HL Deb 26 February 1942 vol 122 cc161-2
LORD STRABOLGI

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Barnby, I beg to ask the question standing in his name.

[The question was as follows:

To ask His Majesty's Government, when the Report of the Henley Committee on producer gas propulsion will be issued; and what immediate steps are being taken to encourage the adaptation of civil and commercial vehicles to the use of producer gas in order to conserve supplies of oil and petrol.]

LORD SNELL

My Lords, you will recall that the Committee under the Chairmanship of Lord Henley was appointed as recently as last November. Their examination of the available sources of fuel for producer gas vehicles has entailed the collection of a mass of detailed information. None the less, their work has advanced rapidly and I under- stand that they will be presenting their Report to the Secretary for Mines within a month or six weeks. The trials in commercial service of new types of producers and filters, which are being supervised by Mr. Shearman's Committee, together with Lord Henley's Committee's Report, will give the Government full and accurate information on the present state of this alternative form of transport. It will then be possible to assess the savings of imported petrol that could be made by conversion, up to the limits of the amounts of solid fuel available, of vehicles to run on producer gas. Your Lordships will appreciate that, with the heavy and still increasing demands of the war industries, there is at present no surplus of coal. Therefore it is not easy to decide on the extent to which producer gas traction might be adopted, but the matter is receiving the closest attention of the Government.

House adjourned.