HC Deb 20 March 1950 vol 472 cc1523-5
12. Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is aware that cases have arisen where an area electricity board has refused to honour a contract made with another.electricity board; and if he will make a statement as to the general directions which he will issue that they shall honour contracts entered into with any one of them by members of the public.

Mr. Noel-Baker

If an electricity board fails to honour a binding contract, the aggrieved party has a remedy at law. I presume, however, that the hon. Member is thinking of a consumer who ends his agreement with one area electricity board and moves into the territory of another. I am sure that the hon. Member will agree that, in such a case, the second board would be under no obligation to supply electricity or to hire apparatus to the consumer on the same terms as he had received from the first.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, in the case of which I sent particulars to his predecessor, the gentleman in question had an agreement with the North-Eastern Electricity Board for the hire of apparatus at 8s. 6d. per quarter, and that he was told by the South-Eastern Electricity Board, to whose area he had moved, that:the hire for the same apparatus would be 28s.? Is that the kind of advantage to the consumers which his predecessor promised would be the sequel to electricity nationalisation?

Mr. Noel-Baker

No one ever promised that there would be standard charges for current, or the hire of apparatus. There may be variations in the charge according to the different districts, owing to the differing distance from the coalfields, and many other things. The hon. Member knows that the area electricity Boards are largely independent units which manage their own affairs.

Sir Herbert Williams

Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that his colleague the Foreign Secretary, speaking in Wandsworth in 1945, made a promise of the kind that he himself has just denied?

Mr. Sydney Silverman

Is not my right hon. Friend aware that, however great the variations may be today, they are infinitesimal compared with the variations in pre-nationalisation days?

Mr. Walter Fletcher

Would the right hon. Gentleman explain why he says that there must be variations in the hire of apparatus? What has it to do with distance from the coalfield?

Mr. Noel-Baker

There is the hire of apparatus and there is the price of current. I have tried to find out the respective prices of current in those two areas, but I was not able to get the information in time.

Mr. R. S. Hudson

Is the right hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that the difference between 8s. and 28s. quoted by my hon. Friend is proportionate to the price of current?

Mr. Noel-Baker

No, but we have to consider the whole economic position of the board. Of course, in due process of time we shall advance, I hope rapidly, towards standardisation of tariffs. Considering the condition of the electricity industry when it was taken over and the very great variations in the efficiency of the plant, there must, for the present, be some anomalies in the prices charged.

Mr. Mikardo

Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the Opposition are always calling for more de-centralisation in the nationalised industries and more delegation of powers to the area boards? Will he note that they are now demanding a highly centralised, bureaucratic standardisation?

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the change which he describes as a variation in fact amounts to an increase of more than 300 per cent., which is made more acute by the fact that the gentleman in question resides within a mile of the most modern power plant in the country?

Mr. Noel-Baker

I hope for that reason that he is getting very cheap current. He is, in fact, hiring, as I understand it, a heater, a cooker, and an electric kettle for 28s. a year, which is not a very high charge.

Hon. Members

Per quarter.