Against the juggernauts
The Government, by accepting the Labour Party's motion on heavy lorries, 'has made a virtue of necessity and avoided certain defeat. The decision 'of the House o'f Commons this Wednesday was of a token character, in that all it did was to declare that it is opposed to bigger 'and heavier lorries. Outside of the road haulage industry there can be few people in the country who are not utterly opposed to bigger and heavier lorries on our roads. Most people, if asked, would say that many of the existing lorries are already much too big and much too heavy. They do great damage. They shake our villages and towns so much that irreplaceable buildings crack and fall down; they poison the air with 'their fumes and fill it with their noise. They are thoroughly nasty things, and what the Government should be doing — and would be, if it gave any consideration to what the people want, and to the 'good life' so often extolled by the Prime Minister — is taking steps 'to reduce them in size. Instead, what it is doing is trying to persuade the transport ministers of the existing Common Market not to give in to French pressure to increase the present size of lorries. The French have an interest in bigger and heavier lorries because it is a French firm, Berle% which makes ,most of these dreadful monsters.
Mr Angus Maude deserves most of the credit for the Commons' vote. It was his original motion, signed by 165 MPs, including 90 Tories, that the Labour 'Party took over and made their own and which the Commons carried this Wednesday. The new regulations, which Mr Peyton will resist in Brussels, will not come into effect until 1980, but this is no reason whatever for not resisting them or, indeed, for not making it clear to the ministers of the Six that they are now, and still will be in 1980, quite unacceptable. It 'is very easy to shrug and to say that '1980 is a long way off and that things will be different then. 1980 is getting near; and although things may well be different then, on the roads they will almost certainly be worse.
It Will not escape the public's attention that the Commons, on this issue, was 'able only to pass a motion. It was unable to instruct the Government, and it will be unable to carry legislation to give effect to its expressed desire which, on this occasion, it shares with the great majority of the country. The instance of heavy lorries is typical of what Will become very common after January 1, 1973: the overruling of the House of Commons and a duly elected government by ministerial councils and bureaucratic commissions in Brussels. Mr Peyton travels to Brussels as a supplicant, beseeching the Common Market ministers not to pass regulations which will damage our roads and bridges and towns and villages and be detrimental to our health and our standard of living. Sovereignty, on this very important and practical matter, has already been been handed over to Brussels. The House of Commons, as we said at the time, in enacting the European Communities Bill effedtively did away with its own power to legislate on whatever matter it chose. As far as heavy lorries are concerned, all the House of Commons can do is to pass resolutions. It is a very great pity that the ninety Tory members of Parliament Who signed Mr Maude's motion against bigger and heavier lorries had not thought about the sovereignty of Parliament More seriously than they did when they and their friends carried through that appalling piece of legislation. As it is, they must be as content as they can with Mr Peyton, and his acceptance of the Labour motion; and unhappy about his reservation to the effect that no one can foretell the future.
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