§ Mr. SpeakerBefore I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power to make a personal statement which he has asked me to allow him to make, may I remind the House that the rule about personal statements is that the House will admit them provided that Mr. Speaker has been informed of what the hon. Member proposes to say, and has given leave, and that if another hon. Member is involved in the personal statement he is generally allowed to give his own views of the matter and to say whether he accepts it or not.
It would be convenient to the House if a Minister or hon. Member who wished to make personal statements would let Mr. Speaker have a copy of it early, because he needs time to consider it.
§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Mr. Reginald Freeson)I apologise, Mr. Speaker, if a copy of the statement was delayed. We did our best to get it to you in time.
With permission, I should like to make a short personal statement about a misunderstanding which arose during Question Time last Tuesday, when I may have appeared to have misled the House.
In reply to a supplementary question by the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), I said that he was wrong in quoting 21 per cent. as the Central Electricity Generating Board's present plant margin. In fact, this figure had been given in a Written Answer by my right hon. Friend on 4th February.
The C.E.G.B.'s estimate of maximum demand in "average cold spell weather conditions" this winter was 36,700 megawatts, and this figure was used in the calculation of the 21 per cent. Subsequent information suggests, however, that a better estimate would be of 37,300 megawatts. On this later estimate the margin would be about 19 per cent.
At Question Time on Tuesday I was aware of the later estimate, but, of course, the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury could not be. I apologise to him if he considered my reply to be discourteous.