Boards and Parliament
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1958.tb01334.x |
| Date | 01 March 1958 |
| Published date | 01 March 1958 |
Boards
and
Parliament
By
D.
N. CHESTER
The Editor reviews two recent publications dealing with important
aspects
of
the organisation and control
of
the Nationalised Industries.
HEN
the Labour Government of 1945-51 adopted the public corporation
W
as their administrative device for nationalisation they may have thought
that they were adopting a clearly recognisable, well-known and well-tried
device. After all, there were the Central Electricity Board, the London
Passenger Transport Board and the B.B.C.-were these not public corpor-
ations and had they not proved successful? The last ten years, however,
have shown that pre-war experience did not provide the answer to all the
questions now raised about the working and control of the post-war bodies.
For one thing the statutory provisions governing the new Boards differ in
important ways from those governing the L.P.T.B. and C.E.B. and these
differences, e.g., the much greater powers given to the Minister in post-war
legislation, sometimes raise new and unforeseen problems. Again, neither
the C.E.B. nor the L.P.T.B. compare with the N.C.B. and the B.T.C. in
size or national importance, and, of course, the latter two were born in a
more politically controversial atmosphere. For these and other reasons
most aspects of the new Corporations have been subject to questioning,
controversy and proposals for change. How should they raise their capital
?
What should be their price policy
?
How should the Boards be composed
?
What should be the relations between the Board and the Minister? What
type of control should Parliament try to exercise
?
It
will take many more
years of experience and discussion before we can say we know the answers
to these and other questions raised by this form of public ownership.
The literature in
this
field has recently been enriched in two directions.
Lord Simon
of
Wythenshawe has just put forward some stimulating views
in his booklet
The Boards
of
the Nationalised Industries
(Longmans pp.
54,
2s.
6d.) and the House
of
Commons Select Committee on Nationalised
Industries (Reports and Accounts) has published its first report
(H.
of C.
Paper
304,
1957,
pp. xxiv+212, 11s. Od.).
The Boards
of
the Nationalised Industries
As Mr. E.
D.
Simon or under his present title the author has a record in
private industry and public life which few can even approach. He also has
the added distinction of being able to put his thoughts on paper simply
and forcibly. Even if one does not altogether agree with
him,
for
the views
h:
puts forward are not always obviously correct at a first or even a second
glance, one cannot deny that he is stimulating or that he is dealing with
a
significant, unsolved problem.
In his latest booklet he tackles the composition, tenure and status of the
Boards of the nationalised industries, in particular the National Coal Board.
"
I
have no doubt," he says,
"
that the most important single reform in the
nationalised industries
is
that the Chairman and other members
of
the Board
should have the same kind of experience, independence and security
of
87
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