HC Deb 24 June 1947 vol 439 cc391-3
Mr. Birch

I beg to move, in page 50, line 9, at the end, to insert:

  1. (a)the aggregate of the sums contributed by the Central Authority in any financial year shall not exceed an amount equal to one half of one per centum of the book value of the assets for the time being vested in the Central Authority;
  2. (b) the aggregate of the sums contributed by any Area Board in any financial year shall not exceed an amount equal to one half of one per centum of the book value of the assets for the time being vested in that Area Board;
  3. (c) the contributions to be made by the Area Boards in any financial year shall be determined rateably in proportion to the book value of the assets for the time being vested in each Area Board;
  4. (d) the maximum amount standing to the credit of the said fund shall not at any time exceed an amount equal to ten per centum of the values of the assets for the time being vested in the Central Authority and in the Area Boards."
Clause 38, lays down provisions for a central reserve fund and for reserve funds for the area boards. What we seek to do in this Amendment is to fix the maximum annual amount which can be added to these reserve funds. I should emphasise that this has nothing to do with ordinary depreciation, but only with the amount to be put to the reserve fund. The object in moving this Amendment is to prevent this State monopoly, which can clearly charge what it likes, charging higher rates for electricity than are altogether necessary, in order to build up a large reserve fund. When this was discussed in Committee, the Parliamentary Secretary said that in the long run the consumers of electricity would benefit by the putting of extra amounts to reserve; but as Lord Keynes once said, in the long run we shall all be dead. I doubt very mucn whether there is a great deal in the Parliamentary Secretary's contention.

The Parliamentary Secretary also said that this Amendment sought to fix the reserve fund without reference to the book value of the assets. He further said that it was very unlikely that the Opposition would agree that the book values were the same as the real values. In view of what took place yesterday, that is all we could put down, because the Parliamentary Secretary definitely refused to carry out a revaluation of the assets, which we maintain would be clearly necessary. If those assets are not revalued, the only thing we can do is to take the book value. That is what we are doing here. What we are really seeking to do is to re-enact the provisions of the Seventh Schedule of the 1899 Act, which had the same effect, and it seems to us wrong that complete liability should be given to the boards to pay out reserves in any way they happened to like. That does not affect the full employment policy because it affects what capital works are undertaken, and not how much is put to reserves. What we seek to do is to see that the consumers get the benefits to which they are entitled.

Colonel Clarke

I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. Gaitskell

I am a little surprised at the Opposition putting this Amendment on the Order Paper, and still more so that it should have been moved by the hon. Member for Flint (Mr. Birch), because I always regarded him rather as an anti-inflationist, and I am inclined to regard this as an inflationary Amendment.

Mr. Birch

Would the hon Gentleman accept it?

Mr. Gaitskell

I did not say I would disagree with the views of the hon. Member for Flint on inflation. Our attitude to this is much the same as it was when we discussed this matter in Committee. We do not think it is sensible to tie people down in this way. After all, the members of the Central Authority and the area boards will be persons of experience, and I do not think there is any particular gain to be got from saying that they must not set aside more than so much. Supposing they do go in for a conservative policy, it can only be for the benefit of future consumers. That may not be very attractive to the hon. Member for Flint, but, returning once more to the inflationary aspect of the problem, I should have thought it would be far more realistic if we were to do nothing of this kind, but to insist on certain minimum amounts being put to the reserve, because one thing of which we can be quite certain is that the consumers generally would be pressing for lower charges. I do not think we need have any fear that the policy of the boards will go too far in the direction of penalising the present for the benefit of the future.

I do not altogether agree with the hon. Member for Flint that this has nothing to do with a full employment policy, but at this hour of the morning I do not intend to pursue what some may think is rather an academic argument. As regards the total amount to be put to reserve, there is not much to be said for laying it down in detail in the Measure. On the question of the reserve payments by the area boards, which should be in proportion to the book value of the assets, the hon. Member for Flint said that this was the only thing they could do, because we had not agreed on a standard value of some kind. That may be the only thing that he could suggest, but I do not think it is a very good suggestion, because the book value of the assets would not necessarily be the right criterion to apply at any rate as between the municipalities, whose policy in the matter of writing down the values of the assets has been one thing, and the case of the companies, where the policy of valuation has been quite different. I do not think we can take the relative book values as determining what the various area boards should pay, as a number of factors have to be taken into account including the prospective revenue and costs before the matter can be settled. I think we should leave that to the Central Authority to determine.

1.15 a.m.

Colonel Clarke

What value does the hon. Gentleman suggest?

Mr. Gaitskell

I think that is a matter we must leave to the Central Authority to work out.

Amendment negatived.