ELECTRICITY (SUPPLY) ACTS. (Hansard, 14 July 1930)

§ Mr. MUGGERIDGE
If I may be allowed to explain what happened—

§ Mr. SPEAKER
The hon. Member has already spoken.

§ Mr. HARDIE
May I ask if there was anything that necessitated the authority asking for the Order as stated by the Minister. I understand that the process of that Order was brought into being under the 1919 Act, which gave it the 1066 privilege whereby it need not apply for the Order. But for that change, the supply would have been under municipal ownership, with a saving of 65 per cent. We were somewhat astounded to think a Labour Minister of Transport would so far allow the thing to pass in that direction as to place that burden upon a new area instead of allowing the municipality to have control. I think the House has a right to some explanation.

§ Mr. KELLY
I want to say a word as my hon. Friend has not an opportunity of speaking again. Suggestions have been made that he was speaking for some particular interest. I want to say on his behalf that he was speaking in the public interest when dealing with this subject the other evening.

§ The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Herbert Morrison)
I fully accept what my hon. Friend says on behalf of the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Muggeridge). I hope I made no suggestion that, whatever he said, he was not speaking quite genuinely in the public interest. I thought he was then and I think so now, and I should have to hold a very different opinion of my hon. Friend, whom I have known for many years, before I thought otherwise about him. The Joint Electricity Authority was a party to the inquiry. It would have been difficult for me to have adopted the suggestion made by one hon. Member that, after the inquiry had been completed, I should see one of the parties who appeared at the inquiry. I could not do so without giving an opportunity to the other parties to be seen and if I went to the extent of seeing them all I should in effect have been re-opening the whole inquiry. I certainly made no suggestion that my hon. Friend appeared on behalf of any section or vested interest at all. I am certain he was actuated by what he thought right in the public interest and I hope no one has any other idea.
As to what the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie) said, there is no obligation on the Joint Electricity Authority to apply for an Order. It has a right of criticism and opposition, and that it has exercised. What I said on Thursday, and say now, is that the Joint Authority were not in a position to put forward an alternative proposal at that 1067 time for immediate supply to that area. It was hoped, as a result of co-operation with the local authority or local authorities in the area, in due time to be able to make alternative proposals, but I think that my hon. Friends will agree that that was not certain to come off. In any case, it was likely to take a year to complete those discussions. I was faced with an application for an Order and a request by the people concerned that they wanted a supply, and I could not take the responsibility for rejecting that application without a reasonably early alternative being adopted in its place.

§ Mr. HARDIE
On the 10th July you said in this House that, The Joint Electricity Board had not asked for an Order."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th July, 1930; col. 801, Vol. 241.] You have admitted that there was no need to ask for an Order. Clause 12 of the Act of 1919 gives such a body the right and therefore why should they wait for an Order?

§ Mr. MORRISON
My hon. Friend is quite wrong. Neither the Act of 1919 nor any existing. Order gives a joint authority power to supply any given area without the authority of this House.

§ Mr. EDE
Does not Clause 12 of the Act of 1919 make a joint electricity authority the undertaker in every parish where no other undertaker has obtained an Order? That was the position in this area prior to the application of this Order, and is the position to-night until this House confirms this Order. The electricity authority are the undertakers until someone gets an Order.

§ Mr. MORRISON
If that is so, it means that the joint authority which—I think I was a member of it for three years—has existed for four or five years, has had power to supply the area, and great difficulty must arise if somebody else comes along and gets the support of the local authority and is prepared to afford an immediate supply. Whether that be so or not; if it had power to do it, and did not do it, I should be in a difficulty in refusing an Order. My hon. Friend the Member for Springburn raised a further point, namely, that the joint 1068 authority could supply at 75 per cent. lower price. Is that the point?

§ Mr. HARDIE
That the municipality, if they had an extension of that area, could supply at 75 per cent. cheaper?

§ Mr. MORRISON
I do not know. That is a very big reduction which I should hesitate to accept.

§ Mr. MUGGERIDGE
Would you allow me, Mr. Speaker, to explain the point?

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I cannot allow the hon. Member to explain. It is not the Committee stage.

§ Mr. MORRISON
Anyway, I cannot answer that question on the spur of the moment. I know that the local authority, after all, is very efficient. [Interruption.] I agree if given time the scheme might come off, but one cannot be sure about it. I am faced with a difficulty and the House is faced with a difficulty, that if one rejects the Order there is nothing reasonably comparable which is going to take its place. I cannot take the responsibility even for a perfectly understandable motive of public interest, namely, public ownership. I cannot take that view, because the public authority at the moment is not, and for some time will not be, in a position to supply, and I am going to use my administrative powers to enable somebody else to do it. I can assure my hon. Friends that I only came to that conclusion after looking into all the facts.

§ Mr. HARDIE
rose—

§ Mr. MORRISON
I cannot give way. I have already done so several times. I am doing my best. I have been into this matter very carefully, and I have come to a conclusion which I believe to be right in all the circumstances of the case. Without any facts against me which are superior to those which I have put before the House, I think the House would be wise in confirming this Order and allowing it to go through, rather than adopting the dangerous attitude of taking up a purely destructive position. [Interruption.] The Order is in the usual form. The company must supply the specified streets within two years, and if they do not, the Order lapses unless it is extended. That is common form. Of course it must lay the mains and so on.

§ Mr. DALLAS
Can the municipality supply within two years?

§ Mr. MORRISON
I do not know; there is no guarantee of that. There is great opportunity for delay under existing legislation. No one knows better than the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie) that the Acts of 1919 and 1922, and the Act which is his favourite aversion, the Act of 1926, afford ample opportunities to private interests for obstruction and delay. I am certain that not merely a year will be taken by these authorities to fix the matter up. They will probably take that, and even then by the legal actions and the machinery which the Act lays down they could easily use up a couple of years, and two more years might be required in order to lay mains and give the supply. The decision I have come to, after careful examination of the facts, is to advise the House to confirm the Order.