§ 33. Mr. Palmerasked the Minister of Power if he will counteract the reduction of orders for new generating plant due to the present recession in electrical demand by sanctioning an accelerated programme for the replacement of out-of-date plant in order to improve the overall efficiency of the British electricity supply system and to reduce operating costs.
§ Mr. MasonI shall take these points into account in considering the electricity industry's capital development programme.
§ Mr. PalmerIs my right hon. Friend aware that the electrical manufacturing industry is having great difficulty in maintaining export targets because of lack of home orders? Is net this suggestion a very sensible way of getting over the difficulty?
§ Mr. MasonI should remind my hon. Friend that the C.E.G.B. already has over 20,000 megawatts of new plant under construction, but I appreciate that some older plants that are labour-intensive could go out, and would be a saving if we embarked on a new building programme, so we will keep that point in mind.