HC Deb 05 February 1962 vol 653 cc187-98

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Finlay.]

10.58 p.m.

Mr. Gerald Nabarro (Kidderminster)

The subject of my speech is the "freeze-up". It has nothing whatever to do with the pay pause. It concerns the total lack of preparedness by Her Majesty's Government in the face of severely adverse winter weather conditions. As an analogy, I recall that, a matter of ten years ago, 4,000 people died in London in about 10 to 14 days in the worst winter smoke fog—since called "smog"—of all time. It then took a good deal of public agitation anal clamour in this House for the Beaver Committee to be established, from which flowed important recommendations, and then about another two years passed until, in 1956, the Clean Air Act was finally passed.

The provisions of that Act were generally thought to be impracticable when the agitation first began to the effect that the Government should pay some attention to the severe economic losses involved in conditions of that kind. My purpose tonight is to try to stimulate Ministers to change their ideas about preparedness for severe weather conditions.

Meteorologists have said, notably in the last few weeks, that Britain's weather will progressively become colder during the next fifty or sixty years, and that the sort of conditions we experienced for about three weeks starting at Christmastime should not be unusual in the future. The economic losses in production arising from notably the rupture to power and rail transport were very considerable on this occasion and were possibly mitigated only by the fact that the severe weather conditions occurred largely during the Christmas and New Year holiday period.

Notwithstanding that, on working days, 20 per cent. factory absenteeism was reached in a large number of factories in the Midlands and north England and Scotland, heating systems in factories froze up, prolonged stoppages occurred, there were strikes among factory workers who said that they were too cold to work in workshops, and many workers were sent home because factory managements were unable to provide heat to keep them at work. The aggregation of the economic and financial losses over this period of two or three weeks was undoubtedly very great.

So far, the reaction of the Treasury, which is responsible for economic and financial policy, has been one of lofty indifference. I suggest that a little leadership may now be required. I shall give a few examples of the scale of the losses entailed by severe weather conditions in this country. I will start with the domestic side and take Merseyside.

On Merseyside there were electricity breakdowns of up to 20 hours' duration during the Christmas and New Year holiday period. I quote the Chairman of the Manchester and North Wales Electricity Board, Mr. D. H. Kendon, as reported in the Liverpool Daily Post on 5th January, 1962: The load at this time has been as much as 40 per cent. higher, and that is the extent of our misjudgment. I repeat, "misjudgment". State board bosses are not paid to misjudge electricity supply.

A local councillor, Mrs. E. Parry, of Aughton, Liverpool, also reported in the Liverpool Daily Post on the same date, said: … residents in the Aughton Park area were without a supply for nearly 20 hours last Friday. Many of them had all-electric homes. They had no means of cooking. 'Talk about nationalisation—I would call it paralysation' she said. 'Something should be done because people no longer have any confidence about going all-electric.'". Incidentally, that was at a time when all the factories were closed because it was Christmas: still the electricity board could not supply the current solely for domestic needs.

Mr. John Tilney (Liverpool, Wavertree)

While congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) on raising this very important matter, may I ask him whether he is aware that among the many people on Merseyside who have complained there is a Wavertree doctor who, on the advice of the board, changed over from gas to electricity for the whole of her house and surgery; that all her sterilisation of instruments was done in the surgery and that three times in one week her surgery was blacked out and all her patients had to be sent home? Does he not think, in view of the somewhat tardy methods which we associate with these boards from time to time when we get these periods of freeze-up on Merseyside, that, to avoid misjudgment, a questionnaire might be sent to every customer of the board along with his bill?

Mr. Nabarro

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has been subjected to clamorous complaints from his constituents. No doubt my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Bingham), whom I am also delighted to see here, will share the dismay of his constituents upon this total breakdown of public services.

A second example is taken from transport. I refer to the Southern Region electrified system. Half a million passengers, notably into Waterloo Station, were delayed for up to four hours. Waterloo was closed to trains for that length of time. There was utter chaos. I quote The Times of 1st January: A spokesman for Southern Region said: 'We are in utter chaos. Trains are held up all over the place. Telephone lines are down and we are having trouble with communications. Trains are taking up to three or four times as long because of frozen points and because of snow on the conductor rails or electrified lines.' My estimation of the circumstances is that 500,000 workers each lost four hours' work, an aggregation of 2 million man-hours at, say, 10s. an hour, a loss of about £1 million for that single day. Has the Treasury ever endeavoured to ascertain the scale of losses of this kind? I believe that it has not, but the purpose of my speech tonight is to ask it, in such circumstances, along with many other similar circumstances, to do so.

Moreover, it was not adverse comment restricted only to The Times. This is what the Daily Telegraph said on the following day: French people were surprised today to read of the chaos on Britain's road and rail services caused by the New Year's Eve snow and ice. A railway official, told of the points freeze-up at Waterloo Station, in weather which was several degrees warmer than that in Paris at Christmas, said: 'Are you pulling my leg?'. At the start of winter, gas burners which light automatically when the temperature falls are placed near points. He claimed that French Railways ran to time, even through blizzards. And unworkable points of that kind were totally unknown——

Mr. G. R. Mitchison (Kettering)

Nationalised railways.

Mr. Nabarro

And our railways are nationalised, too—and the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) was part of the Administration that nationalised them. He rebuked me the other evening for intervening in one of his speeches, though I rose to do so. Now he is somnolent on the Opposition Front Bench.

In Canada, of course, there is a proper and lively anticipation of circumstances of this kind. There, all railway points are treated with dry graphite film—instead of our lubricants of the standard type—which prevents railway points from freezing, and makes them operable at all times. Similar examples may be given from Sweden, Switzerland, or any other country which suffers a climate of the Continental type.

I claim that we are extremely slothful in these matters, and lacking in weather consciousness, but this is where the Treasury should have an active interest. The Treasury has this year sanctioned no less than £500 million of capital investment—which derives from taxpayers, through the medium of the Chancellor's Budget surplus to cover below-the-line capital expenditure—of which approximately £300 million is for power generation and distribution, and £200 million for the railways. Is this huge investment being correctly allocated and properly spent? Surely it is ridiculous that the least spell of really adverse weather should throw our entire power and transportation systems into chaos, with incalculable losses to industrial production and distribution——

Mr. Tilney

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for again giving way. Is he aware that during the autumn I corresponded with the Minister of Power in an attempt to reduce the amount of expenditure on electricity advertising, but that he regarded a little over £2 million spent on advertising as not unreasonable? I would ask the Treasury whether it would not have been better to spend some money on sub-stations, which cost between £6,000 and £9,000?

Mr. Nabarro

My hon. Friend, as is usual, is very apposite in his intervention.

A sum of £2 million was spent by the Electricity Authority in sales promotional advertising, to cause more consumers to buy more appliances for which the supply authority could not supply the current. I claim that if that £2 million had prudently been ploughed back into the business for reinforcement of the supply system with the cables and transformers and the remainder of the distribution impedimenta, many of those breakdowns would have been avoided. I remind the Financial Secretary to the Treasury that the claim that it is too expensive to do so is insupportable in the face of all this wasted money on unnecessary and extravagant advertising.

Of course, large additional numbers of people are now reliant on electrical rail traction. For example, there are the London-Crewe-Manchester-Liverpool railway services, which are being fully electrified; the Glasgow electric train services, and the Eastern Region train services. This is what The Times of 2nd January had to say, again, about this aspect of the matter: There are three questions that call for answer. The first concerns the railways. Already, electrification affects millions of people and it is to spread. The mechanical arrangements at present in force appear to be planned on the principle that occasional chaos is better than the expense of installing safeguards against cold weather. How far is this a justified view and is it consistent with the experience of other countries in which winter is regularly a much greater menace than it is in Britain? I ask the Treasury: does it really know whether capital expenditure in this context would be justified or not? Nobody has ever carried out a critical examination of these important economic and financial questions.

I take a statement by the Minister of Power. I am delighted to see him listening to this speech of mine on electricity supply. I quote his speech in Bridlington to his devoted constituents on 9th January, 1962, as reported in the Daily Telegraph: Mr. Wood, Minister of Power, has reached a ' definite conclusion ' about cuts in electricity at peak periods during cold weather. He spoke about it at Bridlington last night. He said breakdowns in peak periods were inevitable 'unless we invest an immense amount of capital': but, electricity boards would be foolish to do this just to meet occasional large demands. Cold cheer from my right hon. Friend for cold electors in Liverpool, but evidently not in Bridlington.

The Daily Telegraph correspondence column contained the following: Is it too much to ask that this nationalised industry should give a more logical and reasonable explanation of its failure to measure up to the duty which it is called upon to perform by Act of Parliament? Or must the 'proprietors' of the industry continue to suffer in silence? Or may one ask, is the Minister of Fuel and Power failing in his duty? I add this comment. My right hon. Friend of course repeated parrot-wise a defensive statement given to him by his electricity chiefs whom he appoints and without checking the veracity of what they told him. I suggest that much of the damaging effects of these breakdowns could be avoided, both to power and transportation systems, were unnecessary expenditure of the kind I alluded to in connection with promotional and extravagant advertising for electricity appliances dispensed with. I suggest that my right hon. Friend should be a little more analytical in the matter of public expenditure before he makes a defensive statement of the sort that I have quoted to the House. He is being a weak Minister in this context.

I ask the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he will have some regard to the following inconsistencies in Government policy. Is it really the policy of the Government to increase production and productivity? If it is, how does he suppose that manufacturers everywhere, their skilled and unskilled workers, are to achieve increases in the face of ruptured power and rail traction services every time the weather gets a little cold?

Does my hon. Friend really believe, as a second inconsistency, that it is a good thing for the electricity authorities to continue their policy all over the country of promotional advertising for the sale of appliances by the various State boards for which they, the electricity boards are unable to furnish the current? In case the Financial Secretary is unaware of this fact, so soft is the underbelly of the Chairman of the Merseyside and North Wales Electricity Board that, when taxed with that very pertinent question, he said—I am quoting from the Liverpool Post of 5th January: Answering a question from Councillor Evans, Mr. Kendon"— the Chairman— said instructions had been given that advertisements advocating the use of electricity for heating would be discontinued. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) is making good progress in his campaign.

A third inconsistency which I ask the Financial Secretary to explain is why the Southern Region of British Railways proposes the extension of the electric train system by the third conductor rail system, which falls victim to freeze-up and snowing over in severe weather, when the overhead system of electrification is evidently largely, if not totally, immune from these breakdowns in periods of cold weather?

The fourth inconsistency with which I ask him to deal is why large numbers of London underground electric trains in the most severe weather conditions between Christmas Day and New Year's Day were left lying in the open, with the result that they all froze up and in the morning nobody could start them to get countless thousands of men and women to their work. Why? London Transport replied, "Because we have no sheds to put them in". What a foolish thing to say. Any intelligent factory owner or operator knows that he cannot leave valuable equipment in the open in severe winter weather, and he builds sheds to put the equipment in at relatively low capital cost rather than risk these enormous losses inherent in the negligent and incorrect application of capital investment from moneys made available so lavishly by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary.

Mr. Robert Cooke (Bristol, West)

Why not leave the trains in tunnels?

Mr. Nabarro

That point was raised in the correspondence columns of the Daily Telegraph. There is a technical objection to it, but that was an intelligent intervention which is worthy of the Minister's consideration.

There is obviously lack of cooperation between Ministries, local authorities and State boards responsible for the supply of electric power and operations on the railways. The fact is that nobody thinks of the cold weather until it comes. I suggest that the Treasury should start thinking now, and I have one proposal to make to the Treasury tonight. I state tonight that there is a real need to evaluate the losses in the severe winter weather conditions which I have described, to collect evidence and collate data.

I should like a Government inquiry to be instituted with terms of reference which I will quote to my hon. Friend. They are my own terms of reference, concocted by me, but they should prove a reliable guide to economic advisors within the Treasury: To measure the economic consequences and assess the financial losses to the nation of total unpreparedness to meet extremely cold weather conditions: and to make recommendations. I am not alone in this. I am powerfully supported by many of the best organs of the national Press. The leader of the Daily Telegraph of 2nd January reads: The common answer, of course, to complaints of this sort is expense. It is not worth while, so the story goes, to put cables underground where the snow will not break them down, or to install apparatus to prevent the railway points from freezing when the trouble occurs so seldom. But is this really sound economics? The horrible truth is that no one really knows. Obviously the bill for a disrupted country is frighteningly high in terms of work-days lost, services destroyed and precautions and repairs made necessary. Is it not time that the Treasury, the Home Office or some other suitable body was asked to try to assess the damage? In the light of their answer it would then be possible to judge how much preventive expenditure was justified The cost to the nation of road traffic delays is an equally elusive and equally important calculation. Of recent years it has been made, and a more intelligent road programme has been one result. A more provident people would do the same about its frost precautions and arm itself against the cold with something more effective than dismay. "Auntie Times" weighed in on the following day, 3rd January, 1962, with these cogent words: The defeatist line has been taken of always treating snows, when planning ahead, as being the snows of yesteryear and not of today or tomorrow. But the problem will not go with the snow. The public has a right to know whether the various transport and local government authorities could not, with foresight, improve on their performance. I add, as my last words to the Financial Secretary: why does he not indulge in a little wise and prudent anticipation on this occasion, instead of always being sad, sorry and poorer after the event?

11.20 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Edward Boyle)

I indulged in some wise, prudent anticipation that my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) would use up rather more than half the total time of this debate. He has spoken for about 22 minutes and has left me eight minutes, so I took the precaution of providing myself with a fairly full note and I shall take other opportunities of giving the country the benefit of it if I cannot say all that I wish to say this evening.

As I shall not be able to congratulate my hon. Friend on his speech tonight, I should like, at any rate, to congratulate him on another speech which he made at the weekend and the very eloquent speech he made on another medium earlier this evening. My hon. Friend, not for the first time, as a great supporter of private enterprise, has, of course, been advocating a considerable increase in Government expenditure.

First, I should like to say a few words about the transport aspect and then take the electricity aspect. To install gas heaters to protect the junction points on the Southern Region of British Railways alone would cost between £300,000 and £400,000. Since the war, London Transport has spent £750,000 on anti-frost precautions and these installations are now costing £100,000 to maintain and operate. I am told, to take another example, that the cost of snow clearing in England and Wales in 1953–54 was about £800,000. It is not true either to say that the record of public authorities has been a total blank.

My information is that during the cold weather 75 per cent. of the London passenger transport railway services were kept running despite the fact that two-thirds of London Transport track mileage is in the open. On British Railways experiments were carried out in the winter of 1960 on gas-fuelled heaters for junction points. The trial was successful and a programme of installation was begun last September. So far, 700 heaters have been installed and when the programme of installation has been completed the results will be assessed and if it looks justified the system will be extended. It is perhaps worth while remembering that, although some trains were delayed, all British Railways main line services were kept open during the recent cold spell. Therefore, it is not true to say on the transport side that no precautions were taken.

On the electrical power side, I agree with the perfectly correct remarks of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power in his speech to which my hon. Friend took exception. Surely the important figures here are those for electricity distribution. This expenditure is increasing rapidly and has been consistently revised upwards as estimates of demand have increased. The main cause of the Christmas interruptions was simply the overloading of distributive equipment. In England and Wales £98.7 million were spent on distribution in 1960–61. Expenditure is expected to be more than £10 million higher this year and to reach over £117 million in 1962–63. About half of this money is spent on reinforcing the system to meet the increasing demands of consumers.

I very much doubt whether the size of the increase in demand for electricity is sufficiently realised. I respectfully hope that these facts will be more understood by those who criticise the electricity boards in their work. During the Christmas holiday season the simultaneous maximum demand of individual area boards showed increases of up to 100 per cent. over the demand recorded 50 per cent., and on parts of their networks there were increases of up to in the same period in 1960.

I wonder whether people like Councillor Mrs. Parry and many critics of the electricity boards fully realise these facts. The boards had expected an increase, but the exceptional severity of the weather pushed demand up beyond all expectations. There were breakdowns, but in spite of the difficult conditions the boards were able to give continuous supplies to almost 99 per cent. of their customers.

I want to answer one or two other points my hon. Friend made. It is a pity, with great respect, to speak of how much better all other countries do [hail we do. My hon. Friend may have noticed reports in the Daily Telegraph of 4th January from correspondents in Geneva and Paris. I will read just one quotation: Hardly any new snow fell in Switzerland today, but the heavy falls of the past few days continued to disrupt train services and to cause power cuts. Most main roads throughout the country are still covered with packed snow or ice. Thus, other countries have these difficulties. But, of course, these comparisons are not very useful because, without preportionately very much larger expenditure than our own on protection against the weather, the trains in Canada or Switzerland would probably be immobilised for about half the year. It is not properly realised, either, that the suburban services of British Railways and London Transport are run at a higher density than anywhere else in the world. The very slightest interruption because of bad weather has quite a disproportionate effect.

There was one point mentioned by my hon. Friends to which I want to refer, and that is the sales policy of the electricity boards. My understanding is, in fact, that the boards concentrate their sales on equipment which will normally make use of electricity steadily over many hours rather than make heavy demands at peak hours. If one looks at the main appliances sold by the boards in 1960–61, one finds that they were cookers, water heaters, refrigerators and washing machines. With regard to electric fires and radiators, private traders are responsible for easily the main bulk of sales—probably more than 85 per cent. While area boards sell such appliances, their practice is in no way to press them, and in some areas they are not even, I am told, displayed in the boards' showrooms.

At the conclusion of his speech, my hon. Friend said that there should be machinery at the centre for measuring the loss caused by bad weather. No one admires the skill of economists more than I do, but I think that it would be a quite singularly difficult calculation to estimate the effect of cold weather on absenteeism. To do so one must first measure the numbers, occupations and earnings of people actually absent from work during the period in question, and then estimate the number, occupation earnings of people potentially absent from work in normal conditions, which must, of course, be defined. To carry out the first part of the exercise would require a statistical apparatus rather more than one could justify for the ordinary business of Government; and to carry out the second part would involve assumptions of a size liable to endanger the validity of the whole exercise.

If I have time to give one example, during the period of which my hon. Friend was speaking there was a big increase in known absence from work because of sickness. The number of new claims for insurance benefit by fully insured persons rose from 104,000 in the week ended 26th December to 342,000 in the week ended 2nd January. That is a big increase, and it may account for some part of the increase in absenteeism of which my hon. Friend has been speaking; but to estimate how much of the illness was attributable to the cold weather, let alone to unpreparedness to meet it, is not something on which a reputable member of the Treasury economic section would wish to pronounce.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having been continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at twenty-eight minutes past Eleven o'clock.