COAL (DOMESTIC CONSUMERS' COMPLAINTS) (Hansard, 1 April 1957)

§ Mr. William Hannan (Glasgow, Maryhill)
The subject I wish to raise tonight is one which, I am sure, has affected most, if not all, the households in the country. 195 It is the subject of coal consumers' complaints.
I want to preface my remarks by saying something which should be acceptable to both sides of the House. It is vital in the national interest that the coal industry itself should occupy a high place in the esteem of the nation, because unless it does so, then recruitment will remain unsatisfactory and the absence of the drive and vigour of young men will create problems in the future. Therefore, any criticisms which I have to offer should not be misconstrued, nor should it be assumed that I am opposed to the principle of the national owner-ship of the coal industry, or that my admiration for those who work in it is any less.
Rather, on the contrary, I would enunciate three simple facts which would lend force, I think, to the gratification which we all should feel, even as a nation. First, that consumption within the country itself has risen from 175 million tons in 1938 to 218 million tons today; that the United Kingdom price of coal is still 30s. less than in any other country in Western Europe, and that the main index of the miners' efforts in this industry, which is output per manshift, has been steadily rising since 1947.
Although, therefore, the miners, the National Coal Board and the nation have every right to feel and to take a certain pride in these results, the astounding thing is that the ordinary men and women in the street do not know of these simple facts, and, moreover, the only interest they have is in the end product—and that is how coal affects them as it burns in their home grates. However friendly many of them may be towards the industry, these complaints to which I have referred are so widespread that I think it is my duty to state them and to invite the Parliamentary Secretary to say what, if anything, the Ministry can do to meet these complaints.
They are mainly under three headings. First, there is widespread complaint of the quality of coal in relation to its price. Secondly, complaints of foreign matter—in Scotland we call them "stones"—in the coal which consumers purchase to burn in their grates; and thirdly, perhaps just as important, is the apparent in- adequate or inefficient machinery through 196 which the consumer can make complaints known and obtain some redress.
The first two complaints are related to one another, and I shall deal with them very briefly. The first consists of statements that while there are seven different grades of coal, with prices statutorily stable, there is no indication given on the salesman's van or lorry of the grade of coal which he is selling. Therefore, the consumer cannot have any knowledge of the price which should be paid.
Prices range from 5s. 4d. per cwt. for lowest grade, to 6s., 6s. 6d., 7s. 1d., 7s. 8d., 8s. 5d. and 9s. 3d., which is the price for the highest grade. These prices, so far as I know, prevail in Scotland, and certainly in the western part, but the housewife has no real assurance that, even if she pays, say, 7s. 8d. for grade 5 coal she will, in fact, receive grade 5 coal.
Even those who can afford to buy the higher grade find in some circumstances that what they get is dull stuff which will not burn and which, in fact, has stones or other foreign matter present in it. Rather naturally, when the price is high and there is a feeling generated that the grade which was paid for has not been delivered, there is a great sense of injustice. I know that it would be easy, in talking on this aspect of the matter, to represent it out of all proportion to the facts, as though the whole country were seething with this feeling. That would be quite untrue, however, and all I am doing is trying to speak mainly for those with small houses; that is, occupants of one or two-apartment houses, who are unable to buy a large quantity of coal—perhaps one or two cwt. I should like to speak of those people in relation to those who can buy larger quantities. Both suffer, but the former are at a greater disadvantage. That arises in this way.
If a complaint is made and somebody is sent to make an investigation, there is some evidence available in those houses whose occupants can buy the large quantities; but in the others, the evidence is being burnt while the householder is waiting for someone to make the inspection. So, added to the sense of injustice, there is also a sense of frustration together with a widespread suspicion that the merchants are selling 197 lower grade coal for higher prices. Housewives feel that there is no safeguard against that.
I must say that I have no proof that merchants are so acting, but something came to my notice last Saturday morning which made me wonder whether merchants were doing something that they should not, even though acting within the regulations. I have here a consignment card for grade 4 coal, which ought to be sold at 7s. 1d. a cwt.; but half of it was small coal which we in Scotland call dross, and if a housewife were getting a cwt. or two of that coal she would think that it ought to be sold at the lowest price. The merchant complains, and the representative of the Coal Board or his agent comes along. He may agree with the merchant, and an effort is then made to replace this small coal, or dross, with proper coal. In the meantime, however, some of this coal has gone out on the street, for sale. The merchant can get proper coal by way of replacement, but the housewife cannot.
To whom, therefore, should the housewife complain? From whom has she to expect some redress? The Parliamentary Secretary may say, "The procedure is laid down. She should complain at the earliest possible moment to her supplier". That is simple enough in theory, but in practice it does not work. Housewives do not make their complaints to the coal merchant but to his assistant. The real merchant is probably at the depot. The salesman on the street has no time to trouble with these minor complaints. His usual answer is, "Well, Mrs. Smith, that is the stuff we are getting from the Coal Board, and we can do nothing about it".
The Parliamentary Secretary may say, "That is not true; if she keeps on insisting the merchant is bound to do something about it." There was a leading article in the Glasgow Daily Record onlylast week pointing out the steps which a lady took and the great trouble she went to in order to have her complaint dealt with and to try to get it put right. She went to the pithead, the Coal Board and to the local fuel overseer. Part of my complaint is that the ordinary housewife, apparently from a lack of clearly defined instructions as to what she should do, is being passed from one office to another. It appears to be nobody's responsibility to advise her as to what she should do.
198 I understand that the local fuel overseer in most big towns has nothing to do with receiving complaints. Statutorily his duty is to keep a register of merchants and those who need supplies of coal, and to see that in a period of labour troubles or bad weather coal supplies are spread, however thinly, over the population. But housewives have the impression that the local fuel overseer's office is the place to go. That is not true. Will the Parliamentary Secretary make that quite clear, and indicate what the proper procedure is?
It is said that housewives should go to the merchants, but what they really do is to go to the merchants' assistants. I make the assertion that not eight out of ten people questioned would know their coal merchant's address. It is true that the reply to that assertion would be, "It is at the fuel overseer's office", but the housewife, who is not used to completing forms, writing letters, or even using a telephone, complaints to the only man she can, namely, the man who carried the sack of coal upstairs, and little or nothing is done about it.
The Parliamentary Secretary may tell me that if the merchant complains he will get compensation to compensate the housewife, but if such compensation is being given to the merchant the housewife is certainly not getting the coal. In Glasgow, 50 per cent. of the houses are two-apartment houses, and 17 per cent. single-apartment houses, two or three stairs up. The coal merchant visits such houses probably once a week, and there is usually space for only one sack of coal, or two cwt. at the most. By the time the merchant calls the following week the coal has been burned. There is no space for the evidence to be kept to show him. The matter is passed off lightly, and nothing more is done.
I have been looking at the Report of the Domestic Coal Consumers' Council, which was furnished to the Minister in June, 1956. An impression is abroad that that organisation is complacent in this matter and that it is remote from the day-to-day problems of the people in small houses. The impression is that it is the handmaiden of the Ministry, acting as a form of public relations body making explanations to the public instead of fighting for this injustice to be rectified. Force is lent to that argument by virtue 199 of the fact that the Council is appointed by the Minister, the offices are in the Ministry buildings and the officials are paid by the Ministry. Will the hon. Gentleman make quite clear what its duties are?
Personally, I am satisfied that the Council is trying to do its job, but I have read sections of this Report which substantiate what I have been saying. For example, paragraph 11 states: We have been advised from time to time that as some of the better seams of coal are worked out, and for other reasons, there is less and less of the top quality coals available for domestic use. We have been told too that because more and more mechanisation is taking place in the mines there is less of the large coal that is normally used in the open grate The next paragraph states: These tendencies may be inevitable, but we would urge again, most strongly, that as fuel is now so dear it is all the more important that it should be as free from slack and unburnable material as possible. There is the seat of the trouble.
It may be that the Parliamentary Secretary will say that the Coal Board has been spending money on installing cleaning equipment. I agree unhesitatingly that it has, paid attention to that in the past, but I ask him to press for still more to be spent on cleaning equipment as there is the seat of the trouble. In the Report of the National Coal Board the wording of paragraph 34 is, to say the least, unhappy and unfortunate. If he reads that, the Parliamentary Secretary will see the strength of my case. It says: Since vesting day, some £50 million had been spent on coal preparation, nearly half of it on plants completed by the end of 1955. This heavy capital expenditure benefits the consumer of coal "— we should hope it would— but it results in a reduction in the output and productivity of the industry since, as more coal is more efficiently cleaned, there is less tonnage for sale and more discard to be handled at the pits. I say it is unhappy and perhaps unfortunate to suggest that production is the all-important thing and not the quality of the material which is being sold to people in their homes.
Paragraph 13 of the Consumers' Council Report outlines the procedure to be followed. It says: In such cases"— 200 where dirty coal is supplied— the householders should complain as quickly as possible to their merchants and press them to take the matter up with the N.C.B. if they have not already done so under the arrangement between the N.C.B. and the Coal Merchants' Federation whereby the N.C.B. make themselves responsible for clean delivery to the merchant, and the merchant makes himself responsible for clean deliveries to the householder. I think the merchants themselves would have a complaint. Can nothing more be done in this matter? The next sentence says that the merchant makes himself responsible for clean deliveries to the householder. These responsibilities are not being discharged, and paragraph 15, which says there is a satisfactory procedure—though it is not always followed makes my point—that it should be the Minister's job to let consumers know their rights and know what is the procedure in order that complaints may be made in a simple fashion without confusing them.
Will the Minister have regard to paragraph 18 of the same Report, which reads, On the suggestion of the coal trade members of the Council, we have invited your Department "— that is, the Minister's Department— to consult with the Coal Merchants' Federation and the Co-operative Union on the possibility of giving further protection for householders concerned".

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Mr. David Renton)
Will the hon. Gentleman read the rest of the paragraph, which is very relevant.

§ Mr. Hannan
I have read it. It points out the difficulty of the householder in ascertaining, as a layman, what kind of coal he is getting. My point is that precisely because of that there is a responsibility on those who know the quality to see that inferior products are not sold to the public. I will leave the matter there and hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will reply to the points that I have raised.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Mr. David Renton)
The hon. Member for Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) has raised a number of difficult problems in connection with the supply 201 of coal, especially to people living in large tenement buildings in which inevitably the supplies must be small. It is one thing to mention problems and another to find a solution to them. I do not say that a complete solution to this problem has been found or could easily be found, but in answer to the points which the hon. Member has made, I will endeavour to tell hint what has been done so far and assure him that all those who are responsible for doing these things are not complacent about them but are trying to improve their methods all the time.
First, let us consider the part played by the various people concerned. Let us take, first, the National Coal Board because the hon. Member referred specifically to the part played by it in this matter. Its responsibility is statutory. It is to produce coal. To use the words of Section 1 of the 1946 Act, it has the duty of …making supplies of coal available, of such qualities and sizes, in such quantities and at such prices, as may seem to them best calculated to further the public interest in all respects… I emphasise, and in doing so I agree with the hon. Member, that the Board's duty is to produce coal and not to produce stone or slate, however much that duty may appear to reduce its total production. The Board has a large number of screening and washing plants and in recent years has greatly intensified its efforts and I think it is fair to say that its results are steadily improving. Under its capital development programme it has plans for extending these plants on a considerable scale. The plants are very large and costly items, and it is a matter for the National Coal Board's judgment how much of its capital expenditure should be used in installing this plant and how much in maintaining production. The importance of selling coal which is what it purports to be, that is, coal and not foreign matter, is something of which the Board is well aware.
The next people who are concerned are the coal merchants—the distributors of the coal to the householders. Of course, if anyone buys anything and is dissatisfied with it, his obvious duty is to complain to the person from whom he bought. I think therefore that the hon. Gentleman can scarcely complain of the fact that it is an essential part of 202 the procedure for investigating complaints that the consumer should, first, take up the matter with the coal merchant with whom he is in direct contact in the matter. The more publicity that is given to the fact that that is the first duty of the householder the better it will be for all concerned. One of the reasons why I welcome the fact that the hon. Gentleman has raised this matter tonight is that it does add somewhat to the publicity which can be given.
As the hon. Member has mentioned, the coal merchants have a long-standing arrangement with the National Coal Board for investigating complaints about any particular wagon load sent by the Board to the merchant. Of course, a condition of the successful working of that arrangement is that the procedure shall be carried out as soon as possible; that is, by the consumer as soon as he finds out, and then by the merchant as soon as he has been told by the customer.
Broadly speaking—and I emphasise that it is broadly speaking—over the years those arrangements have been found to work well, but, as I say, there is no complacency about the matter. The National Coal Board and the coal merchants have recently established a new committee in order to ensure that that procedure does work well and that the public are given the best possible information about it. There is no question of a new tribunal of any kind being set up. It is simply something which will enable the public to understand the nature of the problem better, and be able to help to work the procedure.
The hon. Gentleman asked, and has every right to ask, what can the local fuel overseers do—they are, after all, officers of the Ministry of Power—to help the householders who have complaints. The local fuel overseers are there because we have coal rationing. It therefore follows that their principal duties are to administer the rationing system by registering each householder with a coal merchant, and by keeping a register of merchants. When applications are made for the addition of new names they may add them. On rare occasions, names are removed for improper conduct. Further, the local fuel officers have the duty of authorising extra amounts of coal, over and above the maximum permitted quantities, for consumers in particularly difficult circumstances.
203 Those are the main duties of the local fuel overseers. As such, they have no responsibility for the content, the quality, or the weight, of coal delivered. Nevertheless, they do help the householders in three ways. They do so, first, by telling them, when they do not know, what is the proper procedure for making complaints; secondly, again if they do not know, who the coal merchant is, and thirdly, by reminding the coal merchant of his obligation under the trade's agreement with the National Coal Board.
I understand that the hon. Gentleman had in mind at least one case of a particular constituent—an old lady living in a large tenement building who did not even know the name of her coal merchant. We all know that such cases happen. It is something for which it is very difficult to legislate or administer, but if the hon. Gentleman will let us have particulars of the case I shall be very glad to have inquiries made to see what can be done to help the lady concerned.
The hon. Member has mentioned the Domestic Coal Consumers' Council, and 204 has referred to its Report. I should have thought that the very passages which the hon. Member quoted from its Report revealed that the Council itself had shown a considerable interest in this problem.

§ Mr. Hannan
If I did not say so, I thought I had added that there were certain widespread criticisms that I personally did not accept.

§ Mr. Renton
It may be that I misunderstood the hon. Member. Let there be no mistake, the Domestic Coal Consumers' Council has given a great deal of attention to the problem. It was discussed at its last meeting. It may interest the House to know that it is meeting again tomorrow morning and I am arranging for a copy of the OFFICIAL REPORT of this debate to be sent to the Council.