§ 12. Mr. StrangTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he last met the chairman of the South of Scotland electricity board; and what subjects were discussed.
§ Mr. LangMy right hon. and learned Friend last met the chairman of the South of Scotland electricity board on 6 February and discussed progress on the Electricity Bill and other matters relevant to the Scottish electricity industry.
§ Mr. StrangDoes the Minister acknowledge that the remarkable expansion of profitable opencast mining in Scotland in recent years has been facilitated not only by the Government but by the Labour party, whose councillors—often in the face of strong local opposition —have facilitated planning permissions on the basis that opencast mining will help to sustain the deep-mining industry? Does he recognise that the optimism on this subject that Ministers—and the Secretary of State only this morning—have encouraged will be justified only if the coal-burn contract provides for the continuation of the Bilston/Monktonhall complex and the Longannet complex? That must surely be the irreducible minimum requirement for deep-mine coal in Scotland.
§ Mr. Langlf Labour councillors are responsible for the growth of opencast mining in Scotland I am glad that they recognise the valuable contribution that it can make. If coal is to have a substantial future in Scotland it must be competitive, and opencast mining helps towards that end.
I too want deep mines to have a long and secure future. But that depends on improving their output and productivity and achieving a competitiveness that enables coal to be marketed successfully.
§ Mr. Home RobertsonWould the Government have allowed the SSEB to put thousands of jobs at power stations and pits in Scotland at risk and to threaten the future of a vital sector of the Scottish economy if a directly elected Scottish Parliament with the authority to speak for the people of Scotland had existed?
§ Mr. LangWhat worries me is that such a Parliament might have taken up the suggestion of the Scottish Nationalist party, which was that Torness, one of the most important generating stations in Scotland, should be sold to an English company, with the result that Scottish industry might have had to buy back from England electricity generated in Scotland.
§ Mr. JackDoes my hon. Friend agree that the privatisation of electricity gives the Scottish electricity industry a real commercial opportunity to export power to England and Wales? Does he further agree that it gives Scottish industry more control over its own affairs, instead of control being exercised from London?
§ Mr. LangMy hon. Friend is absolutely right. It reverses the decentralisation which nationalisation always creates. In the 1940s, when Scottish electricity enterprises were nationalised, a whole raft of decision-making was removed from Scotland to the south. We are reversing that process to help regenerate enterprise in Scotland.