Heating and Lighting (Hansard, 28 February 1984)

§ Mr. Allen Adams (Paisley, North)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a commission to supervise the method of payment of domestic fuel bills.

If my memory serves me right, this is the ninth ten-minute Bill that I have introduced. Unfortunately, the Government have not taken the advice that I have offered them before and I suspect that they will not take the advice that I shall give them today either.

The late Tom Johnston, who was the Secretary of State for Scotland in the Attlee Government, was responsible for the building of the hydro-dams in the highlands of Scotland. I think that he used the slogan "power in the glens". That phrase will long be remembered in Scotland. He certainly created a hydro-electricity scheme in the north of Scotland that subsidises the national grid to a considerable extent. Tom Johnston's idea in building the hydro-dams in the highlands was that power should be available to all of the people all of the time. That part of the northern hemisphere experiences perhaps the coldest, darkest and dampest atmosphere in the world and one of the necessary prerequisites for life is heat. Light is another. We built the hydro-dams and helped the national grid.

We now have nuclear fuel, oil and vast reserves of coal. It is fair to say that Britain is one of the best endowed countries in the world in terms of sources of fuel. In spite of that, as was shown on Monday night on the BBC's "Panorama" programme, 80,000 people had their electricity disconnected last year. One of the ironies of the programme was that the fellow who was portrayed as having had his electricity cut off was a redundant electrician. How much misery and suffering is just a little under the surface? How many old people sit every night in single rooms lit by a single bulb, heated by a single electric fire with only one bar going and are afraid to move out of those rooms? How many people constantly face the choice of switching on that bar or buying a quarter of ham, some coffee, butter or bread? It is a disgraceful and terrible indictment of Britain in 1984 that many people, especially old people, are condemned for five or 10 years of their retirement to a miserable existence after having contributed for 45 or 50 years to society.

We must also consider unemployed people who are afraid to see the electricity bill slip through the door every quarter because they know what it means that wee Johnnie cannot have a pair of shoes, that they cannot afford to buy a packet of cigarettes or a pint of beer or that the mother cannot afford to buy a new dress. Such people are put in terrible circumstances, as are the sick and the infirm. The people who need fuel most are the very people who are condemned to live without it, just as in the 1920s and 1930s the people who most needed hospital treatment were condemned to go without it. My doctor, who had practised in Bow in the east end of London and also in the east end of Glasgow —he recently died aged 80—remembered that time. He told me that he could go to a door, diagnose what was wrong, but could not prescribe treatment because the patient could not afford to buy the drugs. The same applies to fuel today. We hear the same story every year. Crocodile tears are shed about old people living in misery and in the cold. Everyone is worried and it is terrible until June, when all is forgotten until October, November and December.

151 If people really care, as they did about health in the 1920s and 1930s, they should be asked and be willing to put their money where their mouth is. Just as we pay a national insurance stamp for our health—we pay for the treatment but it is free when it is received—we should do exactly the same with regard to heating. The state wastes millions of pounds each year treating people who are ill because they cannot afford heating bills. I refer to people suffering from hypothermia, chest complaints and the rest. The list is almost endless.

It would be far better if heating were paid for nationally on the principle of from each according to his means to each according to his needs. All of us who are in work should contribute whatever it costs to pay the national heating bill. By doing that we should provide for the least able. That is the principle that established the National Health Service. Indeed, I would argue that it is an extension of the NHS, because, without proper heating and lighting health is in great jeopardy. Moreover, a country with an aging population should prove its humanity and that it cares for the over-70s, the unemployed and the sick by contributing to a national insurance stamp that will ensure that next winter such people do not suffer from the cold.