§ LORD JESSEL rose to call attention to the menace to the health and amenities of London by the erection of the Battersea power station; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have no hesitation in bringing to the notice of your Lordships the Motion which stands in my name on the Paper. I do 211 so for two reasons. One is the interest in and opposition to the erection of the power station at Battersea which have been manifested, not only in private letters that I have received, but by the protests of public bodies and the very weighty letters that have appeared in the Press. I am also induced to bring this Motion forward because I am not at all satisfied with the answer given by the Minister of Transport in another place. I may say at once that the site of the proposed Battersea power station is very close to Battersea Bridge. It is within three hundred yards of Westminster on the other side of the river. If this power station is erected I believe it will be the second biggest power station in the country. It is expected to consume some 800,000 tons of coal and it will have six chimneys each of them 275 feet high. It will not be a very picturesque feature in the landscape nor one which will add to the amenities of life in London.
§ With your Lordships' permission, I will deal briefly with the history of this matter. On March 16, 1927, the ordinary formal notice was given in The Times that consent to establish a generating station had been applied for, and it was stated that if the Joint Electricity Authority, the local authority or any other person within three hundred yards of the proposed site wished to state objections, they should send those objections to the secretary of the Electricity Commission. The City of Westminster objected. The Chelsea Borough Council was also concerned in this matter, but not being within three hundred yards it was not in a position to object. Notice was given by the Central Electricity Board on October 4, 1927, that any person interested in the scheme could make representations. Chelsea made representations, and finally a deputation from the Chelsea Borough Council and the City of Westminster had two interviews with the Electricity Commissioners and the Central Electricity Board respectively. I might state for the information of your Lordships, though many of your Lordships are probably well acquainted with the matter because the Electricity Act was passed so recently, that the Electricity Commissioners are the authority under the recent Act for the giving of consent, while the Central Electricity Board are the body to carry out the scheme. The 212 actual erection and working of the generating station at Battersea will be carried out by the London Power Company as a commercial undertaking acting under agreement with the Central Electricity Board, after consent has been given by the Electricity Commissioners. The London Power Company is a joint company of all the electrical undertakings in London which have combined together to make this big power station.
§
As a result of the interviews with the Electricity Commissioners, the members of the deputation were allowed to see the plans of the new power station and they learned that the Electricity Commissioners, in giving their consent, had imposed this condition:
The company shall, in the construction and use of the said generating station, take the best known precautions for the due consumption of smoke and for preventing as far as reasonably practicable the evolution of oxides and sulphur and generally for preventing any nuisance arising from the generating station or from any operations thereat.
Your Lordships will notice the words "reasonably practicable." Those very words were used by the Minister of Transport the other day in another place.
§
The matter aroused public interest, and in view of the facts that have come forward a very important letter, signed by very important people whose names I will mention in a moment, was sent to The Times. I do not wish to read that letter at length, but it begins thus:—
It appears to us that the schemes of the Central Electricity Board to erect super-generating stations at Battersea and elsewhere in the midst of large towns have been framed without sufficient regard to the welfare of the community as a whole.
The letter goes on to say that
the emission of large quantities of sulphurous acid causes serious damage to vegetation, besides corroding stonework, ironwork, and other metals and injuriously affecting paintings, coloured fabrics, and the like.
This is the most important part:—
As the prevailing winds in London are south-west, the normal flow of fumes from a station at Battersea would take a line over the Tate Gallery, Lambeth Palace, St. James's Park, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, St. Thomas's Hospital, Whitehall, the National Gallery, etc., while Battersea Park and Chelsea Royal Hospital are both close to the site of the proposed station. The corrosion of
213
the stonework of the Houses of Parliament is known to be due to sulphurous vapours: the fumes from Battersea will be far more corrosive than the present atmosphere.
The letter goes on to say that it is very doubtful whether any proper provision can be made to secure the prevention of sulphurous fumes going into the atmosphere. The letter is signed by the Mayor of Chelsea, Mr. Guy Dauber, Past President of the Royal Institute of British' Architects, Lord Dawson of Penn, Mr. des Voeux, Chairman of the Coal Smoke Abatement Society, the Earl of Meath, President of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association, Mr. J. S. Owens, Superintendent of Observations on Atmospheric Pollution, the Mayor of Westminster, the Editor of the Lancet, Sir Arthur Stanley, Treasurer of St. Thomas's Hospital, the President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and Mr. Carmichael Thomas, Chairman of the Council of the London Society. Those are very important names.
§
We have been dealing in this House lately with two measures. One was a Smoke Abatement Bill, and everything possible was done to put into that Bill provisions for the prevention of the nuisance of smoke in London and other large towns. I am afraid your Lordships will think that I am continually making newspaper quotations, but I should like, if you will allow me, to refer to a very interesting cartoon that appeared in Punch about a week ago. There was a lady called "London," looking out from the battlements and observing a knight in armour with a dragon in the distance. The lady was London, the knight in armour was the Battersea Power Station, and the dragon was the noxious fumes that are going to consume us all. The letterpress read thus:—
THE LADY: May I inquire what you think you're doing?
THE KNIGHT: Madam, I am proposing to smoke out yon noisome dragon whose noxious fumes offend you.
This is what is said at the bottom of the cartoon:—
The electricity generated by the proposed power station at Battersea will no doubt diminish the volume of smoke from the chimneys of houses where coal is now freely used. But the process of generation will entail the combustion of coal—involving the discharge of noxious fumes and gases—on a scale unprecedented in this country
§ We are seriously alarmed at this. It seems that nobody has any powers over the Electricity Commissioners. They have been set up as a body by Parliament under the Act of 1926 to get on with the job. I do not like criticising civil servants, but at the same time I think they have not taken all the facts into consideration. In a case of this kind, when you are in a hurry, things do not always turn out as you expect, and certain facts have now come out which, it seems to me, are incapable of remedy. If we had proceeded in the old way, there is no doubt that the matter would have been patiently heard before the proper Private Bill Committees in either House, expert evidence would have been called, and the matter would have been thoroughly thrashed out.
§ It may be asked what is going to be done in the matter. I hope, in the first place, that the Government may make a move, and, if necessary, get the required Act to prevent the erection of this power station. If they do not do that, what will happen? There is no doubt the public bodies who oppose the erection in the interest of the health of London will apply for an injunction. Not very long ago, I think it was in December of last year, the Manchester Corporation got an injunction against them in the case of Farnworth against the Manchester Corporation. I do not know if I should be right in pursuing this subject, because it is quite possible the matter may come before your Lordships' House, sitting as a judicial tribunal. At all events, in the case to which I have referred, an injunction was obtained on account of nuisance. The London Power Company recently made an issue of over £1,000,000, and they will put up these works, no doubt, with the best possible intention in the world, but if they create a nuisance an injunction may be got against them.
§ As far as I can see, the only promise we have got from the Government is that the Government chemist shall be the arbiter as to whether proper precautions have been taken or not. What a very invidious position to put the Government chemist in—to decide a matter of that kind. You will have a power station with six chimneys, each 275 feet high, belching forth this enormous amount of smoke. As far as the laboratory experiments are concerned I believe no means have been 215 at present devised of obviating the sulphur nuisance. I am not an expert in chemistry; I know very little about it. All I know is how to prepare H2SO4 with which we used to greet the science master when he came late to class. I also know that at St. Pancras, with which I was very intimately connected for many years, the nuisance from the power station is so great that the municipal reformers nearly lost the last election because of the disgust of the inhabitants at the fumes from the power station. In Poplar also, I am told, the power station causes great inconvenience, and that dishes in the household are all filled with grit from the preceding day's smoke emanating from the power station.
§ Surely the time has now come when these big power stations should not be placed in the centre of large cities like London. They ought to be placed far away. I regret very much to charge the Government with any oversight in this matter, but I do think it is their duty in a matter of this kind, where health interests are concerned and danger is apprehended not only to plant life but to the public buildings of London in the most important quarter of the City, to take some action, and I hope they will give some satisfactory assurance that they will prevent this power station from being erected. I beg to move.
§ THE EARL OF BIRKENHEADMy Lords, I so seldom differ from my noble friend, with whom I have acted in close association in various matters over a long period of years, that I am sorry to-day that I am unable to agree with the views which he has pressed upon the House. It has been my duty in the last few months to give a very great deal of attention to the enterprise to which the Motion of the noble Lord relates. I need hardly say that I have no interest, direct or indirect, in this particular power station—otherwise I should think it wholly improper to address your Lordships upon the subject—but the matter goes, I think, a little more deeply into our future industrial life than even the noble Lord has completely perceived. We made very careful statutory provision to see that every interest, public or private, that might be injuriously affected by any such proposal should have the right of a fair and open hearing. The noble Lord says that in the old days 216 before there was so much hustle it would have gone before a Committee of the House of Lords or of the House of Commons. That is perfectly true, but nothing would have been done. Nothing was done in the past. No real progress was made in the past in developing the cheap supply of electrical power which supplies us with the greatest hope at this moment of regaining our commercial prosperity. It was the opinion of this Government—not dissented from, if my memory serves me aright, either by the Labour or the Liberal Opposition—that exceptional methods and exceptional machinery were required if the necessary progress were to be attainable with the necessary speed.
In these circumstances, neither in the House of Commons nor in your Lordships' House, did Parliament neglect what seems to me to be a prudent and adequate protection of the interests on behalf of which the noble Lord has spoken to-night. It was provided, in the first place, that the assent of the Office of Works must be given to any such proposal as that now under discussion. The Office of Works is a Government Department, utterly disinterested, reinforced by most competent and expert advice. Such advice was forthcoming in this case. But there were two other authorities who under the Act had to be consulted and whose assent under the Act was an indispensable condition to the step which was taken in this case. In the first place the Commissioners must schedule any such proposal before it can receive the assent or encounter the dissent of the Board. Accordingly, this proposal, having been sanctioned by the Office of Works, was then dispassionately considered by a body which the noble Lord quite accurately has described as a body of civil servants, the Commissioners. At that moment there was an opportunity, and that opportunity was taken advantage of, of a public inquiry, and in the course of that inquiry all those who are to-day making these vocal objections had the means of submitting their views and of making those objections known. The noble Lord has read a letter from The Times adorned with the names of distinguished signatories every one of whom could have come forward, and those organs of the Press which to-day are so 217 loud in their opposition to the scheme could have come forward in the month of October, 1927, when the issue was still open.
§ LORD JESSELMay I interrupt the noble Earl to point out that the only people who could come forward are any local authority or any owner or lessee of property situated within 300 yards of the proposed site? No one else could come forward.
§ THE EARL OF BIRKENHEADThat is true, but does the noble Lord suppose that the argument he has put forward to-day would not have been, and could not have been, put forward by those who live within 300 yards of the site? They are the people, after all, most immediately and deeply concerned. These arguments could have been brought forward at that time when the application had not been decided upon. Believe me it is not the question of geographical proximity to the site which supplies a man with argumentative capacity. If the proposal is a bad one the man who lives within 300 yards is as capable of arguing against the proposal as a man who lives two miles away, and perhaps his knowledge of the situation may toe not inferior. What happened? This body of civil servants, after considering objections taken by people who live within 300 yards and who, in my humble submission, are likely to be better informed on the subject than those who live 300 miles away, came to the conclusion that this was a scheme which in the general interest of the citizens of London ought to be recommended. So we have two great public authorities committing themselves.
In the next place it comes before the Board. It hardly needs any argument on my part to make it plain that in selecting members of the Board the present Government made choice of those men who, in their experience, in virtue of their careers and of what they knew, were most likely to subserve the great purposes of this Act. It goes before the Board, and the Board being fully cognisant of all the objections that were taken by the 300 yards people, as the noble Lord insists upon it, being fully cognisant of all the objections that were taken or could have been taken by the people who do not live within 300 yards 218 —because I have never heard that The Times declined to receive letters from people who do not live within 300 yards of this station—the Board with full knowledge of all these facts concurred in the view taken by the Office of Works and by the Commissioners. Accordingly sanction was given.
Why were not these arguments used when there were no commitments? What is the situation which the noble Lord with all his great municipal experience invites us to contemplate? He says there ought to be an Act of Parliament now to make this impossible. Does the noble Lord place no reliance upon the sanction given by these three public authorities? The company has acquired a site and has entered into commitments amounting to nearly £2,000,000, amounting, at any rate, to £1,500,000. I am speaking with official knowledge. It has been conveyed to me officially that at least £1,500,000 of contracts have been signed for which the company is at this moment responsible, acting under Parliamentary powers. How can the noble Lord suggest that we can interfere in such a matter? I do not share the noble Lord's apprehension as to the effect of these chemical emissions over London, but let me guard myself, equally with the noble Lord, against the supposition that I am claiming to be an expert. I have not even the noble Lord's youthful triumphs in this field to reinforce any argument which I may attempt to press. But after all we have consulted—when I say we have consulted, I mean the Government Departments have consulted—experts in this matter.
The noble Lord told us—I think he said teacups, but I forget what his homely illustration was, are soiled and defiled by sediments. The noble Lord must remember that we have not begun yet. Whatever sediments have attracted his unfavourable notice up to the present have been created by others, not by us, and the two stations that are in existence are of a most obsolete character. No one to-day would dream of sanctioning or continuing the processes which are about to be replaced by, it is believed, a much more effective, scientific and modern system. I might remind the noble Lord of the fact, which I think has escaped his memory, that the company is bound by contract to use the last resources of scientific discovery to prevent 219 the slightest nuisance, either in the matter of smoke emission or of chemical emission, and if it were established before a Court that they had in any way neglected this duty they could be made the immediate victims of an injunction, the whole of their activities could be arrested and they would automatically lose the whole fruit of their expenditure. I would further ask the noble Lord to look at the future in a slightly more optimistic spirit.
§ LORD JESSELI hope you are right.
§ THE EARL OF BIRKENHEADEverybody hopes that he is right. I hope that the noble Lord, on the contrary, is wrong, but I will make this observation. The Act was put forward with the deep conviction that this was the road upon which, perhaps principally, lay some real prospect of re-establishing national prosperity, some new development not utterly incomparable to the development of steam after the Napoleonic Wars. But certainly speed was the essence of the contract. The company is most deeply committed. The obligations that have been entered into by this particular company do not admit of any destruction in any degree, and I am informed by those who have studied these matters that, when you admit a comparison between the extent of the nuisance of smoke from chimneys to-day reacting upon our winter fogs, and when you put in the other scale in equipoise measured on the most pessimistic basis, any emission from this power station, the result will, upon the balance of nuisance, be pure gain. That the result of erecting the power station in this district will be an enormous advantage to the residents of that district in commercial matters and that it will react upon the prosperity of the whole of that part of London has not, I think, been seriously disputed.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRYMy Lords, your Lordships will have heard with pleasure the speech that has just been delivered by my noble friend, in which he has shown his full knowledge of this matter and has unfolded the ideas that are in the minds of all those who have taken part in this great scheme. My noble friend who moved this Motion has, I regret to say, taken up a very gloomy attitude. I am afraid that he sees no 220 prospect of any good object being derived from the vast undertaking that is now in process of construction. I hope that in the few remarks that I shall venture to make to-night I shall be able to remove a great many, if not all, of his fears. This matter, as the noble and learned Earl has just told us, is one of vast importance and, if the noble Lord is under the impression that it has been undertaken without due consideration, I hope I may be allowed to remove that impression entirely from his mind.
Let me go further and say that my predecessor and I, as representing the Office of Works, are very keenly alive to the suggestions that have been made by the noble Lord and that have appeared in the Press in letters signed by very influential names, and I can assure him that, with the advantages that we have at our disposal and with the experts whom we have the privilege and opportunity of consulting, it is not likely that we are proposing to hand over any of our responsibility and to fail to discharge it to the best of our ability. As the noble Lord knows, the public parks, public buildings and public galleries come under the Office of Works, and it is natural that, if the risks which he foreshadows are real ones, these things would be in great danger. There is another point that is far more important—namely, the health of the population. I do feel that the noble Lord can be satisfied that the Minister of Health, in a matter like this, would not allow the scheme to go forward unless he were satisfied that there was no danger in the direction which the noble Lord indicates.
Without stressing the point very much, the noble Lord mentioned that it would be better if these generating stations were placed in districts remote from great centres of population. There are difficulties connected with that suggestion. One is that it is of great importance that these generating stations should be in the centre where the great load is to be carried, and he will realise that, if the stations are placed at a great distance from the centres which they are destined to supply, a greatly increased cost would fall upon the public. There is another technical point which I am assured is very important. These gene- 221 rating stations must be in close proximity to water to be able to carry out their functions.
The noble Lord has told us that he is aware of the answer which my noble friend gave in another place. I suggest to him that this answer is a very comprehensive one and fully informs the questioner of what it is proposed to do; but I should like to go further and give the noble Lord a few details, if I may be allowed to do so. It has been the object of science for some time past to overcome the difficulties connected with smoke and grit, and I am in a position to say—I believe the noble Lord is aware of this—that these difficulties have been overcome and that smoke and grit need no longer be a nuisance to the public. I am not sure whether my noble friend is aware of the fact that all coal fires give off sulphur fumes, with the result that these fumes are in existence in all great centres of population such as London. What I do want to impress upon the noble Lord is that the erection of the station to which he has drawn your Lordships' attention will provide for the elimination of three other stations, and that the reduction of sulphur fumes by the elimination of these stations and the establishment of one station is calculated at no less than 30 per cent. In addition to that, I would also impress upon the noble Lord that although the new station will entail a large consumption of coal, yet by reason of the generation of electricity, and electricity being available for the population of London, it will of a certainty reduce the consumption of coal in a great number of houses, with the consequent reduction of the sulphur fumes which are now given off by the fires.
There is one far more important point, to which I would like to draw the noble Lord's attention. I am not sure if he is aware of the fact, but only one-third of the full scheme is at present authorised. That one-third of the full scheme does eliminate the three stations to which I have referred—namely, Horseferry Road, Westminster, Wood Lane station in Shepherd's Bush, and Richmond Road station, Earl's Court—and the assurance which I would like to give him is that the further extension of the electricity generating station to the further two-thirds will not be undertaken unless it 222 is clearly understood and agreed by the authorities that there is no danger from the health point of view or from the destructive point of view, which, in the minds of a great many people, follows on the effect of sulphur fumes. I think that is a point of which he has not been aware. I would also like to assure him that this is a matter which is having the full attention of the Minister of Health, the Minister of Transport, and myself as First Commissioner of Works, and that we are continually watching this matter from the point of view which the noble Lord has put forward. He can rest assured that unless we are satisfied, on the advice of the Government chemist and also on the advice of the Scientific and Industrial Research Department, that there is no danger accruing from the dispensing of electricity throughout this City, the full scheme, the further two-thirds to which I have alluded, will not be sanctioned.
§ LORD JESSELMy Lords, after the reply of the Government I can see that this matter is in the nature of an experiment, but I think we have got a great deal further than I expected, because the safeguards, so far as I can see, are much more ample, and we have the assurance that the whole scheme will not be proceeded with if that part of it which is to come into being proves not to be satisfactory. I should like to say one word with regard to what the noble Earl, Lord Birkenhead, said, because he seemed under a misapprehension, and appeared to think that the public authorities had not been alive to the possible dangers from the erection of a power station on so large a scale near London. They did protest, and went away with an assurance with which they were not satisfied.
I would also like to point out to the Government that on December 14 last the whole thing was thrashed out in the Court of Appeal, in the case of Farnworth versus Manchester Corporation, and Lord Justice Scrutton, in giving judgment, said it was clear that the station, in using the coal that it did, discharged such a quantity of sulphur that the fumes which were mixed with moisture were nor, dispersed in the atmosphere, but descended on Mr. Farnworth's land, and in this connection the Court therefore granted an injunction. I 223 only hope that recent researches will eliminate this danger, but after what the noble Marquess has said I cannot expect to get more, and I am very grateful that he has given us a much bigger concession than was given in another place by the Minister of Transport.
§ LORD DAVIDSON OF LAMBETHMy Lords, for the sake of clearness, I should like to be satisfied that Lord Jessel rightly understood what has been stated on behalf of the Government. Is it clear that what is now being done is really experimental only, and that the remainder of the scheme will be abandoned if, after partial production, the evil consequences which we dread turn out not to have been exaggerated? I am one of those who happen to be living within very easy reach indeed, and almost within eyesight, of the place where this is going to be done, but I stand here to appeal, not for those who live in what we may call the residential part, but for the poorer people who throng the neighbourhood there. The consolation which has been given us to-night is a little limited. If there is not going to be any smoke and grit, so much the better; but so long as these nuisances continue from corresponding works in that neighbourhood they are a great inconvenience.
It has been said by the noble Marquess that three other stations are going to disappear, and that the evil is to be concentrated in this one. That is not a very great comfort to those who happen to be within a reasonable distance of the place in which the evil is to be concentrated; but the point I want especially to stress is that we are not speaking on behalf of the residential population, in the sense of the better-to-do people, so much as on behalf of the populace living around, who, it seems to me, unless the hopes which the Government have rather vaguely expressed are fulfilled, are bound to suffer intensely from what must be an enormous production of what hitherto we have found to be both unpleasant and deleterious. I wish to take all the satisfaction I can from the promise of the noble Marquess, but I am anxious to ascertain whether Lord Jessel is right in understanding that what was being done was experimental only, and that unless that part proved to be harmless the remainder would not be proceeded with.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORDMy Lords, before the noble Marquess replies, may I ask a further question? I was looking at the map, and I noticed that what are called "principal main transmission lines" cross certain open spaces in London—namely, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Regent's Park, Battersea Park, and Greenwich Park, four of these being Royal Parks. What is a "principal main transmission line?" Is it underground, or is it those upright metal structures that are causing great anxiety as they are being erected all over the country? Personally, I rather object to their going underground as much as to their going overground in the Royal Parks, which I look upon as sacrosanct and think should be free from digging operations.
With reference to what Lord Londonderry said, I, as Lord Davidson indicated, took him to state that this station is only to be sanctioned to the extent of one-third of its capacity in order that the nuisance created may be estimated. That is all to the good. My experience of this nuisance in Lancashire, where I live amidst a great deal of it, for which I am partly responsible myself, is that people within 300 yards of a big chimney very often do not suffer nearly so much as those who are half-a-mile or even more from it, and the 300-yard limit imposed in the existing Act is a great hardship upon people who live beyond that limit, and who have no locus standi to state their case. I hope also that Lord Londonderry and his advisers are seriously considering the long distance transmission of electricity as well as the long distance transmission of coal. It is a pretty expensive thing to bring 2,000 tons of coal a day to London. I acknowledge that there is also a considerable loss in bringing so many kilowatts of power to London, but at least you can eliminate the nuisance by carrying the power rather than by bringing the coal. The experience of the Ruhr, where they actually send gas for over 100 miles and electric power for great distances, is one which I have no doubt is being considered here. But I do hope that, although the objections are too late, these matters are still being considered by the Government, who apparently do retain certain discretionary powers, which I hope they will not hesitate to use.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRYMy Lords, I will only take this opportunity of replying to the most rev. Lord, Lord Davidson. The scheme is not an experimental scheme. It is one that has been considered very fully in all its aspects, and those who are responsible for it are quite confident that the dangers which have been brought so prominently before the public notice are mainly illusory, and that the difficulties can be overcome. But with reference to the further extension of the electrical generating station, that will be a matter for Parliament, and if objections are brought forward by reason of the fact that the present station is not satisfactory, as it is believed it will be, Parliament will have the opportunity of expressing its opinion as to whether that station should be extended any further.
§ LORD DAVIDSON OF LAMBETHYou spoke of one-third being done at present?
§ THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRYOne third is being undertaken now, and this will have the result of eliminating three stations already in existence. The other two-thirds will be undertaken later on, but before those other two-thirds are undertaken there will be many opportunities for myself and Govern- 226 ment Departments to make representations. The matter will have to come under the purview of Parliament, and I am quite ready to assure the most rev. Lord that unless things are satisfactory the remaining two-thirds will not be undertaken.
§ LORD JESSELI do not propose to press ray Motion.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
§ House adjourned during pleasure.
§ House resumed.