in recent weeks. In several traffic areas operators are having to take their vehicles to the nearest DoE test station to get GV9 prohibitions cleared. Is this just through a shortage of staff locally or is it the beginning of a national trend? It could add enormously to dead mileage if operators have to do this to clear a GV9.

Minister: Of course it might also deter people from using a vehicle in a state where it attracts a prohibition.

Editor: It might be argued that it is a double penalty in a way.

Minister: I wouldn't worry terribly about that. The difficulty is, if you send scarce staff around the country you get a very inadequate use of them and, as I was saying to you just now, one of the things I am looking at is whether we are making a wise and adequate use of existing staff, before deciding whether it is desirable to add to them. Well, if you straight away go and make that sort of wasteful use of staff, the dead mileage of a vehicle is matched by the dead mileage of an official who could be well used on better work. So I think the answer is, I'm not terribly sympathetic to this one.

Editor: I see. Are there any other road transport matters in the forefront of your mind at the moment?

Minister: I don't think so. The road haulage industry is always a very easy one for people to criticize. It does fulfil an enormously important role in the economy. But, of course, when any inclUstry has that kind of stature it has also got to face its very serious responsibilities, and those responsibilities comprise a careful observance of the law — because otherwise the law will multiply and get very tiresome.

And there are the questions of road safety. We butcher too many people on the roads every year, every week. I think all of us are apt to believe that we are better drivers than we are, and while I certainly resist the suggestion that the lorry driver is anything but a highly skilled person for the most part, I do notice from time to time that very large vehicles drive very, very close to one another, and this is an undoubted source of danger as these horrible pile-ups on the motorways have shown.

But for the most part I don't think we have anything to be particularly ashamed of here, and I don't think either we have anything to be frightened of in going into Europe.

I can think of absolutely no reason for anybody to suppose that just because we're going into Europe our views will disappear. or our ability to express them will suddenly cease.

Editor: I don't think many people fear that, but I believe many are fearful of the weight of numbers we have to face.

Minister: Well, I think people are very apt to believe that the European community has a monolithic view. but this is absolutely wrong. My experience so far is that there are widely divergent views amongst them. And, for instance, on most things, with the possible exception of overall weights, the Dutch views and our own are very, very close to one another, and for that matter there are no great dissimilarities between the Germans and ourselves. They have, it is true, gone for this compromise of 11 tons — but that argument is certainly not yet over!