§ 28. Mr. Woodburnasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether all Scottish hydro-electric capital projects are to be held up until the Mackenzie Committee has completed its investigations; and when he expects its report.
§ Mr. MaclayI would refer the right hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) on 23rd October.
§ Mr. WoodburnIs not the Secretary of State aware that this little body of brewery and distillery people who raised the original objections has really no 969 standing in Scotland sufficient to cause the hold-up of a scheme like this? Is he not aware that the Mackenzie Committee is being flooded out by a mass of material, all of which is already known to and understood by the right hon. Gentleman's own advisers; and that it has become a quite superfluous investigation, which is holding up the development of essential Scottish electricity supplies?
§ Mr. MaclayI cannot accept, for once, almost anything that the right hon. Gentleman has said. The representations that have led to the postponement of the Glen Nevis inquiry have come from the large number of amenity organisations which I have just described, and I just could not accept the right hon. Gentleman's implications in any part.