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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0662.PDF
662 FLIGHT, 13 May 1Q(>O The Final Act ? . . . Mr Strauss's voice is often raised whenever he detects a poten- tial lack of public accountability. Mr Rippon sidestepped this particular plea: we strongly believe that he should have con- sidered it. 4. "Among matters which die Board must 'consider in particular'when issuing an air service licence are not included (a) the public interest and (b) the general expansion and promotion of British airtransport. . . . Nowhere in the Bill in fact is there to be found any definition of the Board's purpose." In remarking upon the absence of any such directive we had inmind what, in our belief should be the essential purpose of government regulation—protection (or promotion) of the publicinterest. The public interest may or may not call for the protection of this or that section of British air transport. The point is thatthe industry should be regulated (as it is in the US, Canada and Australia) by a government agency which regards the brass tacksof its job as the protection of public interest first and foremost. Without doubt the worst aspect of the new legislation is thatthis point is ignored completely. One member, Stanley McMaster (Con, Belfast East) proposed that one of the things that the Boardshould consider in particular should be "the advancement of British aviation throughout the world, the interests of the travellingpublic, and the reduction in the cost of air transport." This was good so far as it went. The Minister agreed that"nowhere in the Bill is there any statement of the general objec- tives of the Board," and he said he would "consider introducingan amendment on those lines." This he did not forget to do, for at the report stage before the. third reading he asked for theinsertion of a sentence at the end of [1(1)] defining the general duty of the Board as "furthering the development of British aviation." Fair enough, one might have thought. Yet, when Mr McMastermoved this amendment, Richard Marsh (Lab, Greenwich) alleged that "for sheer platitudinousness it would take some beating." Hewent on to declare that the Bill's purpose was "to safeguard the interests of a small group of independent airline operators," andsuggested that this amendment showed how the Tories were trying "to advance the interests of themselves." i •. - • .. . /• -" - . Wasting the House's Time Mr Marsh is a newcomer to the House, so he does not knowhow dreary and sterile this doctrinaire approach to British air transport can be. To seize on this politically neutral proposal, andcondemn it in party political terms, was in our view a wearisome waste of the time of the House. Even Mr Chetwynd (Lab, Stock-ton-on-Tees), who contributed valuably to the discussions—in fact nearly all the best points were made by Labour members—lapsed here. During the third reading he wanted to amend Mr Sandys'samendment. British aviation should be advanced—he agreed with that, "provided that this will not be to the detriment of thepresent or future activities of the air corporations." All the implications of these words had been Laboured again and againduring the preceding proceedings; yet Mr Chetwynd went through them all once more. And Mr Rankin (Lab, Glasgow, Govan) didtoo, declaring that the hon Members opposite were "paid retainers" of the independents trying to get the Bill through theHouse "in the interests of the private independent airlines for whom they speak." He was called to order by the Speaker. But points of order apart, all that was being proposed was anaddition to the first sentence of the Bill charging the Board with the duty of "furthering the development of British aviation." Nomention of any duty to protect the public interest—just a general directive about advancing the interests of British aviation. TheOpposition missed the point of a Government amendment which missed the point. - », j. 5. "The Bill makes no provision for the proposed Board to conductits hearings in public. ... It is important that not only should hearings be held in public, but also that the public and the industry shouldknow the reasons for negative decisions." Nowhere in the Bill is there provision for the hearings of theBoard to be in public. We have the Minister's assurance that this will be so—but with the vitiating qualification that "it may benecessary to hold private sittings from time to time, for examole if issues affecting international relations are being discussed." Thenumber of times when an apolication will involve the discussion of international relations could, as we have suggested before, bevery large. Does this mean that the majority of the Board's sittings other than those in respect of domestic applications will thereforebe in private? As the law will stand, unless the Lords persuade the Ministerotherwise, the Board could very easily become a secret court, like the present ATAC (whose original function was to consider repre-sentations of the public, yet which became a de facto licensing authority whose every sitting has been barred to the public andthe Press). Secret tribunals are alien to the British way of doir^ things. As the old saying goes, if justice is to be done it must b*. . . well, there is no need for us to complete that truism. It is apposite here to quote a remark made by a pilot in thesfpages not so long ago (Flight, April 1). Speaking of accidents, one of several aspects of British air transport in which the secrecy cui*is highly developed (examples: pool agreements, corporatior financing of equipment for foreign operators, jet noise, etc.), h°said: — "There is a tendency, from the Government downwards, to assumethe responsibility of 'protecting the industry. . . .' Whatever justifica- tion there might have been in the past for the protection of a youn^industry this no longer applies and the privilege which the industry has hitherto enjoyed should bo more closely regulated. ... It is timely forthe United Kingdom to make this re-appraisal and so prevent the interests of a small but important group from slipping under the cloakof a technocracy which lacks the check and balances applied in oth>r fields of our public life." Facts and Figures Needed •\f/--;^>'-c--v:.v _ 6. "The Bill gives the proposed Board no power to call upon theairlines for full financial and traffic statistics and for information about equipment transactions and commercial agreements with other opera-tors. The collection and dissemination of statistics should be an impor- tant function of the Board; without this information the true state of theindustry is concealed . . . misrepresentation is possible and decisions are made and policies are shaped on the basis of inadequateknowledge. . . ." The greatest and most widely acknowledged weakness of theATAC has been that it has made decisions on complex economic and commercial issues without checking the evidence for itself.Mr Sandys agreed to a proposal by Paul Williams (Con, Sunder- land. South) that he should make provision for applicants tofurnish information relevant to their applications. Actually, he went further: there is now provision for all operators, air servicelicence holders oi not, to supply general "statistical or other infor- mation" on their operations [5(2)(b) and (c)]. It is to be hopedthat these statistics, which will lighten much darkness, particu- larly in respect of independent financial results and non-scheduledoperations, will be published so that the public—and the industry itself—may know how British civil aviation is getting on. The only question is whether the Board will have the staff toanalyse these data for itself. It is a splendid thing to have "men of wisdom and experience" (as the Minister visualizes these asyet unappointed Solomons) listening to and deciding applications. But this is not enough: their judgment must be backed by inde-pendent staff work. It would be equally splendid to have a Board staffed entirely by Wheatcrofts—but this might also be out ofbalance. A mixture of the judicial and the analytical is needed. Yet, as matters stand, the Board will comprise "men of wisdomand experience" (incidentally working in two groups with the danger of discontinuity). But it is encouraging that the datawill be available to the Board. Let us hope that they make good use of it, and that they will publish it for others to make gooduse of. . - ...'.... Access to Pool Agreements :. . Particularly encouraging is the opportunity which the Boardmay now have of inquiring into the nature of commercial agree- ments entered into by British operators. These agreements areamong the matters which the Board must "consider in particular" before granting air service licences. Under the Minister's amend-ment [5(2)(c)] introduced on the third reading the Board may now be able, under regulations made by the Minister, to call for"statistical or other information [our italics] with respect to their operations." Obviously the Board cannot consider in particular "commercialagreements" (a euphemism for pool agreements) unless it has some knowledge of the nature of these agreements. This is a veryimportant amendment, because it means (intentionally or not) that pools will not be the sacred secrets that they have been in thepast. The new Act will not necessarily therefore protect the prac- titioners of these cartels which, but for those vital words "otherinformation" in 5(2)(c), might easily make a mockery of the Board's authority. We believe that the Bill is now a much improved piece oflegislation. The Board will still be sadly underpowered; but a great deal depends on the calibre of the men appointed to it, andthe commonsense with which they and their colleagues in the Ministry, in the best Civil Service traditions, interpret the rathercramping provisions of the new Act. It is to be regretted that no one thought of caring first andforemost for the public interest, and that the outdated protec- tionist principle of aviation's self-interest is to be enshrined inthe first sentence of the first clause of the Act. But we hope that the compensating corrective of public accountability will beapplied in full measure.
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