HL Deb 03 August 1883 vol 282 cc1448-55

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

Moved, "That the Order made on the 2nd day of March last That no Bill brought from the House of Commons confirming any Provisional Order or Provisional Certificate shall be read a second time after Tuesday the 26th day of June next,' be dispensed with, and that the Bill be now read 2a." — (The Earl of Redesdale.)

VISCOUNT BURY

said, he thought that a measure of such importance would have been introduced by Her Majesty's Government with some statement. The House would understand that in making his present remarks he was actuated by no motives of preference or dislike for any particular Company, or for the Bills in general; but simply by considerations of public interest. This Bill was one of 11 which were on the Paper for second reading. One alone contained 500 pages of closely printed matter, and was full of abstruse technical details. Nine of those Bills were what was called unopposed—that was, had been examined by the Board of Trade, and Provisional Orders granted; but these were really in the same position as any other Public Bill, and their provisions required examination on public grounds. A year ago there was a great mania for electric lighting. By the Electric Lighting Act of 1882 the Board of Trade had power to grant a Provisional Order to any Company applying for one, and that Order had to be confirmed by Parliament. There were a large number of applications made under the Act; the Report presented to the House on the subject showed that 106 applications were received on and before the 21st of November, 23 by Local Authorities, 83 by Companies, 97 of them relating to England and Wales, 8 to Scotland, and 1 to the town of Belfast in Ireland; while 35 were in respect of London and the suburbs. The Bills dealt with districts. It was in evidence before the Electric Lighting Committee of last year that it would cost £100,000 to light a square mile in one of the districts. Few districts were less than a square mile, and the first matter of public importance was the question whether the plan of dealing with localities by districts should not be abandoned. The way in which the districts were parcelled out was such that the Companies could not efficiently light them. Under one class of these Provisional Orders any district might be divided into two Schedules, A and B; and while the Order enjoined the laying down of mains in the principal streets in Schedule A, Schedule B, and the minor streets in Schedule A, need not necessarily receive any benefit whatever for the whole period of 21 years. Every one of those Bills would create a monopoly for 21 years. At any rate, for two years they need do nothing, and then they might take time to consider when they should begin their works, and so forth. Considering the great difficulty there would be in ousting a Company which had obtained a footing of that kind, he thought it not too much to say that the Bill would confer a monopoly. Then, as to the expense for performing the works, the estimate for them ought to be set down in the Bill, and there ought to be evidence of the Company's being able to carry out the work. He would give one instance of a Company applying for powers under these Bills. Last year it paid £230,000 for patents, which had since become useless, and the Company had thereby become very much crippled. That Company was applying for powers to light no loss than 25 districts in the City of London; and, taking each district as a square mile, the Company would be committed to an expenditure of £2,500,000, and had only paid £50 for the concession. What guarantee was there that this Company could bear such an expenditure as that? The fact was, no doubt, that having obtained these powers, they would sell them piecemeal to other parties, and would probably make a profit. That seemed to him to be laughing at Parliament and perfectly absurd. It was a serious question whether Parliament should allow this to be clone. If the concessions were not sold, the Company might fall to the ground, though the public might want electric lights. Another point was that most of these Bills contained the same Orders which had been drawn up by the Board of Trade. These Orders should, it seemed to him, be embodied in one Act similar to the Railway Clauses Consolidation Act, and applied to all future Bills. Then there should be clauses as to the price to be charged. He found that that varied almost with each Bill. It varied per unit. A unit represented in lighting power about 100 feet of gas, and the price per unit in these Bills amounted to 7d., 8d., and 9d. That meant that while on the average 3s. 2d. was paid for 1,000 feet of gas, 5s. 10d., 6s. 8d., and 7s. 6d. was to be paid for the same amount of lighting power by electricity. That was a matter which ought to be closely investigated. He hoped he had said enough to induce their Lordships to agree with him that the Bills should, at any rate for the present, be postponed. These unopposed Bills ought to be referred to the same Select Committee as dealt with the opposed Bills. There were only nine Bills before their Lordships, because Nos. 8 and 9 had been strongly opposed in the other House, and only came to their Lordships last night within five minutes after they had left the other House. Those opposed Bills did not in any way differ from the unopposed, except that it appeared that the work could be done a little cheaper. He would, therefore, suggest that the second reading of the unopposed Bills be postponed for the present.

LORD TRURLOW

said, he was not in the least surprised that the noble Lord had called attention to these important Bills; and he assured him that there was no intention on the part of the Board of Trade to allow thorn to be read a second time without a public explanation as to their nature. Their Lordships were aware not only of the very great interest the noble Lord took in the discussions on this subject, but also of his great knowledge of the details of it. Therefore, he, for one, felt that his opinion on a practical matter of this kind was entitled to a considerable amount of respect. At the same time, he hoped to show their Lordships that the question raised by the noble Lord had not escaped the attention of the Board of Trade, or of the carefully-composed Committees to which the Bills had been referred in the other House. He should first explain the position in which these Bills stood in their Lordships' House. Their Lordships were aware that these Bills had been presented in pursuance of the Act of last year, which was brought in by the President of the Board of Trade, and under which Provisional Orders were to be granted from time to time as applications for the purpose were made by public bodies, municipal or otherwise. At the same time, the Board of Trade issued a Code of Rules, which they had compiled with great care, stating the conditions under which Provisional Orders would be granted. They laid down three very important points. In the first place, the undertakers were to light some portion of the district allotted to them within a certain time, and subject to certain conditions. In the second place, a certain amount of capital must be raised. The noble Lord had questioned the ability of the Companies to comply with that condition; but he could assure the noble Lord that the Board of Trade had made minute inquiries into their financial condition. He thought a compliance with that second Rule would afford a sufficient guarantee. He would also point out that when once the Companies had obtained contracts, there would be no difficulty in their raising capital. The third point, upon which the Board of Trade placed the very highest importance, was that of monopoly. It was one of the very great advantages of the electric lighting system that it would, to a great extent, no doubt, break down the existing monopolies of the Gas Companies. So strong a feeling did the President of the Board of Trade and all the officers of that Department entertain against granting a new and powerful monopoly, that the Board of Trade went on to say that in the case of Companies no monopoly was, under the Act, granted, or intended to be granted, to them; and that should the Electric Lighting Companies to whom Provisional Orders should be granted neglect their duties in their district, or charge exorbitant prices, there was nothing to prevent the granting of another Provisional Order to a competing Body in that district. The Board of Trade wished it to be distinctly understood what the conditions were upon which Provisional Orders would be granted, and they would take care that no future claim to a monopoly should be made by any Company. The noble Lord had referred to certain questions of technical detail, with which, however, he would not now trouble their Lordships at length. The first point was as to the particular system of lighting to be adopted. There were, as their Lordships were aware, two principal systems—the circuit and the series systems. The Companies had power to conduct their lighting either on the one system or on the other. Then there was the question of the measurement of the supply, or the meter as it was called. That question was not yet quite settled. Then, with regard to the prices, these Bills comprised different rates. In one Bill, £3 10s. was charged for 100 units, and in another, £3 15s.; then 7d. for every unit beyond was charged in one Bill, and 9d. in another. There was nothing exceptional in this, for the price of gas varied in different localities. Moreover, the mode of lighting, and the lamps used, differed in different localities. The noble Viscount objected to the division of towns into districts for purposes of electric lighting. But if a town were lighted by one Company, a much more powerful monopoly would be created than if the town were divided into districts. His noble Friend also said that he would like to see all these Electric Lighting Bills embodied in one General Act. That, however, would be impossible, because these Bills were very numerous, and the conditions varied in each case. Numerous as they were, they were only the forerunners of a still larger number that would be introduced next Session. He trusted that their Lordships would not adopt the course recommended by his noble Friend, more especially as it would be unusual, and contrary to practice, to refer unopposed Bills to a Select Committee.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

said, he felt for the unfortunate people of London, who had been cut out into squares for the Electric Lighting Companies. He thought some opportunity should be given of hearing whether or not the people could get the work done better than by these Companies. The Bill of last year was passed on the 18th of August; and schemes had to be presented to the Board of Trade before the 18th of September, or within one month, the result of that arrangement being that only those Companies which were standing ready to jump, as it were, were enabled to put in their claim. All real competition, therefore, had been practically excluded; and that was a very serious reason for allowing these Bills to be examined before a Committee, and giving a locus standi, not only to the Companies who might have put in a rival claim, but also to the inhabitants who were so much interested in this work being done cheaply. He had no desire to discourage the adoption of electric lighting; on the contrary, he had a great belief in the future of electric lighting; but he did not think that it would have a fair chance under the present arrangement. The Bill before them contained some remarkable provisions. A part of the town was assigned to a particular Company and was divided into two blocks. The Company wore told—"You must light Block A at once; but you may put off lighting Block B until a more convenient time," and no other Company was allowed to light it. The inhabitants of Block B would thus have to wait in order that the dividends of the Company lighting Block A might have time to rise. It was impossible to pass a Bill with such a provision as that in it without feeling a certain sympathy with the inhabitants of Block B. Everything south of Piccadilly was in Block A, which was very comfortable to them; but everything north of Piccadilly was in Block B, and everyone who inhabited Savile Row, Regent Street, Oxford Street, and thereabouts, would be compelled to go without electric lighting in order that something might be kept for the Company to extend into it in case their speculation should turn out to be a success. He thought that the inhabitants of these unfortunate districts were being handed over to a monopoly which had been very carelessly admitted, and the effect of which would be that electric lighting would be adopted at a much more distant period than it might otherwise have been. It should also be borne in mind that the greater the distance of the streets illuminated by electricity from the place of supply the greater the expense. The obvious policy, therefore, was to make districts as small as possible, and to encourage Companies to supply small areas.

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

said, that it had not been possible for their Lordships to examine carefully the provisions of the Bill, which he looked upon with the greatest possible distrust. They had been told that nothing in the nature of a monopoly was created by this Bill and the others on the Paper. It that were so, why had certain districts been assigned to particular Companies? What guarantee had they that the concession which had been granted would not hereafter be sold? His noble Freind (Lord Thurlow) had given as a reason for the difference in price that gas was provided at different prices in different parts of the Metropolis. He thought that the mere mention of gas or water ought to be sufficient to put their Lordships on their guard. Why should the price of gas vary as it did, and why should electric light be charged for at different rates in different parts of the town? He held that it would be rash to pass this and the following Bills without further inquiry.

VISCOUNT BURY

explained that he wished to have the unopposed Bills referred to the same Committee which was to consider the two opposed measures. If his wish wore acceded to, he should not oppose the second reading of the present Bill.

THE EARL OF REDESDALE (CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES)

said, he doubted whether much good would result from referring these Bills to a Select Committee at so late a period of the Session. Though he thought it his duty to move that the Standing Order be suspended, he did not see how this mass of Bills could be properly dealt with. He did not like to undertake to advise their Lordships, as he did not profess to understand the subject of electric lighting.

EARL GRANVILLE

said, that, like his noble Friend, he did not like to address their Lordships on a matter he did not understand; but there were one or two points which he thought worthy of their Lordships' consideration. In the first place, there were opponents of these Bills in the House of Commons, and those opponents had disappeared; and, in the second place, there was great competition—almost too great—in the number of Companies. With respect to the principle, it was a principle applicable to the Bill of last year.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

said, that, as No. 1 Provisional Order Bill was opposed, it should be read a second time, and then referred to a Committee. The other Bills were not opposed.

Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed: The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.