Electricity Bill (Hansard, 20 March 1978)

§ 5. Mr. Ridley
asked the Secretary of State for Energy when he proposes to introduce an Electricity Bill.

§ 21. Mr. Mike Thomas
asked the Secretary of State for Energy when he expects to lay the Electricity Bill before the House of Commons.

§ 22. Mr. Adley
asked the Secretary of State for Energy when he now expects to introduce the Electricity Bill.

§ 26. Mr. Biffen
asked the Secretary of State for Energy when he expects to present a Bill reorganising the electricity supply industry.

§ Mr. Benn
I am not now in a positon to introduce legislation this Session for the reorganisation of the electricity supply industry but will publish my proposals as a White Paper. I shall shortly introduce a Bill providing for Drax compensation payments and giving effect to an international agreement on safeguards for nuclear material.

§ Mr. Ridley
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the whole House will be sorry for him that his plan for centralising the electricity supply industry has been frustrated by the Lib-Lab pact? Does he agree that previously Ministers have resigned for less than this?

§ Mr. Benn
I appreciate the helpful spirit that underlies the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. There have been two years of discussion following the publication of the Plowden Report and a number of changes were made and agreed designed to prevent the kind of centralisation recommended in that report.
I shall not conceal from the House that it is unfortunate that an industry employing 160,000 people and with a £4 billion turnover should be denied an organisational change which is wanted by all the management and unions in the industry.

§ Mr. Adley
Is the Secretary of State aware that, although many of us fundamentally disagree with many of his views, at least we have the benefit of knowing what they are and that his principles are rather greater than those of self-preservation, which guide those on the Liberal Benches, who do not even appear to be here today? Is it his intention to try to introduce some of the bits of the Bill which may be generally acceptable to the House?

§ Mr. Benn
In my answer—I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will want to read it—I have made it clear that the shortened Bill will be introduced on Wednesday and published on Thursday. As soon as I can get the full Bill dealing with the reorganisation of the industry published as a White Paper, which I think will be shortly after the Easter Recess, the whole House will have an opportunity of considering the proposals put forward after the two years of discussion that has taken place.
I cannot speak for the Liberal Party, but I would welcome the publication by the Leader of the Liberal Party of the 952 reasons he gave me for not being ready to assist.

§ Mr. Biffen
In the deplorable absence of the entire Parliamentary Liberal Party, would not it be helpful if the right hon. Gentleman could indicate whether the concept of area power boards, for example, was mentioned by the Liberal Party in any of the discussions, or were its objections so frivolous and so uncomprehending that their publication or otherwise could make no contribution to serious debate on the subject?

§ Mr. Benn
I had wide consultations with the Conservative Party and with the Liberal Party about the whole problem of reorganising the industry. As will become clear when the White Paper is published, I took the view that it would be better to have primary legislation, and then the organisational framework could emerge from Statutory Instruments as and when changes were needed. As will appear when the White Paper is published, my Bill provides for Statutory Instruments that would allow power boards or the more decentralised form of organisation which I preferred to that proposed in Plowden, which was for a highly centralised industry.

§ Mr. Stoddart
Is my right hon. Friend aware that the fact that the Bill is not coming forward will cause frustration, disillusionment and a loss of morale within the electricity supply industry, which needs the Bill and has asked for it? Does not he think it remarkable that Liberal Members show so little interest in the electricity supply industry that they are not here today? Does he think that the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) is skulking in some antediluvian corner, afraid to come out and show himself today?

§ Mr. Benn
Without going into the details of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, I think that it would be wrong that a great industry of this kind, the figures of which I have given, should be frozen permanently into a pattern that is no longer appropriate. As the House will see when the White Paper is published, there are certain provisions in the draft Bill with regard to consumers, industrial democracy and the needs of the supplying industry, and there is a special open government clause which I think, when the House sees it, will 953 recommend itself widely among hon. Members generally.

§ Mr. Palmer
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in view of the vast amount of work that has been done on the Bill, which deals largely with administration, it does not reflect much credit on the parliamentary system that it cannot even be discussed here?

§ Mr. Benn
I appreciate my hon. Friend's point. The Bill will be published in its entirety together with the draft Statutory Instrument that would have been used to bring it into effect, and the House will then have an opportunity of considering how it wishes to proceed.

§ Mr. Tom King
Is the Secretary of State aware that we regard this as the most tragic outcome of a seriously mismanaged situation for what he had described as an extremely important industry? We are bound to regret the enormous delay which led the right hon. Gentleman to put himself in the position with the Liberal Party that he did. As the right hon. Gentleman referred to us and the wide consultations that he had with us, will he note that they were extremely late consultations, which made it impossible for the Bill to proceed this Session?
There is one point of detail. It has been alleged in the newspapers that the right hon. Gentleman's Bill included provisions for combined heat and power. Might they possibly be included in a revised statute in the first, minor Bill?

§ Mr. Benn
With regard to consultation, I thought it wrong to bring to the House a Bill for the industry's reorganisation that had not been through the most detailed and elaborate consultations with the industry. Much of the time occupied since Plowden reported has been spent in seeking and finally obtaining a consensus within the industry. I think that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that before I made my statement in the House last summer there were general consultations. The Bill was then forecast in the Queen's Speech, and the outlines of the proposals have been widely known and understood. I think that the hon. Gentleman will confirm that I was able to give him an absolutely clear assur- 954 ance that the power board solution, one that I know has been of some interest to the Opposition, would be capable of being introduced under the Bill, and that is the case. I have had that checked and confirmed recently.
I regret that an industry that absorbs so much of the nation's resources, and whose product goes into every home, should be denied the right to have a corporate strategy and proper framework for its future development.

§ Mr. Skinner
Will not my right hon. Friend accept that the real reason why the Liberals have been playing truant today and acting awkward over the Bill is to give the impression to those that formerly supported them ouside, and are now voting Tory, that by attacking my right hon. Friend they have been out-manoeuvring the Tories on this matter? Perhaps the best answer to the Liberals is an indication by those in the coalfields and those that work in the electricity industry that they will not support them at the next General Election, and then they will finish without any votes at all.

§ Mr. Benn
I think that when the Bill is published with the draft Statutory Instrument as a White Paper in about two weeks' time everyone in the industry and throughout the country, including consumers and hon. Members, will have an opportunity of judging for themselves the merits of the proposals. The Government are committed to the proposals, which were very carefully considered by them after the consultations with the industry. I believe them to be good proposals that will recommend themselves to those who look at them for the first time.