HL Deb 03 March 1960 vol 221 cc759-76

3.52 p.m.

Debate on Second Reading resumed.

VISCOUNT RIDLEY

My Lords, this is a short Bill and a simple one, and not, I think, in any way controversial; but it does give an opportunity for the House to consider the situation of the coal industry, and I want to say a little about the impact that the recent events in the industry have made on the country, and the reactions to it. I feel that there has been a great deal of exaggerated and unfounded criticism of the policy that the Coal Board have pursued.

I am no believer in the principle of nationalisation, but I believe that we have all got to the stage where we recognise that the National Coal Board is an important part of the country's economy and that it is to the interest of all of us to look objectively at the questions surrounding it, and with the intention of constructive rather than destructive criticism. I feel that a lot of what I have read and heard has been the wrong kind of criticism. We have reached the position which has brought about this Bill by a very quick change. It was only some three years ago that the country as a whole was demanding more coal. There was still the aftermath of the war shortage. And in only three years, owing not to the policy of Her Majesty's Government (on that I would not agree with the noble Lord opposite) but to movements in world events and supply and demand affecting a whole series of commodities in different countries, we have reached the position where there is a surplus of coal. Three years is not a very long time to consider in relation to the kind of capital investment which has been, is being and must be made in the coal industry.

It is not very easy, either, when a changing trend in consumption is seen, to forecast how long that will last. I believe the future will show that the policy of the National Coal Board to continue the stocking of coal has been the right policy. Not only is there the social impact of employment on the miners in the districts in which they live but there are also, as one sees in other industries, certain commercial aspects which make it, at times, convenient and wise to build up a stock of a standard product which it is believed will later be saleable—this, again, as against the cost of stocking and unstocking and of borrowing money with which to finance that. I do not think that any of us who have been engaged in other businesses would believe that it is always a mistake to hold a large stock in a period of declining consumption. I speak without any knowledge at all of the interior working of the coal industry, either before or after nationalisation, but I make that comment rather from the point of view of one seeing things from what one would imagine to be the outlook of those responsible for the industry compared with what would be the outlook of those responsible for other forms of industrial production.

As the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has said, there is another very important point. It would have been quite wrong for the National Coal Board to stop production suddenly and drastically. As I have said, I am no believer in the principle of nationalisation, but I believe it is true that if there is any virtue in such a principle it is that the shareholders of a national industry—that is to say, all the people of this country—would prefer that the miners should continue to be employed and that the rundown should be gradual, rather than that economies should be made. In every big business there is always a difficulty of judgment as between the necessity of economic operation and the very proper expediency of consideration for those who work in the business. It is never a very easy decision to make and it must be a much more difficult decision for those responsible for a big nationalised industry of this kind.

I feel, however, that, careful as have been the arrangements for the gradual closing of pits, the giving of notices and the reduction of employment which has come about automatically by allowing wastage to go on without any replacement, there is going to be one result which is likely to create difficulty: that is, that by that very process the number of young men who can come into the industry is going to be reduced.

I believe that one should take the wide view that as conditions change throughout history, one industry, as time goes by, must be replaced by another; and we cannot assume that a total labour force, whether in coal, agriculture, steel or whatever it may be, can continue for ever. I. rather feel that those who talk of the necessity of what is called a "fuel policy"—which, in fact means persuading people to use a fuel they do not find convenient—are making a mistake in over-stressing that point. I think it is more practical and to the point to accept the necessity of change in relation to manpower in an industry such as coal and to believe that the change in the use of fuels is permanent, but, at the same time, to make careful provision for the people who work in the industry.

That is more particularly necessary in the case of the coal industry because of the fact that the men who work in collieries live very largely in communities of their own, and the closing of a pit, or a group of pits, has an effect which is felt by a lot of people living together, in contrast to the closing of, say, a shipyard or a factory where the men involved may live scattered about everywhere and there are more opportunities for them to get work of a similar or perhaps different kind.

That is why I myself welcome the Local Employment Bill which is now going through I believe that that has the great virtue of flexibility and needs only determination by Her Majesty's Government to bring it about. But I feel quite sure from what I know of conditions, certainly in the North of England, that it is not going to be easy to do that, with all the best will in the world. I would add one more appeal to Her Majesty's Government to continue thinking very hard on these problems, because they are not easy to solve. I feel, as perhaps, as an outsider, one might feel, a little apprehensive about the results of the research policy of the National Coal Board. We have known for some time that the consumption of fuel in any apparatus which makes smoke is on the way out. It means automatically that a lot of prepared fuels have to be used, and I have thought for a long time that it was wrong to insist on smokeless zones, smokeless areas, until there was a lot more manufactured fuel that could be burnt.

I have a feeling—without, I must admit, knowing too much about it—that the Coal Board have not been as sufficiently active, or possibly have not been as successful, in developing methods of processing coal so that it could be saleable, as they should have been, and I hope that their progress will be more rapid than it has been. It seems to me a natural process of thought that if you find your product unsaleable, and people do not want to buy it, you should immediately turn your mind to whatever means are economic for converting your product to something that people do want; and that sort of commercial necessity, I think, is the kind of thing that we want to see the Coal Board exercise when they are making their policy statements. I am not saying, of course, that they have neglected research, but I think it is not an unfair comment that one would have hoped to see more results from that by now.

I do not believe that we can ever put the clock back in things of this kind. I do not think it is right, as the noble Lord has just said, that the Government should predict the amount of coal available and then decide from that the amount of coal to be used. I do not think in these days it is fair, either to domestic users who prefer one fuel or another, or to industrial users who have to exercise the greatest economy in manufacturing processes to compete at home and abroad, if they are not allowed the fuel which is to them the most economical.

My mind goes back to some years ago when there was a Committee on fuel and power policy in which I was involved. That was at the time of a very great shortage of coal and of electricity and gas. The first thing we began to think of in that Committee was what were the objects of the work of such a Committee, and what were we going to recommend the Government to do, and with what object in mind. We then said we thought that the object of fuel and power policy should be that every consumer, industrial, domestic and other, should be able to get the kind of fuel that he found most useful and efficient for his purpose, provided he was willing to pay the cost of that fuel. I felt at the time that that was the right policy in a time of shortage; and, on further reflection, I have always thought it was the right policy at a time of fuel surplus.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, would the noble Viscount allow me to interrupt him? He has mentioned the Committee of which he was the distinguished Chairman. He may recall that there were two important recommendations made by his Committee: namely, the setting up of a joint planning board and of a tariff advisory committee. Action has not been taken on either of those recommendations, which would have been of great importance and value, I think, to the coal industry.

VISCOUNT RIDLEY

My Lords, I am glad to be reminded of that. It is some time since I have read that Report. That is perfectly true, and I think that those steps would have been of some use. I want to make the point, however, that that principle, the best supply for the purpose, still persists; and if that is so, I believe it to be wrong to talk and to think on the lines of preventing people from using oil, as it may be, or gas or electricity, whichever it is, whether it derives from coal or not. I believe the best thing to do to make the best use we can of our fuel resources is to try by any means to convert them into products which have other and perhaps more efficient ways of being used.

There are many developments going on in technical processes these days. I am not in touch with the coal processing techniques that are growing up, but we can always look forward to advances similar to those made in the past, and I hope very much that we shall see something of that sort before too long. None of us wants to see the coal industry dwindling away altogether, certainly not those of us who live amongst it and who appreciate the qualities of the men who work in it, as the noble Lord opposite has said. But we must face the fact that an industry, whether large or small, can exist only if it is on a sound economic basis, and I think that to bolster up the use of coal by artificial means will in the long run be ineffective.

4.6 p.m.

LORD HAWKE

My Lords, I had not intended to speak to-day, but I was tempted to say a few words in support of Her Majesty's Government by the rather, if I may say so, Luddite speech of the noble Lord opposite. In this country we live by our wits, and in order to succeed in that we have to be flexible the whole time. And much as we may like to stick to the old, I am afraid it is just impossible for us to maintain our position in the world unless we are willing to adopt the new and discard the old when such a change is necessary.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, the Luddite destroyed machines. We have been approving a policy which will spend more than £500 million on bringing the coal industry up to the most efficient pitch ever, and we on this side of the House fully approve and support that policy. There is no Luddite mentality in that.

LORD HAWKE

My Lords, undoubtedly the money that has gone into the coal mines will be money well spent, because it has gone into the pits where the seams are the best and the production can be the largest; and in a contracting industry it is necessary to exploit the coal in the best possible way. Nobody can accuse me of ever having been against the miners or the Coal Board. I have often spoken in your Lordships' House in support of them; against Saturday working and so on. But we cannot deny the fact that coal is a contracting industry, and if we take our cue from other contracting industries we can see what a terrible mess a contracting industry can get into unless it is handled in the sort of way Her Majesty's Government have been handling the coal industry. I was brought up in the cotton industry, and I know the terrible mess which that industry got into through being a contracting industry without any sort of central selling organisation.

If one is retreating in industry one must have a very strong rearguard in one's selling organisation, otherwise the retreat turns into demoralisation and a rout, which in fact happened in Lancashire. Here in the coal industry an orderly retreat is going on, and Her Majesty's Government, as part of the orderly retreat, have mitigated immediate hardships by sanctioning the stockpiling of this coal, which of course has been locking up the money of the taxpayers in stocks of coal. One hears a great deal about these stockpiles of coal. Quite frankly, I know nothing about them, and I should very much appreciate a disinterested appraisal of their value. One has seen, of course, utilities overseas, where supply of coal is apt to be irregular, piling coal in large quantities—and very often small coal at that; and presumably that coal has not deteriorated to any great extent. But what one really would like to know is the figures from a site on which coal has been dumped; the quantity dumped there, the quantity removed when that site was cleared, and the value of that coal at the end. Have the rather alarming allegations that one hears, that the coal is deteriorating heavily, with consequent large loss, any truth in them, or not? Because, of course, if that were the case, it would make this policy of mitigating the hardships of contraction a great deal more expensive than it appears to be in the books of the National Coal Board.

Undoubtedly at the moment oil is the coming fuel; and it is frequently said that oil involves vast expenditure in foreign exchange, and so on, and that coal does not. However, I have been informed that the foreign exchange content of oil is to a large extent set off by the fact that the policy of some, at least, of the oil companies is to spend in the country of collection the approximate proceeds of the oil they sell in that country. They certainly are very big spenders in this country. In fact, I think that one can directly relate a certain amount of depression in some areas in this country to the fact that, owing to a world surplus of oil, investment by the oil companies has rather declined in the last year or two. But doubtless that position will right itself.

But, of course, coal is not finished by any means. Coal is going to be used in different ways. Walking through Dean's Yard this morning I saw a wagon delivering great sacks of coal; and a strong young man was probably going to carry those sacks up several flights of stairs, and dump them into a bin. My Lords, that really is the most ridiculous method in the world of distributing fuel. The way coal will be distributed in the future is by being "piped" to the consumer—down a gas pipe; or down a wire. As we get progress in these things, we shall find that more and more coal is used very near the point of origin, in the power stations on the coalfields, and that less and less is transported by British Railways (which I am afraid is going to produce a very grave problem) and less and less is delivered in wagons around the town. For instance, we already have a method by which a shop can be heated during the daytime by a stove filled with fire bricks, which is heated up by electric current delivered into it all night. Already, new blocks of flats are going up everywhere with electric under-floor heating. That is the pattern of the future. Coal is by no means finished, but the pattern of the distribution of coal is quite changed. Meanwhile the difficulty which Her Majesty's Government face, which is to keep this industry together and to prevent the retreat from becoming a demoralised rout, is being carried out, I submit, in about the only way it could be carried out.

4.14 p.m.

LORD BROCKET

My Lords, like the last speaker I did not intend to say anything when I came here this afternoon; but this House is always very good in considering these questions on a more or less non-political basis. Everyone realises that the trend in the two big nationalised industries of coal mining and railways is a trend downwards, and it is therefore up to all of us to be constructive in what we say in this House, on a non-political basis. There is one factor that none of us can control, and that is the weather. I think that the warm weather which, with small exceptions, we have had in the last few months, and that in the winter of 1958–59, is one of the causes of this enormous stock of coal which has not been sold. I was very interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Mills, give the figure of £135 million worth of coal in stock. Of course, that figure postulates interest charges of £6 million or £7 million a year. If this were a privately-run business, it would be regarded as an extremely serious matter. As it is a big nationalised industry, it may not be so serious. On the other hand, it would be perfectly right for those in charge of that industry to regard it as most serious, and to dispose of those stocks, as they say on the Stock Exchange, "at best". They are far too big, even in the nationalised coal industry.

I was particularly interested to hear the question of smokeless zones mentioned, because I happen to be a director of a concern which produces smokeless fuel, though at present it is only a small quantity. I am very interested in this question of smokeless zones, because when a zone is declared a smokeless zone the inhabitants there may try to get smokeless solid fuel, and probably are not able to get enough of it. There are only a very few producers of smokeless solid fuel. The Coal Board has produced quite a lot of this smokeless solid fuel, but I believe that it has not been too successful. That being so, the user who wants smokeless solid fuel cannot get it. He therefore turns to other forms of heating, such as electricity, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, and is put off the use of smokeless solid fuel—which, of course, is very unfortunate for the National Coal Board and the other people producing smokeless solid fuel.

Another point is that the quality of the coal is often very bad, and that puts people off using it. If they have to pay what is a comparatively high price for coal, and then find that they have coal of a bad quality, it turns them on to other forms of heating. I suggest that the scientific side of the Coal Board, and the side of the Coal Board which watches the quality of the coal, should exercise as much care as possible to see that coal is up to the quality it is supposed to reach. I have myself evidence of bad quality coal, and there is no doubt that a lot of very bad coal has been produced during the last few years. This particularly started, perhaps, during the war, when almost any coal which could be mined was used.

My Lords, there are one or two other points that I would mention. The first is that the two big nationalised industries, the railways and the coal mines, are so closely linked, particularly as regards transport, that I wonder whether it would not be possible for the railways to make a very special effort, in view of the present situation under which they are suffering, to try to transport coal efficiently—and, I may say, considerably more efficiently than they do now—and, if possible, at a lower cost. The concern of which I am a director sells roughly half its output by rail; the other half goes by road. That is largely because it is cheaper for our retailers to buy our smokeless fuel and take it by road; and also because of the inefficiency of the delivery of the railways, which means that the retailers and their consumers never know when they are going to have their coal delivered. That must militate against the use of coal by private individuals; and I think the two things are very closely identified.

There is only one other question I should like to speak about, and that is that one cannot help feeling that one has to look at both railways and coal mines as industries of great national importance. If they were purely privately owned, they would probably have gone into liquidation years ago. Therefore one has to look at them rather differently from the way one looks at private businesses. Nevertheless, I think that in both cases it is quite wrong to suggest throwing good money after bad, just because they are nationalised industries. I am quite sure that the noble Lord, Lord Mills, with his great experience of private industry, will look at it in a reasonable way, and will not regard these industries as a bottomless pit into which money has to be thrown—because that capital has to come from somewhere. If the railways or the mines were a private industry, the directors would go to the City to try to raise the money. It may well be that they would not be able to do so, because, frankly, the railways and mines are not particularly creditworthy organisations. But I hope that the Coal Board and Her Majesty's Government will realise that nationalised industries are not just a bottomless pit for capital for all time. On the other hand, this contraction must be done as carefully as possible so as not to throw more miners out of work than is necessary.

4.20 p.m.

LORD MCCORQUODALE OF NEWTON

My Lords, I wonder whether I may intervene for one moment to make two points. I would apologise for not having put my name forward before. I do not expect the noble Lord to answer me straight away, but I think these are two disquieting points which are worth consideration. I wonder whether the North of Scotland Hydro-electric Scheme has ceased operation or is still proposing to spend high capital amounts on producing a relatively small amount of electricity and throwing a relatively small number of miners out of work. To-day, possibly the shortest thing in the world is capital. It is far shorter than it was fifteen years ago, when we all pushed forward with these hydro-electric schemes. To-day I reckon that they are not efficient, certainly not in their social results, and though one would not suggest halting them in their tracks I hope that no further commitments will be entered into which will only have the effect of reducing the demand for coal.

The other point is one on which I have addressed your Lordships before and on which no doubt I will address your Lordships again, as it is a point about which I am much concerned. The mines and the railways are large employers of labour. In only eighteen months or two years from now we shall have what is commonly known as "the bulge" of young school-leavers in greater quantities than we have at the present moment. The whole of industry is being requested to make its best effort to take on more young people and especially to train more young people. If the coal industry and the railway industry, even in the difficult position in which they are at the present time, cannot take any part in this campaign, it will be disastrous, especially for the coal industry, because it is largely set in small districts and villages where there is little alternative employment. If it cuts off recruitment or slows it down, there will be nothing else for young people to do, just at the moment when this "bulge" is coming on us.

There is something more important than that. No industry can live if it does not have a proper supply of young people coming into it, even if it is contracting or re-arranging itself on another basis. If an industry has to contract, the proper place to contract is at the top end of the scale, by improved superannuation allowances and other arrangements of that sort. The worst possible method of contracting an industry is by cutting off the supply of young people coming into the industry and stopping their training. I would urge, as I expect I shall be urging many times in future, that over the next two or three years this should be a paramount question, and nationalised industries should be prepared, even in their difficult position, to play as great a, if not a greater, part as private industry in this matter.

4.24 p.m.

LORD MILLS

My Lords, we have had a very interesting and useful debate. I am sorry about the absence of the noble Lords, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor and Lord Lawson, and of the noble Viscount, Lord Hall. I am sure that they would have wished to take part in this debate. I have listened to them on more than one occasion and have always benefited by what they have had to say, because they spent their early lives in the industry and (I am happy to join the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, in this tribute) they are representative of the kind of men one finds in the coal industry.

We had a partially friendly speech from the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. I say that it was partially friendly because he did welcome the Bill. I look on that as a friendly gesture. He gave the Government credit for backing the Coal Board in their method of dealing with the drop in demand, and for that I am grateful. But he was not wholly friendly. He blamed the Government for anything else he could find. He blamed the Government for the recession in demand and for the recession in trade. He was very well answered, I think, by the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, who referred to the movement in world events. Lord Stonham did not give the Government any credit, as he might have done, for correcting the tendency to take out of the economy more than was being put into it; and the recession of trade was part of a world movement and not a deliberate action on the part of the Government to restrict the consumption of coal, as one might have gathered the noble Lord intended to convey.

The noble Lord said that the coal industry had not been subsidised, and with that I heartily agree. I do not think that the coal industry would wish to be subsidised. The industry did not wish for the necessity of importing coal at a high price, but it appears to me that that was the right way of dealing with the matter. After all, it is given the responsibility of supplying the community with the coal it requires and this was part of that supply.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, if the noble Lord will allow me to interrupt, may I ask whether he would suggest that if there was an extreme shortage of any other commodity in private industry we should insist on that industry importing at a higher price and then bearing the cost of the loss?

LORD MILLS

My Lords, I think that the answer to that is that that is really what does happen. We do not go short of many things and a good deal has to be imported at a higher price than we could produce here, and in just the same way as the Coal Board have dealt with the problem. The noble Lord referred to instructions given to the electricity industry in 1955. It was unfortunate that it became necessary to do that, but the Coal Board were quite right in saying that they could not guarantee a supply of coal necessary to feed an expanding power station industry. The instructions were necessary, otherwise we should have been blamed, if things had gone the other way, for not giving those instructions.

Nor is it right to say that only now has this problem been grasped. It was grasped the moment it became apparent that coal was going to be in easier supply; it was grasped at the same time as I, as Minister of Power in those days, gave instructions to stop the import of coal. But it has taken time. There were firm contracts and some five stations. Four of them have been completely turned over to coal, and one partially. Nor will the process cease at the end of 1965, because oil stations will be taken out of the base loan and the reduction will go on. Negotiations are still continuing to see whether there is anything more we can do. As I have said on more than one occasion in your Lordships' House, the oil industry has behaved very well in this matter and I am sure will continue to do so. We should like to see more and more coal burnt at the oil stations.

The noble Lord referred to the criticisms of the Coal Board because it was a nationalised industry. I can assure him—and he can satisfy himself as to this—that there has been no Government criticism of the coal industry. The Government have worked hand in hand and very happily with the coal industry. Nor has there been any Government criticism of the mining fraternity. If the noble Lord will examine speeches that have been made by Government representatives, either in your Lordships' House or in another place, I am sure he will find nothing but praise for the miner. So far as I can, I will do anything in my power to dispel any feeling either that the coal industry or the men in it are not doing their job.

The noble Lord referred to the question of importing liquid methane gas. There have been a number of trial shipments, and there the matter stands for the present. It was intended that there should be these trial shipments for which the gas industry asked, before we considered whether any further use was to be made of this fuel. I think we should have been sadly lacking in our duty if we had refused to finance any exploration in this direction. It was an experiment that was worth carrying out, and it was our duty to carry it out irrespective of whether eventually that form of fuel would be used or not.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves that point, may I ask whether his statement that "there the matter stands for the present" means that at least for the time being there is no further intention to import liquid methane gas?

LORD MILLS

I will put it in this way: that there is no such proposal before the Government at this time. The noble Lord then asked why was there such a wide margin in putting down the expectation of requirement in 1965, and suggested that a margin of 1 million tons should be quite sufficient. This margin as worked out between the Coal Board and the Ministry of Power and it was the best assessment that could be made. The noble Lord will, I am sure, acquit me of any discourtesy if I say that I prefer that assessment to his statement that it is quite easy to set a figure within 1 million tons. But he went a little further and said: why could not the Government name a figure and stick to it? I think we all know what that means. The noble Lord is suggesting that the Government, if you like with the agreement of the Coal Board, should state a figure and then they should take any step which was necessary to see that that figure was used. In other words, it is the old story of dictating to the consumer what he shall use; and that is a policy—if it can be called a policy—which on more than one occasion I have announced the Government do not intend to adopt.

I am grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, for his contribution. He said that we must accept the necessity for changes. I think that is true in this modern world—the pace is very great. But it does not mean that we have to accept the necessity for change and sit back and see an industry just decay. Nor are we doing that. I think an example of that was shown by the cotton industry; and another example, I suggest, is the coal industry. There has been a great deal of research and a great deal of effort to get the best use out of coal. In that connection, the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, mentioned the question of smokeless fuel. This question has had great attention. The Board have had certain successes and they are now trying to bring them to a commercial level. The availability of smokeless fuel has been thoroughly examined by a committee appointed by the Government, because one of the necessary changes which we have to accept is the necessity for clean air.

Therefore smokeless fuel must be available to meet it, and the basis of that, of course, is coal. I, for one, am most happy to see the development that is taking place in that sphere.

The noble Lord, Lord Hawke, asked me about the loss represented by deterioration in coal stocks. I thought that I had dealt with that in my opening speech. I said that the loss in calorific value was about 1 per cent. per annum, but that there were other losses, such as breakages, and that the Board were taking account of those losses.

LORD HAWKE

Perhaps I may interrupt my noble friend. I believe that the general public would be greatly reassured if they could be given information about some dump which has been cleared: what was put on it; what was taken off it, and the final value. If the figures come out better than the allegations, the general public will be very much reassured.

LORD MILLS

If it will meet the noble Lord's convenience, I suggest that he should put down a Question on that point, and I will come prepared to answer it.

The noble Lord, Lord Brocket, put his finger on a very important matter to which I referred to in my opening remarks. That was the question of the warm weather we have experienced. I am not a weather prophet, nor can I guarantee that we shall not have more warm weather—in fact, speaking as a person I hope that we shall. But it was an unusual period and that, combined with the other movements, accentuated the difficulties of the Coal Board.

The noble Lord, Lord Brocket, also said that the extent of the stocks of coal unsold owned by the Coal Board would have been a serious matter had private industry been concerned. I should like to assure the noble Lord that it has been a serious matter for the Coal Board, and that they are fully conscious of the seriousness of it. But they had to weigh that consideration against the jobs of men. I think they took a courageous line—a line fully backed by the Government. I think the stocking has been well worth while, and I trust that the indications we see of a reduction of those stocks will be fulfilled. The noble Lord also referred to the question of the railways and the necessity of trying to transport coal efficiently and economically by rail. I am glad to tell your Lordships that the British Transport Commission have had considerable success in persuading the Coal Board that they can carry coal on certain routes to certain places by rail more economically than by road. The figures show that transport by rail is going up.

I should like to say a word on a further remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Brocket: that we must not look upon these nationalised industries, because they are owned by the public, as bottomless pits into which money has to be thrown. I wish the noble Lord could realise the anxiety of those responsible for these nationalised industries, and of Ministers, in regard to this matter. There is nothing done in directions requiring money about which Ministers do not concern themselves. It is public money that is being used. I think that on the whole it has been well used, and I can assure your Lordships that it is not granted without a thorough examination. A Bill of this kind is discussed fully and carefully, having regard to the proper need, and then framed accordingly.

The noble Lord, Lord McCorquodale of Newton, asked two questions. The first was about the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board. I can answer him only in one way. Can he give me any reason why the benefits of electricity should be denied to the people who live in the Highlands and Western Isles?

LORD MCCORQUODALE OF NEWTON

My Lords, I have no wish to deprive the Highlands or the Islands of the benefits of electricity. But the bulk of electricity produced in the Highlands is piped down to the Lowlands and to Northern England, where there is plenty of coal to produce electricity locally, rather than bringing it down from the Highlands.

LORD MILLS

Yes, my Lords; but in order to make the service as economic as possible we have to supply as much as possible. It is rather a noteworthy thing that there is no significant difference between the price at which you can get electricity in England and in the North of Scotland. On the whole, if you examine the accounts of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board they do not make too bad a showing, considering what I call the large social service they undertake. I am glad the noble Lord talked about the necessity for training young people and providing them with employment, with particular reference to the children of those engaged in coal mining. It does present certain difficulties. The Coal Board have given much thought to this problem, because they realise that unless they are going to slip backwards—and they do not want to do that—they have to take in young people and train them thoroughly. I am sure they will be encouraged by the noble Lord's remarks.

My Lords, I have done my best to answer the various questions that were put to me. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, expressed the intention to support this Bill, and I now commend it to your Lordships.

On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.