BRITISH CIVIL AVIATION

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24869, 8 May 1946, Page 7

BRITISH CIVIL AVIATION

NATIONALISATION OF SERVICES GOVERNMENT’S BILL LONDON, May 8. “The nationalisation or socialisation of British air transport is the basis of the Civil Aviation Bill,” said Mr Herbert Morrison in the House of Commons in introducing the second reading of the bill. n There is a great complaint that British civil aviation under Imperial Airways was not doing the big, extensive job which was required to be done,” said Mr Morrison, referring to the past “There is a tendency on the part of some undertakings to take care of the good, profitable traffic, with the result that some less profitable traffic was neglected to the disadvantage of Empire Commonwealth communications. The provision of airfields must be a national job. “If you let anybody run air lines you are going to nave an economically impossible situation in the air, plenty of accidents, complications. and trouble. If there is a private monopoly which is subject to a great deal of State regulation, we would get the worst of both worlds in civil aviation. It is inevitable that the State should be ’in the business' to a very considerable extent.”

Mr Morrison said that subsidies would be inevitable for the time being. The Government would seek to taper them off as time went on in the hope that they could be abolished altogether on some services. “We can, under public ownership and enterprise, have a sweep of boldness in our civil aviation policy, instead of what we had under the Conservative Government before the war

—vacillation, inadequacies, and the element of creaming traffic by certain private enterprise concerns.’’ Mr Morrison said that the Government did not wish that the industry should be kept meticulously under Government control. It should, in essence. be a business undertaking, and it was the Government’s intention td give the three statutory corporations as much freedom as possible. Mr Morrison appealed for the abandonment of pre-war "Little Englandism.”

“The Opposition would like to see a vast expansion in British air services to the Empire in aircraft manned by British crews uniting the Empire under a plan providing for joint parallel corporations similar to those suggested by Lord Swinton,” said Mr A. Lennox-Boyd, speaking on the bill. Mr Lennox-Boyd said that everybody wanted to see this great British industry prosper and succeed. Mr Morrison had referred to the establishment of the British Overseas Airways Corporation by. the Conservative Government. This was an honest attempt to approach the problem objectively. All parties in the Coalition Government agreed to the Swinton plan 14 months ago. There was no reason why this plan should not have been implemented immediately after the last election. They, instead, had a Socialist Government proposal to establish monopolies of three corporations with no shadow, of independence whatever.

Mr Lennox-Boyd moved an Opposition amendment that the House decline to give a second reading to the bill, "which arrests the development of civil aviation by confining all passengers and freight services to a Government monopoly corporation. refuses a partnership lo experienced aviation and transport undertakings. vests all real control of operation and finance in the Minister, involves the taxpayer in heavy subsidies. affords no security to independent charter operators, and denies travellers an effective appeal against inadequate services and excessive charges’’ The Under-Secretary of Civil Aviation (Mr Ivor Thomas), replying, revealed that jet-propelled aircraft for the Atlantic were now being designed. He could not say when this service would start, but there was no doubt Britain had a distinct lead over American manufacturers. The Opposition’s amendment was defeated by 315 votes to 126. and the bill was read a second time