HC Deb 14 December 1967 vol 756 cc769-78

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

10.20 p.m.

Sir George Sinclair (Dorking)

My object in seeking this debate is to secure greater safety for people in their homes. Electricity great modern boon not only in the public services and industry, but also in people's homes. But it has to be securely harnessed. Otherwise, it can bring death by fire and by shock and much destruction by fire.

The nationalised electricity boards have a great responsibility to the public for the safety in the use of this powerful modern force. For they fix and maintain their own installations in private premises throughout the country. In exercising these responsibilities for safety, they have somewhat out of date regulations to guide them. But the Minister has an overriding general responsibility to Parliament. So, tonight, I shall try to persuade the Parliamentary Secretary to take direct action to deal with a truly scandalous record of bad work by the South Eastern Electricity Board in parts of my constituency.

This bad work goes beyond my constituency in to Guildford. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. David Howell) is unable, because of sickness, to be in this place or join in this debate, but we have been in close consultation. I am glad, however, that, to mark our party's concern over this matter, we have the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), who is our Front Bench spokesman on this subject, and is keeping a watching brief.

I base my case on a report sent to me by the Minister. It was made by one of his own inspectors. The report has been supplemented by close consultations over the last two months with one of my constituents, an experienced electrical engineer who is consultant also to the Guildford Rural District Council. It was he who brought these matters into the light and it was he who accompanied the inspector during his sample investigations. I shall quote only three of the passages from the report, for much of it has already appeared in the national Press. It says: Four of the installations I saw were, in my opinion, an open, obvious and constant source of danger. These were at Inspections 12 and 21 where the risk was one of fire, Inspection 27 where the risk was one of electric shock and Inspection 31, where the risk was of fire and electric shock. In all these cases the faults were clearly apparent, and in my view, should have been seen and reported to the Board by the Meter Readers who, the Board say, are instructed to report ' irregularities'. It is this lack of action on clearly obvious and very dangerous conditions which is in my view the most serious finding arising from the inspection. Again: in many cases this equipment is fitted at floor level where the danger to children is obvious. One final quotation: In summarising it does appear to me that a significant proportion of the Board's equipment in the two districts concerned might be below a standard consistent with a reasonable degree of safety and of a current carrying capacity below that demanded by the normal domestic electrical load. I am sure that the House will agree that this discloses a quite shocking record of slack work and of slack supervision by the South Eastern Electricity Board and, in particular, by this Surrey sub-area and the two subordinate districts of Dorking and Guildford. But this report, with two exceptions, covered a random sample on a fairly narrow base. The true situation throughout this sub-area and elsewhere under this board may be better. It may also be worse. It presents, anyway, a vivid picture of widespread danger, and the public will look to the Minister to see that those responsible are brought to book.

How were these failures revealed? Not by the vigilance which the South Eastern Electricity Board has a duty to the public to exercise. And yet this nationalised industry, with its monopoly of supply, has a special duty in handling such a powerful force in people's homes to make safety a top priority. It clearly has failed to do so in this area.

This situation was exposed by one of my constituents, Mr. D. C. Smith, of whom I have already spoken. For two years he has been reporting to the Board dangerous installations in this area. In spite of these reports, the Board did not take the initiative in making a general review of the standard of work in its area. It simply made good some of the failures which he pointed out, some of them after many months.

In the end, Mr. Smith was driven in May of this year to complain direct to the Minister. His complaint as summarised by the Ministry was: First, the Board were unco-operative over any complaint made. Secondly, the Board were unwilling to take any steps to remove any possible dangers at meter positions or dangers due to earthing which past experience indicated were likely to exist throughout the network. Here, I should like to pay tribute to the thoroughness and persistence with which my constituent sought to improve the safety of installations in this area. I am sure that the people of my constituency owe him a debt of gratitude for exposing these dangers. I hope that the Minister, too, will feel that Mr. Smith has rendered a valuable public service in giving the Ministry the opportunity to deal with the situation promptly.

The Minister initiated action promptly. When he received Mr. Smith's report, he arranged for his inspector accompanied by my constituent to carry out a sample inspection of the South Eastern Electricity Board's work in the consumers' premises in this area, and when I asked for a copy of this report, the Minister without delay sent me one, and I thank him. I hope that he will be as prompt in his follow-up action.

The first action which I should like him to take in view of the scandalously dangerous situation revealed is the setting up of a public inquiry. No less is due to the people of my constituency and the others who may be affected in neighbouring areas. Secondly, I believe that the Minister should carry out a review by independent consultants into the standards and safety achieved by other boards for which he is, in general, answerable to Parliament. Those are my two main requests and I hope that in reply the Parliamentary Secretary can reassure the public by agreeing to take action on those lines.

I should like to make some other suggestions. My third is that there should be a systematic check by a Ministry inspector and an experienced, independent, consultant on every meter position in the Dorking and Guildford South Eastern Area Board's district and all faults and slovenly work revealed by them should immediately be put right by the South Eastern Electricity Board.

Fourthly, and I do not want to spread alarm, but I suggest that whenever there is a fatal accident, with possible electrical involvement, the coroner should be encouraged to call for an independent electrical engineer, as well as an area Board official, as expert witnesses.

Fifthly, the Minister should set up a working party to bring up to date the Electricity Supply Regulations 1937, and to tighten them up in the interests of safety. At the same time, he might seek to give legal status to the regulations of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, which I have here, and to the British Standards Specifications, to prevent the manufacture and import of dangerous and potentially dangerous equipment. Lastly I am advised that there is an urgent need to correlate all existing information regarding earthing. Perhaps the Minister should consider giving the task to some appropriate body and following it up with additional research, if that was found to be necessary.

To sum up, thanks to my constituent's patient and experienced investigations, his determination in the face of discouragement and rebuffs from the South Eastern Electricity Board, thanks to the support given to him by the Shere Parish Council, thanks to the splendid work of the local and national Press and radio, and because of prompt action by the Minister, widespread public danger has been exposed. An opportunity has been given to the Minister to take prompt action to deal with those dangers, and publicly and vigorously, to investigate the work of the South Eastern Electricity Board in peoples' homes, to reassure the public about the standard of safety that they have a right to expect from this and other electricity boards. Let us hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will indicate tonight what he has in mind.

10.33 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Mr. Reginald Freeson)

The hon. Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair) was kind enough to inform my Department of the main points which he intended to raise, so that I have been able to prepare some notes. He will appreciate that I have not had notice of some of the points raised by him tonight. Since I do not have a lot of time, may I say that if I am unable to get through it all in the time available I will be only too glad to handle subsequent queries by correspondence and consultation.

I should begin by saying that while the hon. Gentleman said at one stage in his speech that he did not wish to spread alarm, I suspect that some of the adjectives that he used, when they appear in print, will do it just a little. I am not here to speak complacently about this, nor to defend wrong actions or a failure by anyone in this matter. I hope, however, that we can keep this subject in perspective. Wild and vivid adjectives do not always help in this kind of situation.

Tonight, we are considering the Board's equipment inside premises—the equipment known as service terminals or terminations. In the South Eastern Board's area alone there are 1,500,000, the date of installation ranging from about 50 years ago to the present time. It would be foolish of me to deny that there are some deficiencies at these terminations. In the conditions in which the Board operates, and bearing in mind that others have access to these pieces of equipment it would be surprising if there were no deficiencies.

But the overall record of safety and quality cannot be disputed. The Board's records for the past 10 years show that there has not been a single electrical accident in the whole of the Board's area which can be attributed to defective terminal equipment. Technically, it would be possible to ensure a higher standard than at present. But the extra cost and the qualified staff required to mount a programme to deal completely with this would be prohibitive. That is what the hon. Gentleman was suggesting at one point in his speech. The Board says that it would cost approximately £600,000 to check all its consumers, quite apart from the cost of rectifying any fault discovered.

Even if it covered only older premises the cost would still be formidable, and might be difficult to justify at a time when expenditure is having to be restrained, considering that there has been no fatal accident, so far as the records show, attributable to the Board's equipment on consumers' premises, and that the accident rate, mostly of minor injuries, is so low. The Board has undertaken a realistic and regular programme of replacement of obsolete apparatus. When the Board is advised of additions or alterations to the consumer's installation, or an irregular situation is reported by the Board's staff, it is the rule of the Board to institute replacements where necessary. It is fair to say that the volume of replacement in such circumstances is modest, and much remains to be done.

I turn now to the inspector's report, which is the subject of the debate. A number of the cases refer to failure to earth cut-outs and meters. A majority of the installations inspected were carried out before nationalisation, when it was the usual practice for many undertakings not to earth cut-outs and it is not considered justifiable at this stage to ask the Board to earth these old pieces of equipment, which are being gradually replaced and have not been a cause of accidents. The Board's employees have strict instructions to seal insecure and unsealed apparatus, but, as the inspector indicated in his report, seals can be removed by others later.

Of the 47 installations inspected and reported on in the report, 25 are judged by the inspector to be quite satisfactory, 18 were not in accordance with the best modern practice, and a number had minor deficiencies, but none of these could be said to be dangerous.

Sir G. Sinclair

May I ask the Minister whether he is quoting from the same report I quoted? I am basing myself on the inspector's report.

Mr. Freeson

I hope that the hon. Member will be patient. I shall come to the particular point which is at issue, so far as the Board is concerned. I am referring entirely to the report in these remarks.

I was going on to say that this leaves four cases out of the 47 which the inspector considered to be dangerous. In one of the four cases the conditions found were not due to work done by the Board, but to unauthorised work or tampering, for which the Board was not in any way responsible. This kind of interference, including the work of the handyman, is something which there is no means of stopping. People should be warned about this, apart from the debate tonight. In another of these cases the condition found by the inspector was not present when inspected by the Board's installation inspector in April this year. The investigation has shown that much of the trouble is due to work done on the consumer's side of the meter without the Board's knowledge, and that the Board must rely on its own employees who visit premises to report back any irregularities.

It is necessary to keep these matters in perspective. I have already mentioned that there has not been a single accident reported in the whole of the South Eastern Board's area for the past 10 years attributable to the Board's equipment in premises. Over the country as a whole since we began keeping figures in their present form about four years ago, there has been no fatal accident attributable to the Board's equipment, and injuries reported, almost invariably very slight, are less than 1 per 1 million consumers a year. Even if we take fatal accidents in the home from all electrical causes—which goes well beyond the Boards' equipment—from all electrical causes including all consumers' wiring and equipment, the proportion is only 1 per cent, of all fatal accidents in the home.

I think that we must keep this matter in perspective. This happens to be one of the safest service industries we have in this country in relation to homes and industry. Reference was made to the tightening up of the regulations, and it was suggested they are out of date. We do not accept this. We believe that they are basically sound and cover a very wide field. The Minister does not consider that any review of the regulations would contribute to safety. The suggestion about making the I.E.E. regulations statutory has been considered and rejected many times in the past, because enforcement of them would require a whole army of inspectors with the right to go into private houses. This would be objectionable to householders in many cases, very costly, and qualified technical manpower is already scarce. That is not to say that there are no improvements in procedure for dealing with old houses, but for me to pursue any thoughts along those lines would take me beyond the scope of this debate.

The Electricity Boards test and inspect all new installations in accordance with a procedure which in some respects goes further than the requirements of regulation 26 of the Electricity Supply Regulations. They also advise individual consumers about earthing regulations, and test and inspect installations on request. Some boards rewire houses on credit terms.

In practice, there is no need for the regulations to be made mandatory. As it is, a high proportion of all installation work is now carried out by contractors, including the boards, who are registered with the National Inspection Council for Electrical Installation Contracting, which is backed by the Government and the industry. The essence of qualification for registration is that all work must be done in accordance with the I.E.E. regulations, and sample checking is carried out by the council.

The number of fatal accidents in the home due to the fixed wiring is less than 1 per 1 million consumers per year, and it is not increasing, despite the dramatic increase in the use of electricity over the years. The Minister is not persuaded that further statutory regulation is needed or would materially improve the already high standards of safety.

A public inquiry has been asked for, but, again, the Minister does not consider this to be an appropriate way of handling either the situation which has been referred to or the general points referred to by the hon. Gentleman on a nation wide basis. The electricity industry enjoys a very high record of safety, and it would be quite wrong to spread unnecessary alarm or suggest that there is any general or serious problem. The industry is very safety conscious, and a great deal of work is going on all the time to improve on the high standards already achieved.

I want to end by referring to particular points which we are pursuing. They have been touched upon by the hon. Gentleman. I want to emphasise that, despite the fact that I have made these observations and set out the facts as we see them, we are in no way complacent.

Following the report, the Board is to carry out further checks on samples of consumers in other parts of its area, and we are arranging for the Ministry's inspectorate to be closely associated with this work. The Board proposes to consider how the method of reporting back by meter readers making regular visits to consumers' premises can be improved. they can report back on any faults they discover, and their regular visits will improve the oversight of work which needs to be done. The Ministry will discuss further with the Board what may be done to remedy the position following the wider check.

Those seem to us to be the practical ways of tackling the problem. As regards the rest of the country, we propose to tike the matter up with the Electricity Council in the light of the points which have been made by the hon. Gentleman and those I have made in reply. If necessary, we will also consider approaching the consultative councils to consider to what extent, if at all, there have been complaints or queries of this kind in other parts of the country which need looking at, where handling methods might need improvement.

In my last remarks, I want to refer to some of the general observations which the hon. Gentleman made about how the matter was brought to light. I do not deny that there may be some fault here, and I have indicated it during my remarks. However, it is my impression, having discussed the matter at some length inside the Department, that the blame for the handling of it does not rest all on one side. There have been some unfortunate personal relations, some unfortunate methods of speaking with and contacting people, and efforts to get things moving which it would not be of any benefit, in this situation, for me to pursue in detail.

Concerning the earlier part of the history, there are faults on both sides. What the Ministry, the Board, the industry and the hon. Member are concerned about is: what do we do about the situation now? I hope that the lines of action I have indicated, against the background that I have described, will meet with the hon. Members support, so that we can get on with the job and make sure that matters are dealt with satisfactorily in the future.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at a quarter to Eleven o'clock.