ELECTRICITY GENERATION IN SCOTLAND

HL Deb 16 March 1961 vol 229 cc991-1066

5.10 p.m.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS rose to call attention to the future development of the generation and supply of electricity in Scotland; and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I am now about to launch your Lordships into a very technical subject, and I would say at once that I could not possibly have hoped to do so had it not been for the help I have had from many people. Above all, I should like to mention my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, and various people from his Board, the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, who have been kindness and patience itself. To them I should like to give my most sincere thanks. In addition, I must declare a small interest in that I am a consumer in Scotland of the Board's electricity.

This debate is being held a week after the announcement of an inquiry into the whole of this subject and consequently it must have a slightly different complexion from what I at first envisaged. All the same, I hope that your Lordships will think it worth while to discuss this question, and will treat it in somewhat the same way as Lord Shepherd's Motion on Broadcasting was treated about a fortnight ago, when, although a Committee was sitting to consider the subject, it was none the less felt that the views of Back Bench and Opposition noble Lords might contribute to the assistance of that Committee. I would add that I should have thought that the wider the range of views expressed in your Lordships' House this evening, the more accurately could the Committee gauge the varying points of view and weigh up the different approaches to the subject.

My Lords, the Committee have very fundamental terms of reference, and I am sure that this is right. If, however, I suggest that various matters should be inquired into—such as that the very existence of the North of Scotland Board might be examined—I hope your Lordships will not think that I am in any way assailing that body, or trying to detract from or disparage anything which has been done since it was set up. Nevertheless, the fact remains that since the Board came into existence there have been two technical innovations of very great importance in the world of generated electricity. The first is the advent of nuclear power, and the second is the introduction of the new high-pressure, high-temperature, coal-fired thermal generating station, such as that at Kin-cardine. The advance in this project has been so marked that I believe even in 1957 Her Majesty's Government had not taken it fully into account; and they have since had to alter their nuclear power programme in the light of the cheapness that this new system now affords.

It must, of course, remain the object, as it was in 1943, to develop all the resources that are available in Scotland. Electricity is not, however, generated simply from the point of view of developing resources; it is generated in order to meet a demand. I would suggest—and I hope I am not wrong—that the plan for generating electricity must be economical in two senses: first, that each variety of plant should be used in the way in which, by its character, it can most suitably be used; secondly, economical in the sense that all the various sources combined together should most cheaply meet the sort of demand which is in existence. In Scotland, as I think over the rest of the country, demand is, broadly speaking, a level demand through most of the day, with two peak periods, one in the morning and another in the evening, when demand rises very much higher than at other times of the day. Naturally the demand is always growing, so that there is always the need to install new plant to keep up with it.

I said just now that each variety of generating plant should be used, according to its technical suitability. As I understand it, both nuclear and coal-burning stations are nowadays regarded as what are called "base load stations"; that is to say, they should be allowed to run at almost maximum capacity, if possible, round the clock, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in order that they can produce power in the most economical way. The one thing that should not be done with them is to start them up and shut them down again. That is wasteful of fuel and is bad for the machinery; and in the case of nuclear stations I do not think that is even possible. A hydro-station, on the other hand, in theory, has a sort of chameleon-like character. In certain circumstances it can be a base load station if there are big rivers and storage for plenty of water. In other circumstances, when there is not so much water, it is probably better to use hydro to meet those peak periods of which I have just told your Lordships. For one thing, you can turn on a hydro station at very short notice, and you can turn it off again without doing any harm. When I was up at Fasnakyle, on the Affric scheme, last summer, I saw one of the turbines there brought into use and generating its maximum capacity in something like eight minutes.

In other countries, for instance in Canada or in Africa, there are big rivers and big storage lakes. One of the new lakes on the Columbia Scheme, in which Canada and the United States are co-operating, near Nelson in British Columbia, would be 140 miles long, which is about the distance from Edinburgh to Inverness. In Scotland, obviously there is nothing approaching that size. The whole catchment area on the proposed Nevis scheme, for instance, is only 23½ square miles. So, my Lords, it does appear, at first sight, as though the water supply in the Highlands is not the sort of water supply which is going to make the hydro there a base load proposition. Of course, if you choose to have many of these dams and to run them one after the other, you can feed into the system a steady flow all the time; but a large number of stations is needed to produce any considerable amount that way.

It seems to me that one of the things the Committee must look into—and, of course, they will look into it with much greater knowledge than I possibly can—is the question of comparative costs, in the true sense, of generation by the various means available. I do not want to weary your Lordships with figures, but I think it might be as well to put down, in their proper order, some of the figures which are available on this question. One of the ways you can measure cost is by price per installed kilowatt: that is, the amount of capital you need to produce a station of 1 kilowatt. At Kincardine, where there is the now coal-burning station, the figure is £48, and I believe that there are new stations in England for which it will be about £39. For the nuclear station at Berkeley the figure is £160; for that at Dungeness, £110; and then it goes down for the stations at Sizewell and Oldbury. For a hydro station the figure is between £125 and £200, which is very much higher; and I believe that for the Nevis scheme, if it were authorised, the figure would be about £168.

Another way of measuring the cost is by price per unit sent out: that is, the price of the electricity generated. On this basis the comparative figures are: Kincardine .6d.; Berkeley (that is the nuclear station), .86d.; and Bradwell, .81d. I believe that cost in the new stations now being built is expected to be .7d. of .6d. Her Majesty's Government have been informed, I believe, that by 1970 nuclear stations will be producing more cheaply than coal-burning stations. Compared with that, the Nevis scheme would produce at a cost of .7d. per unit, and the average price for hydro-generated electricity in the Northern Board's area in 1960 was .7874d., which is a little higher.

My Lords, those bald figures are not representative of the true position. The price per installed kilowatt in the case of hydro is very much higher, but it does not take into account the fact that, once you have a hydro scheme, no fuel is needed for it. On the other hand, the price per unit sent out does take into the account the price of the fuel used in each case, if any, but does not fairly represent the differing lengths of time over which these stations are written of in the accounting way. The hydro station, in fact, will last much longer than the others; and there comes a time (which I believe has now arrived with the Galloway Scheme, in the South of Scotland) when the scheme produces electricity for almost nothing at all.

Nevertheless, I think that it will be found, bearing in mind the costs and the situation as regards water, that the balance will be weighted against any extensive use of hydro for base load in future. There is an exception to this, and that is in the North and West, where the cost of transmission from the South would be so great that it is worth while putting in small schemes and running them to meet the small demands. The same applies to the islands, and no doubt diesel generators could be installed there. North Uist has no electricity at all at the moment. Obviously, such places would have to have their own generating arrangements.

If hydro is not going to be used much for base load but more for meeting peaks, I expect that the pattern will be very much what is happening to-day. It may seem strange to your Lordships, therefore, that I should draw attention to this at all, but in fact the situation is much more complicated than that. The Southern Board generate at present from coal-burning stations, and in the future will generate also from the new nuclear power station at Hunterston. They also generate from hydro, in Galloway (about which my noble friend Lord Ailsa knows a great deal more than I do) and at the Falls of Clyde. The Northern Board, on the other hand, is almost entirely hydro-electric, except for thermal stations at Aberdeen and Dundee. But the two areas are not self-contained. By agreement—and this was foreseen by the 1943 Act which set up the Hydro-Electric Board—there is an interchange of electricity between the two Boards. The South export base load to the North. They have to do this particularly in dry years, when there is not enough water in the North to allow the hydro-electric schemes to produce enough electricity. Strangely enough, last year was a very dry year in the Highlands and it has been much the same for the last four or five years. Rainfall has not been up to expectations and the schemes have not produced the electricity that was hoped. But the Hydro-Electric Board export an enormous amount of peak-period electricity to the South. Last year the amount totalled to 565¼ million units—which is a lot of electricity.

This interchange is of great benefit to both the North and South, and is a token of the great co-operation between the Boards. I think that this co-operation is bound to increase—indeed, I hope it will; and then the question arises as to whether there should be two Boards at all. If the problem were simply one of developing our resources in a proper way, I should have thought that the argument for amalgamation would be overwhelming. But that is not the whole picture. I understand that there are two good reasons why there should be two separate Boards under present conditions.

First of all, the export of peak-period electricity is made under statutory arrangements which provide that the Southern Board should pay for that electricity at a considerably higher price than that at which the Hydro-Electric Board generate it. This arrangement is possible, of course, only if there is a buyer and seller, and if there were only one Board, it could not be worked at all. With the money that this arrangement produces the Hydro-Electric Board do two things. It is their statutory duty to connect as many consumers as they can in their area, including isolated areas and to keep down the price of electricity in their area. That is why, although the Board have the capacity to meet the expected growth in demand for the next ten years, they continue to instal new schemes, so that they can keep one jump ahead of demand and keep up this favourable export.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, it is only fair to say that the supply from the North of Scotland Board also reduces the net cost per unit for the Southern Board.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

That is perfectly true; and I am coming to that.

The other great advantage that derives from having two separate Boards is that the Hydro-Electric Board is a great deal more than an electricity authority: it has become almost a godfather to the Highlands. Its activities are multifarious and, so far as I can make out, greatly to the advantage of the area in which it operates. Are those two reasons, or either of them, sufficient to keep the two Boards separate?

So far as the question of connecting remote consumers is concerned, I am not wholly happy. The stage has now been reached where about 92 per cent. of possible consumers have been connected. In that respect, the Hydro-Electric Board has a superb record, for I do not believe that anybody can expect the Board to connect up 100 per cent. For instance, in Glen Lochy, on the Killin scheme, there is a farm four miles farther up the Glen than any line has so far been taken. That farm would use about £10 worth of electricity a year, and it would cost £8,000 to take a supply there. There must be other such cases, where it is simply uneconomic to try to supply electricity. I wonder whether the Committee now sitting might be able to produce some criteria—presumably of cost in relation to the amount of electricity expected to be used—at which a line would be drawn, and where it could be said that the consumer could not be expected to be connected.

The situation now, when 92 per cent. of possible consumers have been connected, is that those remaining are the remote and difficult ones. It has come about that in such cases the Board have to ask consumers for a considerable contribution towards connecting up their houses, crofts or farms. Sometimes they are asked for £400 or £500. Obviously, the more remote the place, the more expensive it will be. Yet remoteness is often in inverse ratio to the affluence of the person who lives in that place. I wonder whether some new system might not be invented by which, though the consumer would have to pay something, he would not be asked to pay such an enormous amount as hitherto, which is sometimes more than it would cost him to put in his own diesel generating set. Every new consumer enters into a seven-year guarantee to use a certain amount of electricity, and the cost is scaled in accordance with his consumption.

I suggest that it might be considered Whether the cost of connecting could not be related to the guarantee which the consumer is asked to enter into. Of course this would mean that there would be a large sum of money left to be found somewhere else. If at the present time the Hydro-Electric Board can pay only about half, they could not be expected to pay something like nine-tenths. But as we have seen, the Southern Board pay a higher price for the imported electricity, which in one sense means a subsidy given by the South to the North. If we consider that the depopulation of the Highlands is as much a national problem as a local one, surely we should not flinch from suggesting that a national subsidy should come into effect, either national for the whole of the United Kingdom or perhaps just for Scotland, rather than that the money should be found from the internal resources of the Hydro-Electric Board. If that were done. then one of the reasons for the separation of the two Boards would in large degree cease to exist, because the surplus from exports would no longer have to go towards the cost of connecting up remote consumers.

But if that particular aspect need not necessarily be a reason why the two Boards should not amalgamate, I think that the Committee should consider very carefully the other reason I have given. I wonder whether it would be possible to provide entrenched provisions which would secure the same interest, knowledge and experience which is at present displayed by the Highland Board. I wonder whether any arrangement could be made by which the interests of the so much more heavily populated and industrialised South would not tend to overwhelm those of the Northern area. If some such arrangement could be made, and if the Committee were satisfied that the resulting amalgamation would not produce too much of a monolith, maybe there would be something to be said for combining the two. But unless the position of the North can be guaranteed, I do not think this step should be contemplated, at any rate at the moment.

May I come on, quite briefly, to the point the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, made? The exports from the North of the peak-period power are of course advantageous to the Hydro-Electric Board, but they are equally advantageous to the South, because if these peak loads were not met by hydro-electricity they would have to be made by thermal or nuclear electricity. Therefore, the arrangement works to the advantage of both sides.

If, as I believe, coal and nuclear power are to be base load sources of power for the future, there is one other aspect which should be brought in and which has not, I think, had very much attention heretofore, and that the question of pumped storage. This is a system by Which water is pumped up from a lower loch into a higher one at night and at week-ends, and the pumping power comes from these big thermal or nuclear stations which, as I have said, have to be run at full blast all the time, but whose power is not otherwise going to be fused during the night and at week-ends. They can therefore produce cheap power for this purpose. This system has only recently become available, because it is only recently that these two new forms of cheap base. load power stations have arrived on the scene None the less, I am sure that pumped storage should be combined in the future to the greatest possible extent. It is very cheap. Your Lordships may remember the figures I gave before, that pumped storage costs only £40 per installed kilowatt; and if the pumped power is cheap enough, it can be produced at about .3d. It is not dependent in any way on rainfall, and it can equally take what are called the spill units, which is when a sudden storm bursts over a reservoir, and in order to avoid the water going to waste over the top of the reservoir they have to pump it rapidly into the grid, thereby at the moment causing a shut down in the South of thermal stations. This power could be used for pumped storage.

I believe there are sites. All that is needed is a deep lower loch which can accept and lose fairly large quantities of water without having its level too much disturbed. It should be 100 miles, at the maximum, from the base load station: and I believe the sea itself could be used in some circumstances. One of the other advantages of pumped storage is that it is both much less conspicuous than most other ordinary hydro schemes and it does no damage to the fishing. If, as I believe is a possibility, we may one day see a nuclear power station serving the demands of the Aberdeen and Dundee areas, then not only would pumped storage be available in connection with the Southern Board's stations, but it might go perhaps on Loch Ness as well, or somewhere in that area.

I have, for the first time (and I must not go on much longer), mentioned amenities and fishing. I know that other noble Lords will deal with this problem, but I cannot conclude this speech without saying that I have been immensely impressed with the record of the Hydro-Electric Board on both these subjects. Certainly there may have been places that have not been improved, but nobody, I think, will deny that where a decision to execute a scheme has been taken, no detail has been too much to be taken into account by the Board and its advisers. None the less, I do not know that this is really the problem that is now worrying people; nor, indeed, do I know whether it is a problem that can be solved by the Committee that is at present sitting. It cannot. I think, be simply a question of detailed application on one individual scheme. There must be a wider conception, because, after all, the beauty of the Highlands and the fish in their rivers are just as valuable an asset to that part of the country, and, indeed, to the whole nation, as is the hydro potential there.

The question will be asked whether there may be glens so lovely and rivers so famous for their fish that they should be exempt altogether from hydro stations. In this context I do not think that the question is whether or not, for the sake of argument, a fish pass or screens would be sufficient to protect fishing on a river like the Tay or the Dee, but rather whether the Tay or the Dee should have hydro on them at all. Nor perhaps, if I can take solely as an example the Glen Nevis scheme, would one ask the question whether the loss of part of the Falls of Steall, of the water rumbling through the gorge and of the white streak of water that comes down the side of Ben Nevis, which I believe is called the Alit Coire Ebghainn—whether the loss of these things would be compensated by the easier access and some new path along the side of the Mamores, on the South side of the dam, in which you would see the mountains reflected in the water and have a fine view down the glen. This is not, I think, the moment at which this should be decided. I believe that considerations of that nature should not be dealt with by an individual inquiry into an individual scheme.

I would put forward, with respect, my support for the argument that has been suggested by the National Trust for Scotland: that there is a case for some sort of wider planning or wider consideration of which of the glens and which of the rivers are of such importance that nothing should be done to them at all. I believe that this would be possible; for if the Committee that is now sitting can decide how the future generation needs are to be met by so many hydros, so many pumped storages or so many thermal or nuclear stations; and if they can see how far the future connections are going to have to go, then it will be possible to plan for a certain number of each variety of scheme, and in the context of some firm plan like that it should be possible to make a region in which the scheme can go in one place and other parts would not need to be touched at all.

I have three small points which I think might be of some interest to your Lordships. The Amenity Committee at the moment advises both the Board and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. It advises the Board before a scheme is published; it advises the Secretary of State before he approves the scheme. But its Report does not come out in the first stage; it comes out at a public inquiry, if any; and, if none, when the scheme is before both Houses of Parliament. I should have thought that to enable would-be objectors to study this report properly it should be available when the scheme is first published by the Board. Secondly (this is a small point, but I think it is of some importance) why is it that when a model or a sketch of a proposed scheme is put forward to tempt the public with its harmlessness or its beauties there is never included in it any line of pylons or any switching gear? To many people these features are the most distressing part of it, and I think it is less than candid of the artist to leave them out altogether.

The other respect in which things occasionally go wrong is in connection with roads. There have been instances—though I think they are very few—when the Hydro-Electric Board have not been able to get together with the highway authority. Sometimes a road has to be developed, or a new one built. There was a case, for instance, at Glascornach, near Garve, where a road which was originally diverted by the Board was rebuilt as a single-track road, and a short time later had to be doubled by the highway authority. Again, in Glen Affric a new road was put in up to Loch Benevean and this loch, with its wooded islands, is now so beautiful—-it was not there before—that people come from all over the world to look at it. With their buses and caravans, it is sometimes impossible to get along the road at all. If the Glen Nevis scheme is approved, I hope that the road there, which will be inevitably immensely popular, will be made wider, and I hope that never again will there be lack of co-operation between any Board installing an hydro-electric scheme and the highway authorities.

This is a vital subject in Scotland, and I am sorry to have detained your Lordships so long. But this inquiry must produce an up-to-date and comprehensive plan. The Highlands are beautiful, but they are not easy places in which to live. Certainly their water-power resources have a unique contribution to make to the national supply of electricity, but their scenery and their fish are world-wide attractions of widest renown and of great value to the people who live there. In another place, this approach was called "having one's cake and eating it". I do not believe that this is necessarily the truth, and I hope that what will emerge from the present Committee's considerations will be some sort of long-term plan for peaceful co-existence in the Highlands; a policy by which these two at present conflicting interests can be brought in future to combine in harmony with the best interests of Scotland as a whole. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

5.43 p.m.

LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER

My Lords, the Motion before the House is To call attention to the future development of the generation and supply of electricity in Scotland. This would appear to be a quite innocuous and worthy proposition, and if the motive—as I learned from the noble Viscount, in that fine and informed speech to which we have just listened—is simply to have a re-examination of the relative costs and suitability of hydro-electric power, as compared to thermal or nuclear methods of production, then no harm can be done. What troubles me, and many other people in Scotland, of all political Parties, is: What is behind this continued criticism and propaganda against the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board? Any study of the hydro-electric industry in Scotland, as provided by the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, can only confirm what a wonderful scheme it is, and the tremendous social benefits, particularly to the Highlands of Scotland, that have taken place since it was established under the 1943 Act.

We should probably have heard nothing about this matter at all, but for a curious campaign, which, as I say, has been launched against the Hydro. Electric Board, particularly in connection with the Board's latest development scheme at Glen Nevis. The demand for reconsideration of the present policy of the Hydro-Electric Board does not come from the people of Scotland, or from the public authorities in the Highlands of Scotland, such as the Inverness County Council, who are, of course, particularly affected. The main objectors appear to be some local landowners and sporting interests, to whose objections, of course, we have been accustomed ever since the idea of hydro-electric schemes in the Highlands were first mooted.

The curious thing about the present propaganda is that much of it appears to be sponsored from London. I do not know why that is, but perhaps someone will tell us as the discussion goes on. The policy which the Board carry out is exactly that which was laid down for them by Parliament in the Hydro-Electric Development (Scotland) Act, 1943. The result of this policy, and of the work that has been done by the Board since then, has literally transformed the domestic and social life of the Highlands of Scotland. In 1948 only a small fraction of the people of the Highlands had the benefit of electricity. It is now claimed that around 90 per cent. are now connected to the Board's system. Most people to-day would regard electric light and power as a normal part of domestic equipment, and it is hard to imagine what life would be like without it. But only comparatively recently this was exactly the mode of life which most people in the Highlands of Scotland had to endure, and the transformation which has taken place since is largely due to the policy and work of the Hydro-Electric Board.

There seem to be two main lines of criticism of the Board. The first is the cost of hydro-generation, and the second the effect of the development of hydroelectric schemes on the amenities or the scenic beauties of the Highlands. With regard to the cost, I claim that the cost of hydro-generation by the North of Scotland Board is the lowest in the country. The average cost per unit, as the noble Viscount has mentioned, sent out from the Board's hydro stations during 1960 was .7874d. The cost of thermal generation made by the Central Electricity Board for the year ended March, 1960, was .836d., and the cost of production by the South of Scotland Electricity Board for 1959—which is the latest date I had when I came here to-day—is .892d. So on the point of cost, there is no doubt that the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board are doing a wonderful job; and so far as the cost is concerned their policy is quite justified.

The cost of generation is not the only item to consider in fixing the price which consumers must pay. Although hydro-generation is favourable, there has to be set against ii the excessive cost of getting electricity to a rural consumer in such an area as the North of Scotland, as your Lordships will appreciate. And that is a matter to which the noble Viscount has referred. Distribution is expensive because of the sparseness of the population and the geography of the country. It was one of the principal purposes of the 1943 Act, and one of the main responsibilities laid upon the Board, to ensure that electricity was made available for people in these sparsely populated and remote districts in Scotland.

Up to date, the Board have connected nearly 108,000 rural customers, at an average cost of £250 per consumer. Many of these connections are quite uneconomic, and involve the Board in an annual loss which is at present running at about£1½ million. Nevertheless, this has been accomplished and paid for, but it has been possible only because the Board have the benefit of their cheaper hydro-generation, and the fact that they sell about 25 per cent. of their output to the South of Scotland Board at a profit. There is no question that the system followed by the Hydro-Electric Board is the cheapest and most practical method of servicing the North of Scotland with electric light and power. As I heard someone say to me to-day, there is no other way of seeing that the Highlands of Scotland are supplied with electricity except by the system we have now adopted through the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board.

I would make just a few points about the hydro-electric schemes. First, tourism. The production of electricity has been a great boon to the tourist trade in the Highlands. It is now possible for hotels and boarding houses, and places of amusement, to have electric light and power to meet the requirements of tourists from overseas, who, despite the beauties and attractions of Scotland, like to enjoy its amenities in comfort and modern conditions. Another point made is the depopulation of the Highlands. Most Scottish people deplore the depopulation of their country which has been going on for so long, and great efforts continue to be made to arrest this trend, which requires, among other things, the development of new industries suitable to the country; and these must, of course, have a supply of electricity. In fact the development and success of the Hydro-Electric Board has already resulted in the establishment of a number of new industrial undertakings in Scotland, including the supply of electrical machinery, not only for use locally but for export overseas. It is also noteworthy that there is a growing and increasing demand for electricity in the areas serviced by the Board. The average increase over the past five years was 7 per cent. and last year the demand went up by 13 per cent.

Another important fact is that the Hydro-Electric Board yin the North of Scotland is not subsidised by the State. They obtain their finances by borrowing from the Treasury at such rates of interest and provision for redemption as the Treasury determine. The Board's expenditure, therefore, is not a charge on the taxpayer. In fact, by the construction of their works and the citation of this industry the Board provide a valuable investment for the country in permanent assets. This matter of finance is a matter 'which might well be considered by the Committee which has been set up by the Secretary of State, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, will mention this point. The Hydro-Electric Board pay no less than 6k per cent. for their money. If, like other similar big corporations or local authorities, they were able to borrow all or part of their money on the ordinary money market, there would be a tremendous saving in the cost of producing electricity.

May I say just one word with regard to the question of amenities? It is only natural that those who live in the Highlands Should be disturbed by the prospect of a dam being built in their beautiful glens. I remember that, when I used to live in the Highlands a number of years ago, some of these works were being started in Badenoch and in Glen Affric. I was a little apprehensive about what would happen to the beauty and amenity of those glens. But I was most surprised and delighted to find later on that over the years this and other great works have been established and brought into use with hardly any serious effects on the landscape or the natural beauty of the country. In fact in some cases the country looks better.

People who say that hydro-electric schemes spoil the beauty of the glens should go themselves and have a look at some of the glens where schemes are being carried out. They are still remarkably beautiful. If noble Lords care to discuss this matter with the people living in the Highlands of Scotland they will find that although the scenery may be changed slightly it does not really affect the amenities; and it is nothing compared to the great advantage to the people and to the country in having for the first time electric light and power at their disposal. As a newspaper, the Inverness Courier, said recently: Highland amenity is not just confined to scenery: it also embraces the modern amenities of electric light and power, an amenity without which the glens of the rural Highlands will without doubt become more and more depopulated. Therefore, my Lords, I would add my voice to those of other lovers of the Highlands of Scotland in urging the Government to do nothing to interfere with the wonderful work which is being carried out by the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, but, on the contrary, to encourage them, by their support and by more favourable financial terms, to go ahead with their work until the whole of the North of Scotland has all the electricity it wants.

5.55 p.m.

VISCOUNT STUART OF FINDHORN

My Lords, I must ask your Lordships' indulgence in addressing your Lordships' House for the first time. I have succeeded in generating enough courage —I will not tell you how. I have also been subjected on occasion to a certain amount of interruption in another place, so that it will not necessarily surprise me if it should come to me here. I should certainly not complain, but I do not intend to be unduly controversial on this occasion. I hope sincerely that the waters which the Hydro-Electricity Board use in Scotland will not be so turbulent and ruffled as the waters in this Chamber a week ago when we were dealing with African problems, and I can assure your Lordships that in handling this matter I shall have no difficulty in being less "clever by half" than those who were castigated a week ago.

My interests in this matter are not financial, but they are very deep, for these reasons. I am a humble consumer in that centre of civilisation, a village named Findhorn up North where my family live, and I represented two counties up there, both within the Board's area, namely Moray and Nairn, for over 35 years in another place. For five and half years between 1951 and 1957 I was in the Scottish Office, where I had certain responsibilities to perform and where these schemes came before me. One has to do one's best in these matters, and I did my best to decide in what I believed to be in the national interest always; but of course, as we know, it is not possible to be right all the time; I only claim to have done my best. The old Latin tag has it, nemo sapit omnibus horis, and I know your Lordships with all your Latin education will be aware what that means. I could give a freer translation given by a schoolboy in the past, but I think it might be too free to give in this august Chamber.

What we have to remember is the responsibilities laid upon the Board by Parliament which the Board has to carry out. Legislative responsibilities were placed upon the right honourable gentleman, Mr. Thomas Johnston and his Board, now succeeded by Lord Strathclyde, and it was their duty to see that they provided light and power in the North of Scotland area. That is one point I will touch on. Secondly, I want to touch on the amenity problem, thirdly the sporting rights, especially rod fishings, and finally—and I place these in no particular order, except the fourth point—the future of the North of Scotland Board, and whether this will reach a point of uneconomic return. I mention that last, not because it is the least important but because it leads me on to the end of my remarks, which I know will please your Lordships when I get to it.

All the last three points—namely, amenity, sporting and the future of the Board—are, of course, moot points (I think that is an English term), or disputatious points, if noble Lords prefer that. Numbers 2 and 3 on amenities and sporting rights were always disputatious; there is nothing novel about that. During all my time they were disputatious for one reason or another, and I cannot follow the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson of Drumochter, into that. I do not think there is anything particularly sinister behind the proposed inquiry. These matters of amenity and sporting rights were always arising for obvious reasons.

With regard to No. 1, my first point, the supply of light and power, that, as I have said, was a responsibility placed upon the Board, and it was always essential in the interests of the Highlands and the North to provide this light and power for domestic consumers living in the area, for the farms and crofts in the area and for industrial undertakings in the area; and, as has been said by the noble Lord opposite, and I think by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, if depopulation was not going to be accelerated, the Board had to prevent it to the best of their ability. I was there, with them, in all these matters. That was a vital factor. It is stated in the Report that 92 per cent.—that is the only figure or statistic I shall quote, because I remember the late Mr. Lloyd George in another place, many years ago, saying that the worst of statistics is that you can find statistics to prove anything whichever way you happen to be arguing at the time—of consumers or potential consumers is a large linking up, well on the way towards completion of the task. It is certainly a great deal more than ever I expected when, twenty years after I entered another place, this Hydro-Electric Board was set up. I have seen it through all its babyhood, childhood, and growth. It has progressed much faster than I ever anticipated in my thoughts. But I presume—this is not a point on which I want to lay any particular stress—that some portion of this 92 per cent. had been linked up by the previous schemes under private enterprise; so it is not entirely the operation of this Board, because private enterprise was operating before the North of Scotland Board was set up.

However, that does not reduce or belittle the fact that to Mr. Thomas Johnston, to whom I have referred, is due great credit for all the energy which he put into this work and far the time which he devoted to it. He was always most helpful to me personally throughout my time at the Scottish Office. Although he belonged to a different political Party he always did all he could to help, and never placed difficulties in my way. That is something for which I was always most grateful; and to-day I am glad to see that, although Mr. Johnston still continues his work for the Board, in the Chair there is an old friend and colleague of mine, Lord Strathclyde, whom I wish well and hope that he will find that such things as amenities, sporting values and so forth give him no difficulty at all. But that I greatly doubt.

The question really arises: having done so much in this matter in linking up potential consumers, where do the Board go from here? I would return to that for a moment at the end of my remarks; but I do not wish to be too long. With regard to amenities, which I have mentioned, they have always been debatable. To-day there is this highly controversial Glen Nevis scheme. One cannot please all the people; but there remains this duty placed upon the Board to supply the people living in the area. I should like your Lordships to bear in mind, as has been mentioned by the noble Lord opposite, that all schemes are not damaging to amenity. For example, take the Faskally Loch just above Pitlochry. That is a beautiful loch which did not exist before; and fishing now adds an asset to that popular holiday resort. No doubt it is hard on those affected. I knew the family, the Butters of Faskally, who lived there and who, if they had stayed in the house, would have been drowned some years ago together with those who lived on the property with them. Nevertheless, it has been helping to achieve the objective which the Board had to have in view.

To take another example—one could give many—I was talking to a sheep farmer one day further North than Faskally. I said to him in the course of conversation, looking at the river beside us, "It is rather sad to see these barren rocks"—not of Aden—"confronting us and causing damage to the amenities". He said to me at once "Aye, but where would I be without the power and the light on the farm, when the men will not stay on the farms in these outlying districts?" He had mechanised vehicles of course, and he had the power and light supplied by the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board. That made it possible for him to continue his operations. That is most important.

To return for one moment to Glen Nevis, it will, of course, be affected. But so was Faskally affected by the dam in that area, and all the other darns. The streams and rivers may be diverted to some extent, and the scenery may be affected, but at any rate there is an object it, namely, to help to make life possible for those who earn their living and reside in the area. I should not myself say that it is necessary to suppose that Glen Nevis will be ruined for the public. Indeed, I am assured from what I have read that it is going to become more accessible to people, and that old persons like myself, who could not possibly get there at the present time, may be able to get there in the future to see what is left of it. At any rate, as the noble Lord opposite has said, it is not necessarily the case that all these things are ruined. The duty and responsibility rests and remains with the Board to make use of these resources, in so far as that is reasonable and sound, to supply light and power.

With regard to the sporting values—fisheries in particular—here again we have another irreconcilable difficulty. One cannot—and I, for one, do not—blame those who possess valuable assets in the shape of fishings which may be damaged, if not ruined, for being apprehensive. But at the same time, the Board have gone to infinite trouble in endeavouring to safeguard these assets, and will continue to do so. I find it difficult to express a decided view as to what the effects have been. Indeed, in a number of cases it is too early to say, because after fish have spawned, and if they get down successfully to the sea, to the mouth of the river, they then make off and enjoy themselves, I' hope—at any rate they grow fat—during an absence of anything up to four years, until they revisit us. Anyway, that is a point which, as I say, is irreconcilable; and I hope that the Board, by its schemes, ladders, passes, and so forth will (as they do) know how to preserve these valuable fishings, and will not do irreparable damage.

What we then have to decide is whether we go backwards (and that we cannot do) or continue to make use of our natural resources—national resources, if you like. To listen to some of these critics one would be inclined to say to them: "I suppose you would have refused to allow any developments to take place on rivers such as the Thames, quite near this building, the Tyne, say, or the Clyde"—because no doubt they would be good salmon rivers if there was not a lot of shipbuilding and other things going on. But at the same time Britain would be a very different country. I am not going to enter into an argument as to which would be the most attractive type, but I do not know where we should have been if we, as a nation, had not done these things. One might also argue that it meant great damage to amenity to sink a coalpit in Durham, Lanarkshire or Fife; but our wealth as a nation would certainly have suffered. Nobody, I believe, would pretend that a coal pit is a great benefit to the beauty of the countryside.

But we cannot go backwards, and we must, therefore, decide how the Board should proceed in the future. There is this natural power which has been very largely developed because, as my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross has said, the catchment areas in Scotland are very small, more so than in England. I do not think any noble Lord who chose to get out an atlas and a pair of dividers would find a spot in Scotland which is more than 30 miles from tidal waters. The Tay runs up to the Old Bridge at Perth, the Forth runs up to Stirling, the Moray Firth runs into Inverness and the Clyde runs up to wherever it runs up to, and so on; so that we have these great inlets and there is no very great or wide area, unlike the case of the United States or Canada.

One point finally and forcibly arises: whether these natural resources have now been developed to a point which is as far as we can reasonably go, bearing in mind the cost of linking up the outlying schemes, and whether there are not other means which might be employed, such as small oil-or coal-burning stations or stations using nuclear power—of which I admit, my ignorance is colossal—or (for want of a better term) "canned gas" of the kind one sees being moved about the country in lorries. No doubt there are other methods which might be employed in order to complete the task which has progressed so successfully and rapidly during the last eighteen years, and before.

I prefer not to express a final view at this stage about talk of amalgamation between the North and the South Boards, as did my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross, except to say that, so far as I am concerned, I do not think I would have advocated the fusion until such time as the North of Scotland Board has completed its task in so far as it is reasonably possible and economically sound for it to do so. Therefore, we are at the point at which I do not know anyone who knows the right answer to this question, and for that reason I welcome the Government's proposed inquiry into the generation and distribution of electricity in Scotland. I have been clear in my own mind for some time that we were approaching the point at which some decision would have to be reached as to the future operations of the Board. In my opinion that time has certainly arrived, if it is not overdue.

6.15 p.m.

THE EARL OF HADDINGTON

My Lords, we have listened, I am sure, with great attention and great pleasure to another maiden speech, and as one who must follow that speech I want to ask your Lordships to join with me in congratulating the noble Viscount on a very fine performance. For one who has held for many years distinguished offices, including the office of Secretary of State for Scotland for a very long time, it is quite easy to make good speeches; and I am sure the noble Viscount, coming as he does from the Highlands of Scotland, spoke with profound knowledge of his subject. I do not know how many speeches my noble friend has made in his time—it must be a great many—but we all hope that he will make many more in your Lordships' House of the same calibre as the one we have heard this afternoon.

In a most admirable speech the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, has dealt mainly with the economic aspects of the Board. He touched on the amenity side, but I want this evening, very briefly and as simply as I can, to speak solely on the question of amenity. I do that in my capacity as Honorary President of the Association for the Preservation of Rural Scotland. Some fifteen years ago, after the Development Act came on the Statute Book, we were all in a great flurry. We thought that the Hydro-Electric Board, which was proposing all these schemes, was going to do great damage to lovely glens in the Highlands; but I must say those fears were quite unfounded—in many cases, at any rate. I have even heard people say that one or two of the glens have been improved by impounding water into their lochs. I believe Glen Affric is an example. I saw it before and I have seen it after, and I believe in that case there has been a slight improvement; so it is only far to pay tribute to the Board, as other noble Lords have done. With their Amenity Committee and Advisory Committee they have done a very good job for the Highlands and, of course, in producing electricity, with its many uses, they have made life very much more comfortable for thousands of people living in the remote areas.

But I have not come here to hand out bouquets to the Hydro-Electric Board. I want. to criticise them on two points, if f may do so with all respect. The first criticism is a very obvious one. Probably we all know that the Board's plans for promoting these various schemes are always laid out so far ahead (perhaps ten years ahead) arid that by the time the general public know anything about a scheme so much money has been spent on survey work, boring operations and the like that the Board are deeply committed. Thus the schemes are almost pre-judged before the public know anything of them and so it is very difficult for a scheme to be abandoned. That must be made clear.

A second point touched on by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, was that the Board's engineers must study the topography of the Highlands and choose glens which have ample volume of water, good watersheds and good heads of water. Their schemes, also, mast be economic. But where does planning for amenity value come in, if any planning at present exists? Is there any body of people who can say: "Here is a glen (or valley) which is of such priceless value, in a scenic sense or for tourism, that the Board must on no account lay the ir hands union it. Go elsewhere for your electricity, but leave this because it is such a priceless heritage to Scotland."? There is an Amenity Committee of the Board, of course, but it is, I understand, the case that they are concerned only with tidying up matters of amenity after a scheme has been promoted. I believe that is a fact. They have no power to turn down an entire scheme.

There has been considerable talk about Glen Nevis, and I want particularly to mention Glen Nevis this afternoon. I have just come from Glen Nevis. Last Friday I climbed to the entrance to the gorge and looked down on this lovely view of untamed Highland scenery, I think perhaps the finest view I have ever seen in my life, with the roar of the waters tumbling down below through this great glacier-carved canyon. A most wonderful view! This is the way one sees it now when one walks up the path to the left. The Board's idea is to cut a new road right up on the other side, where people will go up more easily. Of course, we want some people to go up easily. But is there not a reward for having to walk up? It is not very far to walk up: it is only half a mile. Is there not some reward at the end to see the wonderful view one gets at the top?

If the Board have their way, this gorge, or the upper part of the gorge, will be quite silent. The music of the mountains will be heard no more. A concrete wall 240 feet high will be the dominating feature of the gorge. It will seal off the water for ever. That is by no means all. The great waterfall of Steal], 'which falls down from a great height or a precipice into the valley, one of the principal attractions to Glen Nevis, will have its height cut in half by the raising of the lake. It will barely be a waterfall any more, and the view there will be almost entirely blocked by the dam. The waterslide at Car Park will disappear, and many other waterfalls on the North arid South slopes of Ben Nevis will be impounded into this new-made reservoir. All this is for what? The ruination of this breath-taking scene. And why? To enable the Board to get a little more income, a little better to pay their way; as they say in their report on the scheme: To support their loss and maintain their tariffs at their present parity with those throughout Great Britain. Can the Board honestly say that without the Nevis Scheme they cannot implement their contract for producing electricity? Ninety-two per cent. of the potential consumers are already connected: there is only 8 per cent. to connect. Surely we could find enough water power to deal with the other 8 per cent. in the untapped areas of Scotland.

Glen Nevis, of course, from the configuration of the ground, is an engineer's dream. I can only say that I should very much like to see it remain a dream. For why should one of our most lovely glens be thus sacrificed on the altar of financial expediency? Whether it is going to be an economical scheme or not, I do not know. With the colossal dam, with the many miles of tunnelling through the rock to Loch Leven, with the great new road and subsidiary works, is £41½ million going to be the final figure? It is not for me to say, but I sometimes very much doubt it. One thing I know: this incomparable glen, a place of pilgrimage for thousands of people, is going to be spoilt beyond redemption. I hope that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will appoint a public inquiry into the many objections which have been lodged against this scheme—I think there are 26 in all—and I sincerely hope that he will appoint a public inquiry. Finally, may I just remind the Government of this? I think the Board have a charter to produce electricity, but there are also thousands who feel that they have a duty to stop them, and to hand down some of our finest, unspoilt Highland scenery for the benefit of future generations.

6.26 p.m.

LORD FORBES

My Lords, let me say straight away that we in the North of Scotland are extremely lucky to have the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board. They perform a tremendous service to the community in that part of the country. They give us that electricity which, once we have had it, we all hate to be without. Indeed, I believe that none of us should be without it in 1961. Furthermore, electricity is about the only commodity that the people in the North of Scotland can produce at the same price as, or at possibly lower prices than, with great respect, the mollycoddle people in the South of England can.

I have had the good fortune to visit practically every corner of Scotland, and I have been amazed, as I am sure many other noble Lards have been, to find the miles of supply lines in the Highlands of Scotland; and they are often at the end of a small crofting community. These supply lines not only bring electricity to these communities, but also bring life. The Board have, indeed, brought immeasurable benefits to the whole of the North of Scotland. They have handed over no fewer than about 100 miles of new or improved roads to local authorities. Many of these roads have opened up hitherto inaccessible areas and made them available for the tourist. The Board have also built some 300 houses, many of them of local stone. That in itself has helped to keep going a declining industry, besides helping to preserve the landscape. What other authority can claim to have given so much consideration to natural beauty?

The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, talked about unsightly pylons. I entirely agree with him: these pylons can be extremely unsightly. I would suggest that the Board should employ a landscape architect, because it is his job to do exactly what is wanted in this respect. He can say, "Put a pylon ten yards to the right or ten yards to the left", and somehow it just makes the whole difference. How he does it, I do not know; it is magic to me.

Then again, the Board give steady employment to some 3,000 people. Over and above that, they employ another 3,000 or so on constructional work. That in itself is a great help in an area of high unemployment. Your Lordships will know that for many years there has been continual depopulation of the Highlands: and Her Majesty's Government have, very rightly, been encouraging the existing basic industries of the Highlands agriculture, fishing, forestry, and now tourism—in an effort to combat this depopulation. But I would say, without the slightest hesitation, that all these efforts will come to nought unless the basic services and the 1961 necessities are available to the people of the Highlands just as they are available to the people in the South of England.

The North of Scotland has some of the most beautiful scenery, probably, in the world. But, my Lords, people to-day cannot live by scenery alone. They want electricity, television, and to be within reach of telephones; and most important of all, unless they have their own transport, they want an efficient and cheap transport system so that they can reach the centres of activity. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, mentioned the difficulty of connecting up very remote premises. May I make a suggestion here? That is, that Her Majesty's Government should consider giving encouragement to a slight concentration of population in various parts of the Highlands. This will need a tremendous amount of thought, and I am not asking my noble friend who is to reply for the Government to give any answer on this point now. It is something which will have to be gone into very carefully; but it would ease the cost of many services which are being provided to-day and which will have to be provided in the future.

England can afford to lose some of her population—or, at least, one would think that, driving from London to Brighton in the summer—but this depopulation of the North of Scotland must, if possible, be halted. In the past Scotland has exported her best brains, very often to the Commonwealth. To-day she needs not only her own brains, but her own skill and her own fortitude. As one who enjoys the benefits of electricity supplied by the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, I should like to commend the Board for two reasons. One is the fortitude of their linesmen, who go out in any kind of weather, whether it be blizzards or gales, to repair the lines and get the service back as quickly as possible. The other matter is the great consideration that the Board give towards farmers. I have a dairy farm, and I can say that, for the past ten years, not once has an inconsiderate employee of the Board pulled out a switch and cut off the electricity during milking time. They always come and consult, and we are on extremely good relations with them.

My Lords, the Board have overcome considerable difficulties, not without great capital expense. Now, at last, they seem to be within sight of their goal. And at the very moment when the Board are within sight of their goal, the Government set up a Departmental Committee to investigate Scotland's electricity potentialities. What that Committee will recommend, I do not know. Possibly, they will produce the fashionable answer, which seems to be a merger with another Board In my view, if they do produce that answer, it will be nothing less than a breach of faith with the people in the North of Scotland. Because do not forget that the two Boards in Scotland were set up for two very different purposes. The Board in the South was set up to develop and maintain an efficient, co-ordinated and economic supply of electricity, whereas the North of Scotland Board was set up to provide electricity and to collaborate in carrying out any measures for the economic development and social improvement of the North of Scotland. So far as I can see, this Departmental Committee that has been set up is not empowered to look into the economic development and social improvement of the North of Scotland. Perhaps, when the noble Lord comes to reply for the Government, he will tell us whether or not that is the case.

In my view it would be little short of disaster if this great job that the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board set out to do is abandoned just as it is about to reap the fruits of its labours. Surely the problem that faces every electricity authority or board is the difficulty of peak supply. This peak is a very high peak, and, surely, this is where the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board have found the answer, with the Cruachan pumped storage supply at Loch Awe which is now being built.

I cannot help feeling that the Scottish Office have at their fingertips all the necessary information required for Her Majesty's Government to make a decision, and I cannot help feeling that the right decision would be to subsidise the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board to enable them to take electricity to that hard core which still remains to be connected up. Then, not only will the Board be able to stand on their own feet, but they will be able to collaborate fully in carrying out the measures for economic development and social improvement of the North of Scotland. More important still, my Lords, the great water resources of the North of Scotland might at least benefit those who live there, as the Board, having completed their capital expenditure, would be in a position to provide electricity to their consumers at a reduced rate. As the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, has already pointed out, it is unfortunate that, from the Board's Report, we learn that, if the Board are to complete their task, they have to have more than human aid. They want assistance from the heavens. All of us thought that last year they had had that assistance, but apparently the Board's catchment area was the only place in the whole of the British Isles that escaped the deluge.

My Lords, the fruits are just around the corner. Why, oh, why, have the Government wavered? The results of their action, so far as I can see, will mean at best, delay; and, at the worst, it could mean the loss, not only of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, but also of the Board's special responsibilities to the North of Scotland.

6.38 p.m.

LORD CITRINE

My Lords, when I first saw this Motion on the Order Paper I wondered what it was all about. During my ten years of chairmanship of the British Electricity Authority and its successor, I had quite a close connection with the North of Scotland Board. We were in great measure responsible for the 'approval of its technical schemes, and we were completely responsible for the overall operations of the two, then South-West and South-East Scotland, Boards. Since that time, the North of Scotland Board's powers have been increased to include not merely hydropower but thermal-generation, too; and there has been set up the South of Scotland Board, which was formed, as your Lordships know, in 1955.

Now both these Boards are completely autonomous. I know of their operations only from such published Reports as have been issued from time to time and from various conventions to which we are all adjoined. I have no responsibility whatever for their operations as a member of the Electricity Council, but I know that the Boards have highly competent members and engineers—members like the engineers devoted to public service, and eminently able, by their skill and breadth of knowledge, to deal with the problems which face nationalised boards. References have been made to Tom Johnston, the second Chairman of the Board who held office for so long, and also to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I knew them both, and I still know Lord Strathclyde reasonably intimately. I also know Sir John Pickles, who is a Chairman of the South of Scotland Board.

I now ask myself this question, as I have asked myself on other occasions the same question: what is the value of appointing competent people, carefully selected by the Minister, and then very shortly after they 'have got to work and when their schemes are beginning to mature, to hold various inquiries of one kind or another to give a different kind of judgment on the problems with which the Board, by their experience, are better equipped to deal? I remember the inquiry which was made by the Select Committee in 1957, and I remember the high tributes which were paid in various parts of the Report to the Board.

At the moment, I should like to read the functions of the Board, in the sense that they are somewhat different from those of electricity boards in general. Quoting the Report, I notice it says in paragraph 19: The North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board was set up in 1943, and its area of operation greatly enlarged by the Electricity Act, 1947. What distinguishes it from the other nationalised industries is that its function is not only to supply, as a business concern, electric power to North Scotland, but also to collaborate so far as its powers and duties permit in the social and economic betterment of that sparsely populated area. When the economics of the Board are being considered, I hope that the latter part of that statement will be taken into account.

As I understand it, the Board is running at something like £1¾ million each year in the red in respect of certain classes of its services. Those services are, so far as I know, exclusively rural electrification, and the density and the terrain which have to be covered by those services are such that it would be quite impossible for any Board economically to provide those services—I do not care what the make-up of the Board is, and whether its character is private or public. Rural electrification in practically every country which which I have had even the least experience faces the same problem. I found in New Zealand and Australia that the cost of connections was not the modest £350 in the North of Scotland Board's costs; it ran as high, on occasions, as well over £1,000. But because of social and public reasons, the Board carry that kind of what I might call, from the purely financial point of view, heavy commitment. So that when we are considering the economics, let us all remember that provision by the North of Scotland Board in the exercise of its function.

There are two other paragraphs to which I want to refer in the Report of the Select Committee, which I think are quite topical. Paragraph 67 says: In the fourteen years of its existence, the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board has impressively justified the faith of its progenitors. It has by now taken its place in the Scottish scene as a firmly-established concern. The achievements of the Board in the last few year—in which time it has seen very few changes—themselves rebut the criticism of the Board's present personnel, which was made by one witness, and which Your Committee reject. The next paragraph says: The Board is, however, still subject to a lot of criticism, some of which is unfair, and most of which can be readily answered. Then it goes on to say: Your Committee regret that not one of the Board's annual Reports has been the subject of substantive debate in the House of Commons. I think that regret could also be expressed by other people, not least the chairmen of the various nationalised boards. Their carefully prepared reports are seldom dealt with on a factual basis or in any extended way.

Criticism of a public body is a public right, and nobody would object to that in the least. But when criticism is converted into organised opposition, it becomes quite a different thing. I could not sense, in anything which was said by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, anything in the way of the criticisms which I have seen from time to time levelled against the North of Scotland Board. While I do not like to impute ulterior motives to anyone, I am not sure that all the criticism which is now being expressed is entirely disinterested.

Criticism of amenities has been made. The Hydro-Board is not the only one to be criticised. I had quite a few doses myself during my ten years with the British Electricity Authority, and my successor on the generation, side, Sir Christopher Hinton, is having it in full measure even now. Suggestions that publicly-spirited people deliberately desecrate the scenery for some broad economic purpose is sheer nonsense. Damage is being done, they say; the scenery and the beauty is being destroyed, and all that sort of thing. Usually there is complete refutation when the schemes are completed. I have found, from experience in other countries, that very often the hydro-electric board, or the Government, as the case may be, have provided centres with restaurants, et cetera, at various hydro-electric schemes which have become a regular place for visits both by citizens and tourists. I saw that sort of thing in Australia. I saw it in connection with the Snowy Mountain scheme: I have seen it in connection with the Tennessee Valley scheme; and I believe some experimentation has been made in that direction on the part of the Hydro-Electric Board.

I remember that when we were discussing hydro-electric development in North Wales, in order to try to combat the seemingly obstructive criticism which was being levelled against the Electricity Board I arranged for a party of the objectors who were connected with the Society for the Preservation of Rural Wales to come up and see the Galloway Scheme. We spent a day going over the Scheme, and instead of being critical they were full of admiration for the way in which that Scheme had been carried out, and the minimum amount of harm which was done, as they saw it, to the amenities. They had to have resort to an unanswerable argument that hydroelectric development in Wales was, of course, quite different from hydro-electric development in Scotland. They were commending the Scottish Scheme and were very much hoping that type of Scheme, if one had to be put into operation, would be adopted in Wales.

Switzerland has possibly a greater measure of hydro-electric development than any country in the world. I have seen, in Italy, its near neighbour, power stations using the water thirteen times over, from the point of its highest reservoirs down to the point of its lowest descent. New Zealand generates 90 per cent. of her electricity from hydro-electric power and Norway has at least as high a percentage. All these countries are making use of their natural resources, and I was pleased to hear the noble Viscount refer in passing to the need to develop all our resources.

I would now turn to one or two things which the noble Viscount said and comment on them. He referred to the fact that the hydro-electric schemes are not base load. May I say that I admired the adept way in which he described these schemes. Had I still been Chairman of the Central Electricity Authority I could almost have given him a job as a consultant or engineer on the spot. It is true that there are few hydroelectric schemes that are basic in the sense that some thermal stations are; but when he speaks about base load being taken by the steam and nuclear stations perhaps he does not quite appreciate the limitations that there are on both of these. The idea that an electricity station can be run all out for 24 hours a day is an ideal, but it can very seldom be done. What we have to do is to get the most efficient stations which generate at the lowest cost and pile the load on them as much as we can. This means that we have to put out of commission for certain hours of the day other stations which are only marginally behind the best. We have put great capital in many thermal stations, but we cannot run them completely on base load, because the amount of base load is limited.

That, indeed, is the major reason why the nuclear power programme has to be a limited one. The nuclear power stations, even at the point where their costs are likely to break even, say about 1970, will have a hard struggle, and unless they are on base load they cannot succeed. We calculated that we had not enough base load for a bigger programme than the one now entered into. It is estimated that when this stage of the nuclear programme is completed, by 1968, there will be about 6,000 megawatts of capacity available from that source. But that will be only about 15 per cent. of the total generating capacity at the disposal then of the Central Electricity Generating Board. So we see that there would not be enough load to keep more nuclear stations running, and, moreover, many of the normal thermal stations which would be in existence at that time would be far below the efficiency shown by the Kincardine station in Scotland. I had the pleasure of being one of those who approved the plans for Kincardine during the years I was in office. It is highly efficient. One must compare like with like, and I think it is difficult to compare hydro and thermal stations.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, I think that the point here is that we are planning for the future, not comparing what is already in existence.

LORD CITRINE

I know, my Lords, but how long in the future-10, 20 or 30 years? How far ahead do we look? I think that looking ten years ahead is taking a chance, though I am entirely in favour of it. If we have consumers, say in the North of Scotland, fed by base load thermal stations, those stations will be situated, in the majority of cases, far from the point where the load is being taken. This cannot be helped. Even now we have to put big stations on the estuaries of certain rivers where there is a fair amount of water. We cannot put them just where we like. There are limits because of the amount of circulating water needed; and so, inescapably, we have that long line of pylons which the noble Earl thought were so deftly concealed by the Hydro-Electric Board when they produced models of their new schemes. If we have stations at a distance, it means that they will have long transmission lines and at very high voltages to keep down costs, so that pylons will be higher and bigger than ever. And I can imagine what one of the noble Lords who has preceded me would have to say about pylons of that kind. We do not get rid of the amenity question in that way. It is inevitably there.

What concerns me much more was the reference of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, to the possibility of an amalgamation of the North and the South of Scotland Boards. I remember the qualifications which he made and his moderate remarks, but I understood him to say that he hoped that the Committee—by Committee I presume he meant the Committee which was announced last week—would give careful consideration to these matters; and I assume that amalgamation or the possibility of having a single Board was one of the things that they would consider. That frightens me. I will tell your Lordships why. When the terms of reference of this Committee were being discussed in your Lordships' House after the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, had read the statement which was made in another place, the noble Earl was very specific in his answers. I will not read them all, for considerations of time, but his final answer to my noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth, who had suspected that there was something of a different character behind the terms of reference of this Committee, was [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 229 (No. 48), col. 305]: I do not see how that can come within the terms of reference of this Committee. which are simply to consider the, relative costs of generating electricity as between hydroelectric power, coal, atomic energy and so on. That is the noble Earl's paraphrase of the terms of reference. The terms themselves start off: To review the arrangements for generating and distributing electricity.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, I do not think that the noble Lord is right. As I read it, my noble friend. Lord Dundee was dealing with the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, of competition from private sources with the Hydro-Electric Board. He was not ruling out the question of the discussion of some amalgamation.

LORD CITRINE

My Lords, I read only one extract for considerations of time, but the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, made it as plain as could be that his conception of the terms of reference were limited to the considerations which he summed up as the relative costs of generating electricity as between hydro-electric rower, coal, atomic energy and so on. Indeed, had the terms of reference been wider, I would have opposed the formation of the Committee and its composition.

THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (LORD CRAIGTON)

My Lords, I think I can help the noble Lord. I agree with my noble friend, Lord Colville of Culross, that my noble friend Lord Dundee was referring to the question whether the terms of reference could cover competition from private enterprise. In fact, if they choose to do so, the Committee can consider the amalgamation of the two Boards.

LORD CITRINE

I regret profoundly that that point was not brought out when the matter was being discussed. It shows, if I may say so—and I am the last person to impute ulterior motives or to suspect answers—how careful one should be in accepting terms of reference without fully exploring them. Terms of reference just made in the course of a statement across the Table may contain phrases capable of wide expansion.

Let me go one stage further. If this Committee is examining these arrangements to see whether or not it is proper that there should be two Boards or one Board, can they leave cut the question whether there should be any Scottish Boards at all? That is a very real question. There were no separate 13oards in the South of Scotland up to 1955. If we are dealing with the pure economics of generation, as strong a case may be made for generation being South of the Border as for its being North of the Border. If that sort of thing is going to be discussed by a Committee of this type, including an editor and a professor of economics, and only one really outstanding electricity man among the whole lot, then it is going far wider than any of us on this side of the House had ever thought. I think it would give a great deal of concern to people, as the noble Lord, Lord Forbes, said, if this wider examination were to take place. I have the highest respect for the people operating these two Boards, and I think the measure of disturbance that will be caused amongst their employees of all grades by that kind of suggestion cannot be helpful to the operation of the Boards.

I should like to say a word or two about hydro power. I would say that it was foolish not to use this. Hydro power is very heavy in capital cost, but very low on running charges. I was glad that the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, in his speech, gave the illustration of the Galloway and the Grampian schemes generating at .2d. per unit completely unaffected by rising prices, because water takes no notice of Government policies on inflation, deflation or anything else. We have in this country a fuel problem, and we must keep that in the front of us all the time. I have not the slightest doubt that there will be an acute coal shortage in this country. If we look ten or twenty years ahead, it is bound to arise if the needs of the community go on expanding in anything like the way they are doing. That was one of the basic reasons for the nuclear power programme. It was known from the word "Go" that the nuclear power stations could not for a decade compete successfully with the best of the electrical stations. But it was because of the fact that the Government saw away ahead a demand for 100 million tons of coal or thereabouts by the Electricity Boards that they said: "We must do something about this." Then, at a later stage, the Government decided that we must start importing oil to eke out the shortage of coal, which was even then showing itself.

By 1975 there will be a requirement by the Generating Board in the United Kingdom alone for 115 million tons of coal a year; that is, if we are tied to coal. Or, of course, we shall have to get the equivalent of coal from other sources. The Generation Board in the United Kingdom is now using 45 million tons of coal a year; but it is also importing oil to an equivalent of 8 million or 9 million tons of coal. That, again, is some evidence of the shortage. Well, the oil has to be imported, and it may have some effect on the balance of payments. But the water is here at home. We do not need to bring that within the terms of our fiscal system. Consequently, water, as has been said, is unaffected by rising prices. Coal, as everybody knows, costs several times what it did in the years between the wars. It is said to be still the cheapest in Europe; but that does not get rid of the fact that, in a comparative sense, it is quite dear, even in this country. Can anybody say whether coal will increase in price as the years go by? I read with some surprise the statement in another place by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power when he said that the prices of the Board had reached a point of no return; and he implied, if he did not say, that it was not possible to increase the price. I am one of those who prefer to wait and see, and I should be a very surprised man if in the years to come there were not merely one in crease but several increases in the price of coal. Solid fuel and oil represent about 60 per cent. of the total cost of generation. So it is not merely a question of water being available to us, but it is a useful factor in setting against a rising costs level and so being completely unaffected by inflation.

I know both the North of Scotland Board and the South of Scotland Board to be efficient. As has been said, the North assists the South at peak periods and at other favourable times in the autumn and winter, thus creating a great saving in the way of standby plant that would otherwise be necessary. I also noted in one of the Reports of the Hydro-Electric Board that in the past the resources have been somewhat underestimated, and that in point of fact they are considerably greater and would become available in the next few years. Both the North of Scotland and the South of Scotland Boards, as everybody knows, have considerable plans for expansion, and I think that they both can be justly proud of their achievements over these difficult post-war years. I do not care what examination Committees subject them to; I am quite confident that they will emerge with credit to themselves in any forthcoming inquiry.

7.8 p.m.

VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN

My Lords, I should have suggested an inquiry in the future had it not been granted before we started, and therefore I am in the happy position of having my thoughts granted before I have made them known. I have no criticism of the North of Scotland Board, or of the South of Scotland Board. I do not think any noble Lord has risen to his feet and strongly defended the South of Scotland Board, but I should like to point out that, as I understand it, this Committee is not aimed at the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board but at the whole of the generation of electricity in Scotland in the future. It is with that in mind that I intend to speak. First of all, I should like to say how deeply grateful I am to my noble friend Lord Craigton who some time ago dropped me a hint that saved me a great deal of work.

I feel that this whole thing is tied up purely technically, and I should not be in the slightest degree frightened if the Committee were to report that the United Kingdom was a small enough unit for one Board to run the whole thing. If it could be proved that that method would produce the cheapest electricity in Scotland for the greatest number of Scotsmen, I should be perfectly happy. 'Therefore I do not join issue on that point at all. I understood the terms of reference and my noble friend Lord Dundee's remarks exactly as was interpreted by my noble friend Lord Craigton.

I think the difficulty in economic generation (and I know the noble Lord, Lord Citrine, will correct me at once if I am wrong) is having to generate electricity on a load factor of something of the order of 45 or 46 per cent. which I think is the figure to-day. The difficulty there, of course, is getting rid of off-peak electricity. Surely, knowing the problem facing us, which means literally that nearly half our plant is standing idle half the time, or something of that sort, the natural thought for future development would be pumped storage schemes. Pumped storage schemes are a recent development. In fact, at the moment we in this country are ahead of anybody in the world in design and installation of that particular type of plant, and I should have thought that that is the kind of thing the inquiry should investigate.

Another advantage of pumped storage is that the capital cost of installation is comparable to the modern steam plants of the order of £50 or £60 per kilowatt generated, as opposed to the normal hydro-electric charges of the order of £100 to £200, depending on the scheme. But a pumped storage scheme, being rather a hybrid, if I may say so, has a great many of the hydro-electric advantages, which is that the dams, tunnels and installations of that sort are practically indestructible. The system can be turned on and off by pressing a couple of buttons. There is no running up, and no necessity to warm the turbine. So that I should have thought that that new method—not new in theory, but new in practice—should be borne in the forefront of anyone's mind when inquiring into the future of electricity in Scotland.

Whatever we like to say, the market for electricity in Scotland does not at this moment lie in the Highlands: nor can it. I give the Hydro-Electric Board 9½out of 10 for the work they have done. There are a few isolated places which they have not connected, but it would be entirely uneconomic to do so, and I do not blame them. But, apart from that, suppose they were connected up. That particular market is almost fully supplied, except for the normal growth of consumers, who find electricity convenient, and who then buy a bit more—a television set or something else—and use a little more electricity. Therefore, the major increase for use of electricity must lie in the industrial belt of Scotland, or in export to the South. That being the case, I think art inquiry is justified to co-ordinate, if nothing more, all these facts and to obtain a coordinated answer.

Figures have been bandied about, but a modern steam station, which is the only thing that would help nowadays, compares very favourably in cost. I believe that Thorpe Marsh, for example, which is one of the most modern and which will be commissioned presently, is estimated to produce electricity at about 5d. per unit. If we are going to compare figures in the future we must consider the future generation by steam, not the past. The past is tied on to a thermal efficiency of, I believe, up to 27 per cent., or something like that. But Thorpe Marsh, I think I am right in saying, will work at a thermal efficiency of over 33 per cent. So one must compare like with like.

There is another point. We all hope and pray that one day we shall be beating our swords into ploughshares. There is not much else you can do with an atomic bomb except to use it in a power station. Therefore, the designing of a power station that can work on enriched fuel and the continuation of experiments of this kind must be kept in mind; in the overall plan room must be left for electricity to be supplied in, that way. Therefore, whether two Boards, one responsible for the sale of something in the order of, I think it is, 6,000 million or 7,000 million units, and the other for about 2,000 million units, are necessary or not, I should not like to say. But I am quite sure the Committtee are justified in considering that fact. If they can prove that one Board, covering the whole of the British Isles, is the most economical method, I would not dissent from that. But, as I say, my whole aim is to provide the cheapest electricity for everybody. And we must not be parochial on this question.

Now I wish to say one word about amenity. Hydro-electric power has the feature that it means no more than changing the picture on the wall. You do not desecrate the landscape—at any rate, nine times out of ten. Whatever you leave in the place of what was there before is extremely well designed and pleasant to look at. The next generation, who have never seen what it was like before, are not going to argue or bother their heads about amenity. I think we ought to gent this matter of amenity into some form of perspective.

LORD CITRINE

My Lords, I did not wish to interrupt the noble Viscount before, because I know how it disturbs one's thinking. But it is the fact, is it not, that the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board have a very big pumped storage scheme on tap? I believe it is going to be 400 megawatts.

VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN

There are schemes, but I was considering the future development. That is one scheme, and is designed for the specific purpose, I believe, of pumping out the base loads to the South of Scotland Board. It is the ramifications of that particular scheme, before any pure hydro-electric scheme is considered, that cause some people to feel a little anxious and to think that the matter should be thoroughly explored.

7.18 p.m.

LORD FERRIER

My Lords, we are most grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, for introducing this subject, though the "homework" has been made a good deal more difficult by the publication only yesterday of the 1960 Report of the South of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board. It is quite evident from what your Lordships have heard within this Chamber, and without looking at the Press, that this is a subject that needs airing. Therefore, I welcome, as I think most of us do, the appointment of this Departmental Committee. It is quite obvious that there has been, and is, great misunderstanding, and I should like to declare my interest, as a consumer of electricity taken from the South of Scotland Electricity Board, and as one interested in Lanarkshire and Edinburgh in an industry taking large quantities of power from the South of Scotland Board.

I will not weary your Lordships with describing my enthusiasm for electricity. Indeed, I should like to say how interested I was to hear the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Citrine, whom I first met in Bombay. This problem is an extremely interesting one, from the point of view of Hydro-Board versus thermal stations. When the noble Lord, Lord Citrine, was there, I think I am right in saying, there was only one thermal station in Bombay which was used for driving a section of the railways. Ten years ago an additional steam station was constructed, in order to peak, and the hydro was the base load. Since then thermal development has been so great that the thermal stations are the base and the hydro is peaking.

I give that as a remarkable instance of the fact that twenty years ago, I think it would be safe to say, nobody visualised that thermal stations would be there at all. Yet to-day they are carrying the base. I feel it is worth saying this because there is a measure of misunderstanding, and it is upsetting to people like myself w ho read such headlines as "Tempers rise", which was in the Scotsman last Saturday, when the tempers are rising only on one side of the problem. I, for instance, have every right to suggest some inquiry into the problem of power for the South, and none of the inspiration which started my support for the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross came from South of the Border. I am not a sufficient student of Gaelic to be prepared to define the word "Sassenach". It seems to me that the Hydro-Electric Board people, and some others in the North, have been inclined to regard perfectly fair suggestions for considerations for the future for power in Scotland as a whole as criticisms of the Board's operations. Speaking for myself, I assure them that everything I say is in terms of suggestions for the future, and it is only consideration for your Lordships' time which prevents me from dilating upon the merits of the Board and its many good works. I must be careful to say that, lest what I go on to say is construed as adverse comment and I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson of Drumochter, is not in his place to hear me say it. It is quite possible that the Board's franchise may now be too rigid to fit into the framework of Scotland's power needs, not the North of Scotland Board's operations.

Take, for instance, the charge for connection which the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, mentioned. I would go further than he went. While appreciating that, within its charter, the Board cannot charge less than they charge to-day, I would say that the charge is too high. It is manifestly too high, because the remaining 8 per cent. unconnected are finding it impossible to face up to the connection charge. In other Nords, the charges are too high from the remaining potential customers' point of view. There is much in the view that rural connections should be subsidised from sources other than purely supply organisation. It is unreasonable to suggest that only electric supply benefits by a rise in the standard of living. Agricultural, industrial, transport and other interests prosper with an improved standard of living. And the ideal I think—there is no argument about it—would be for all those to be able to contribute to the cost of making connections. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, suggested something of the sort. I go further. I say that not only should the South of Scotland be brought in—which is really what is happening now—but other interests should also contribute to this.

Conversely, if rates for the supply of electricity are loaded with a large share of the cost of making connections, it follows that the rates of supply are stepped up to a level which paralyses the early consumers of electricity. I want to make this point quite clearly, because very often the early connections to the electricity system, particularly in a rural area, represent the most enterprising and thrifty of the community. Consideration should be given to that point at all angles; the early consumer should not have to pay a high rate for electricity in order to subsidise making connections for later consumers who ultimately will benefit by a lower over-all rate on the whole system. At the moment it may be held that some of the cost of these connections actually falls upon electricity consumers in the South. This is a point which the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, mentioned arid it should be the subject for examination by this Committee.

I turn to the amenity question, and I particularly refer to power lines. Nobody who has seen the works of the Hydro Board and seen the care over powerhouses would complain. But power lines, no doubt, can be an eyesore. Some say they are beautiful; some say they are the reverse; others say we shall get used to them. It seems to me to depend where the power lines go. There are many places where they do not impair the prospect, but there are other places where they are an absolute eyesore. Where scenic grandeur is founded on vast spaces or majestic skylines, or where natural beauty springs from the fusion of colour arid form in some exquisite or intimate setting, power lines to-day are art eyesore. To divert a line along dead ground, or to put even a short length underground, is extremely expensive. And who is to bear the cost, if it is to be borne? This is the type of subject which I believe will be dealt with by the Committee. The cost of such work, as I say, is very great. Nevertheless, these scenic beauties are, in fact, in terms of economics, an asset: and the Committee will have to decide to what extent the amenity overrules the additional cost of putting lines underground.

The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, has dealt with the question of tariffs and the tariff structure for the whole of Scotland. But are we satisfied that all tariffs for all types of load are low enough, both in the North and in the South? Are the North's rates too high because of any burden of servicing and connection charges? Are the present rates there really attractive to industry? Are the South's tariffs too high because of delay or expense in obtaining coal for the more modern power stations, or perhaps because of high rates paid for much needed peaking power from the North of Scotland? Those are matters which will need to be considered. On the subject of tariffs it is difficult to comment without load curves in the Reports. The noble Viscount, Lord Stone-haven, mentioned the question of load factor. We must face the fact that load factors, both North and South, are far too low; they are far below anything that is reasonable in highly developed countries to-day. I refer only to the South. The load factor is only 45½6 per cent., although, to-day something in the neighbourhood of 55 to 60 per cent. is desirable and should be aimed at. I feel that the plans for the future should set a standard of something like that; and it follows, as I see it, that much more serious attention should be given to off-peak tariffs.

I do not go all the way with the noble Viscount, Lord Stonehaven, about the service which pumped power can give in dealing with off-peak loads. My view is that we have not gone far enough in this country in bringing the off-peak load rate down to a level which will induce even third-shift working. That is for consideration, certainly in the South, and I refer particularly to the horticultural industry in the Upper Clyde valley. I believe that lower off-peak tariffs and provision for thermal storage heating apparatus in private space heating would help with this load. On the subject of pumped storage, I think it is fair to say that the second installation in the whole world was in Scotland, on the Tweed, 50 years ago. As Lord Stonehaven said, we are far ahead in this. The Swedes had the first one, and the installation at Inverleithen was operative until only a few years ago.

To turn back to the Reports, one naturally turns to the problem of research. How is research being dealt with? I have one criticism of both Reports: I do not see any specific reference to market research. That rather links up with what I was saying on the question of off-peak tariffs. I hope that the Committee will look into this matter. I believe that there is room for more collaboration with agriculture, industry and horticulture in discussing various formulations. It will be good to look to what will be possible in terms of tariff consultation with parties representing industry and the like.

There are one or two other points, which of course the Committee will look at and deal with. Are the best sites being used up? What is the extent of the uncertainties of rainfall?—and so on. I will not weary your Lordships with details which have already been mentioned by noble Lords, and doubtless will be mentioned by others. I hope that what I have said is enough to illus- trate how robustly I believe that my right honourable friend is justified in appointing the Committee which he has appointed. I seek your Lordships' indulgence that I have to go to a longstanding engagement before my noble friend replies to the debate. I have already apologised to him in advance.

In supporting the Motion of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and before I sit down, I, as a Scotsman, should like to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, who is necessarily speechless to-day, but who provided us with a most excellent and enjoyable maiden speech on Monday. When he spoke I had the impression—it may have been right or wrong—that he yearned somewhat for what he described as the skill of Parliamentary debate acquired in another place. As one who, like him, has not had the opportunity of acquiring that particular skill, I should like to assure him that in my view it need not be a disadvantage. Indeed, he has seen in the first few days of his presence in this place that some of the skills acquired elsewhere do not seem to suit the proceedings of your Lordships' House.

7.34 p.m.

THE DUKE OF ATHOLL

My Lords, I should like first to make it clear that I, too, welcome the Departmental Committee. I think this Committee, as it includes in its Purview both the North and the South of Scotland, can take a far wider view than can either the North or the South of Scotland Hydro-Electric Boards, or their Chairmen. Not only that, but the Committee will also be able to investigate in the South of Scotland some suitable sites for hydroelectric schemes which seem to have been largely forgotten since the original Galloway Scheme was completed about 30 years ago. It will also be able to take a wide view about the future of electricity over the whole of Scotland, and therefore it should be able to plan more accurately.

My only regret is that there is no fishery or amenity representative on the Committee. I know that 'the members of the Committee are looking only into the generation and the supply of electricity, but I feel that to some extent they will be lacking such a person, and that it is a pity that no one was put on the Committee to act as a sort of watchdog for these particular interests, who may, when Committee eventually reports, feel that they were somewhat. neglected.

I hope to be brief, but I should like to make what I trust will be one constructive suggestion and one or two faint criticisms of 'the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board. I would make it quite clear that, on the whole, they do an excellent job of work. Particularly has this been so in the last ten years, which have been considerably more happy than the first seven years of their 'existence. During the course of the last ten years they have whittled away a lot of the criticism which originally was levelled at them when they started their work.

As my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross has explained, the present main function of the Hydro-Electric Board is to produce peak load electricity. There is no doubt that at this moment hydro is the most suitable form of generation that we know of for peak load electricity. This being so, as my noble friend Lord Stonehaven suggested, I should have thought that pumped storage was the obvious answer. In the Awe scheme they have incorporated pumped storage at Cruachan, and I see from the Annual Report that this is estimated to have an annual output of 450 million units. To give your Lordships some idea of how much that is, I. may say that the present maximum amount that any North of Scotland hydro-electric power station operating at the moment produces is 167 million units, which were produced last year at Rannoch. So Cruachan will produce approximately three times as much as the production at the best present station.

I believe that there is no need to start these pumped storage stations from scratch. Perhaps some of the present schemes could be utilised for this. I am not a hydro-electric engineer, but I should have thought it was perfectly possible to pump some of Loch Lomond up to the Sloy scheme or Loch Tay up to the Lawers scheme. There would have to be adjustments, but I hope that the Committee will look into this matter, because this would do no further damage to amenities or fishing and the effect on Loch Lomond or Loch Tay would be marginal, far less than the amount of the rise or fall of the water according to the weather. Moreover, it would, I think, get over many of the problems of the use of the base load of such economic stations as Kincardine and others which no doubt will be built in the South of Scotland. It will not produce any more electricity, but I think it will produce it at the right time, which is during the peak periods.

The North of Scotland Board buys from the South of Scotland during the off-peak periods at 616d. per unit, and sells to the South of Scotland at on-peak periods at 1.57d. per unit. Therefore if the pumped storage can be made to cost somewhere around 3d. per unit I should have thought that both sides would be quite happy, particularly as at the moment Kincardine costs two-thirds per unit of what, from the particulars published, the Glen Nevis scheme is calculated to cost.

The third point I should like to mention is personnel. The North of Scotland Board maintains, quite rightly, that it brings employment to the Highlands. To a certain extent, obviously it does. But while the scheme is under construction most of the labour is imported from Ireland and other parts, and therefore all it does is to upset the economics of that particular district. And I should be most interested to know how many out of the 3,169 permanent employees are in fact employed in the Highlands, and how many are employed in cities such as Edinburgh. Perth, Dundee and Aberdeen. I think one tends to get a distorted picture of the amount of direct employment they bring to the Highlands. Indirectly, of course, they obviously do a great deal to keep there the people who are already there.

There is just one other small point. I was most interested to see on page 15 of the Annual Report that the North Perthshire distribution scheme was completed during last year. That came as a complete surprise to me. This scheme, I believe, was originally started in 1948, and during one of the many financial crises (I think it was in 1951 or 1953 —round about then) the scheme came to a complete stop. I should have thought that it must be close to the area in which I live, but I have not heard that anything more has happened to it, and I am wondering if it is claimed that the scheme was completed because it has been abandoned. There seems to be no other explanation for what I regard as a very surprising statement, and I should like to know of what the North Perthshire scheme consists.

Finally, I would say how pleased we all are to see the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, among those who are to speak. I believe it is the third time running that he has spoken on a Scottish Motion. I think it is very brave of him, and perhaps it is a sign that he is thinking of taking up residence in Scotland. I should like to apologise to both him and my noble friend who is replying for the fact that I shall not be able to stay for the end of the debate. It has gone on rather longer, and started somewhat later, than I had expected; but I shall read with great interest in Hansard to-morrow what they have to say.

7.42 p.m.

THE MARQUESS OF AILSA

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to welcome the Motion put down by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. I wish to speak particularly of the Galloway power scheme, but before I do so I should like to mention a few of my experiences in connection with the Hydro-Electric Board and its work. During the period of time I was undergoing training, I lived in the Highlands, and I came much in contact with those who were carrying out these works and saw a great deal of their activities. The first people with whom I came into contact were the contractors' men, who were busy erecting pylons—a rather Wild West crowd; and I may say that it was only the firm arm of the law which kept peace in many of our Scottish towns.

The next class with whom I came into contact were the tunnellers, the men who worked in the tunnels. I often envied them their pay packet, for while I was getting about £4 a week, they were getting an average of £15 to £20; but I never envied their job. I should like to link together those two categories of people. They may have been rough and tough, but we have to be very thankful that we had men prepared to do those jobs, sometimes in absolutely appalling conditions. They went on with little or no hesitation.

The next people I met were the resident engineers. To me it was very intriguing, because having been brought up with the Galloway power scheme, I found that most of the resident engineers had had their grounding with that scheme. They did not think I had ever heard of it, and were quite staggered when I mentioned some of the local names near to my home, and could tell them of some of the iniquitous things they had done, into which I will go later. On one scheme, where we were dealing with a resident engineer, I had, with others, the task of inspecting a fence which the Board had had to put up between the estate I was on and themselves. Having inspected it along with representatives of the Board, we went to see the engineers and asked if they were satisfied. We said: "We are, but the specification states 'European larch' and we notice there are one or two Japanese larch there." The resident engineer said, "So far as I know, there is only one larch: I don't know of anything else." We in this House, of course, know that there are different kinds.

On the same site, and with the same engineer, there was another interesting episode which throws light on the type of men employed on these contracts. A dam was being erected in a place where there was a rolling stone. The local soothsayer in the area, whose sayings had been surprisingly accurate, had said that should this stone ever be removed from its bed the end of the world would come to that area. It suddenly came to the notice of those living in the area that the stone was right in the path of the dam; and very naturally they were extremely disturbed. They appointed a committee, and a deputation went to Edinburgh and met members of the Board. But they got very short shrift and were told not to be stupid. A little later I was speaking to the engineer and asked him whether they had yet moved the stone. He looked at me and said, "My goodness, no! I have cemented it in. Who am I to damn this place?" In my opinion his attitude reflected the general spirit of co-operation in trying to meet the community which those doing the job have shown, but which, I regret to say, was not always shown by those in Edinburgh. Also in that scheme I had a lot to do with negotiations in regard to compensation and other matters, and was often treated as if I were a crook. One could not come to a common basis in a man-to-man talk, whereas dealing with the men on the ground there was not the slightest difficulty.

I should like to go on to another aspect of hydro-electric work, the scheme that was the beginning of the Kerry Falls scheme, in the West Highlands. I saw it from the beginning, when the Hydro-Electric Board, at great expense, electrified the area and provided connections to every house requiring a supply. The only thing they did not supply was the wiring inside the house. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the scheme there were several stories—some of which were true—about people turning on the light to light a candle to go to bed. But that was only for about six months. I well remember the shops and stores in that area. At the inception 'they stocked themselves with all the electrical gadgets of the day, and after a month returned them to Inverness and other places. But after six months they could not get enough. I am telling of what I know has happened.

That scheme made possible the tremendous development in that area. For example, the small Inverasdale factory, where crofters are employed part-time, was made possible by the inception of that scheme; and many similar developments took place. There was one thing which happened out there, and has happened again in other places, to which I should like to draw the Board's attention. And I would inquire whether they have taken note of the effect (I do not mean electrical effect) on their operations on the district. I refer to the fact that God acted three times within three months, and yet, before the inception of the scheme, had acted only once within living memory. I am not condemning it, for obviously it could not have been foreseen. It was the effect of restricting waters without considering what would be the effect when that water got away. I wonder if the Board has considered the possibility of this arising.

If I turn back to the Galloway Scheme, a number of years ago we had a similar occurrence there. I live on the Doon, and Loch Doon was raised 20 feet above its original level. Some seven or eight years ago—I remember the day well—there had been heavy rainfall up in the hills, and we understood that the man who normally looked after it was having the week-end off and was down in the town. The water in the loch rose to danger level and the emergency device to save the dam going was operated. It was a flood: tidal waves of fifteen feet came down. Fortunately, it happened in the morning, when there were not many people about, but the damage cost many thousands of pounds. Much of it has not yet been replaced. One always remains a little suspicious as to whether it will ever happen again. That is what can happen.

There is another aspect of a general character on safety, not so much concerning generation as electricity transmission. Not long ago I had instances of what had happened after gales had occurred, when power lines were brought down. We had assumed them to be dead—even the Board's men themselves thought they were dead—but it was found that the lines, although lying on the ground were alive. Fortunately, there was no fatal accident, but that was more by good luck than good judgment. I mentioned this matter not long ago to a man on the South of Scotland Board. He agreed that was so, and added: "The point is that now we have to put in a device so that if the line is cut the supply will come on again by time switch." He said that it could easily happen; but there is no warning anywhere that this may happen. The general conception is that if a line is down then it is dead, not that it will be alive. One has no way of telling until one has touched it—and then it is too late.

I wish to turn now for a few more moments to the Galloway scheme. I have mentioned this before: as I said, I have been brought up with it. My family, my grandfather and aunts and uncles fought it. They objected to it strongly, and I was brought up to criticise it. It was rather natural that my grandfather did, because on Loch Doon he had a castle and he thought it would be flooded. To show the lengths to which they would go, they moved the castle bodily from its island in the middle of the loch to the mainland. So honour was satisfied. The scheme was completed, I understand, in 1935, and it has been constantly in operation ever since, Since 1936 it has fallen below its estimated output only four times. In 1960 it supplied 242 million units at an average cost of 0.256d. I do not think we can complain about it, my Lords. To my mind it shows the great extent to which the task was well worth doing. I was brought up to object to it, but I do not do so now at all. My opinion has altered by the proof of it.

I believe that a lot of the objection to the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board's works is due to the fact that the results are not shown. People have not yet had time to see what these works will do. Very few have been completed for more than five years, and many works are still in course of completion. People know what they should do, and what they have got to do, but they have not had time to see the real benefit they can bring. I think that that is something of great importance. To touch again for a minute on amenity, again I was brought up to believe that the countryside was going to be ruined. I drive past a great many of the schemes about twice a month and, quite frankly, I cannot say that the amenity is spoilt. I would not say that it is improved, but it is certainly not spoilt at all.

There is one other little aspect I would touch on, and that is the general subject of power. We have heard to-day a number of terms which, I must confess, are slightly above my head, about high factors and low factors. I get the general impression of what they mean, but that is as far as it goes. But, regardless of how much fuel there is, there is not enough electricity in Scotland at the peak periods. I know full well that many of the managers I have met have confessed that during last winter, which for us was a mild one, they sat with their fingers crossed and hoped that nobody else would turn on a fire because they were up to the limit in supplying what could be supplied. They had nothing else to go on to. No matter what we discuss, whether we should go on with this or that, we must not forget that still more power is needed—we have not come to the end yet. And it is needed now. It is no good saying that in a few years' time there will be an atomic plant here and something else there. The power is needed now. The fact that it was not needed last winter was good luck. But it may well be needed next winter.

7.56 p.m.

LORD SEMPILL

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for giving the Scots representatives this opportunity (of which I, as one, gladly avail myself) of expressing appreciation of what has been done by the two generating Boards, that of the Highlands and that of the Lowlands, to bring the benefits of electricity to the large majority of our homes in Scotland. If my noble friend who initiated the debate will forgive me, I must disagree with him in his suggestion that these Boards should be amalgamated. They certainly should not be while they are carrying on the programme for which they were set up. They should remain as they are, and I fully associate myself with my noble friend and fellow Scotsman, Lord Forbes, who made this point strongly, with which I think the noble Lord, Lord Citrine, also agreed.

I will not attempt in my few remarks to range over the whole of Scotland but will confine myself to the Highlands, served so effectively, as the mover has said, by the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board. The area of the Highlands is an inherently difficult area to supply cheaply, due to geography and the sparseness of population, about which nothing can be done. It is indeed remarkable that the cost of electricity in this area compares reasonably—very reasonably—with the cost in the much more densely populated Lowlands. As your Lordships know and as has been said in other speeches, a Committee has just been appointed to consider the present position of electric power over Scotland. This will give yet another opportunity of urging the desirability of speeding the complete cover of that comparatively small percentage of houses that are not yet fed from the grid. When my noble friend Lord Craigton comes to reply, perhaps he would be good enough to say whether I am right in thinking that only some 8 or 9 per cent. of those in the Highlands are without electricity. I believe, too, that the figure over the whole of Scotland is closely similar.

As has already been pointed out, the cost of supplying these crofts, scattered over the Highlands and Islands, involves a loss of about El million per annum; and when the remaining 8 to 9 per cent. are linked up with the supply the loss will be added to by at least a further £1 million. But we Highlanders owe a sincere debt of gratitude to the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, to which I am proud to pay a tribute. They are at great pains to disturb as little as possible of the incomparable Highland scene, the Carry being the one exception, and to preserve the amenities, particularly those relating to fishing. To do all this entails careful planning in the realms both of civil and of mechanical engineering. And if the same thought were given to the modern buildings which are being put up in London, this splendid, traditional and historic city would not lose the character it is so very rapidly losing to-day. We owe the foundation of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board to the vision and pertinacity of Tom Johnston, as has already been said—he is still active to-day in different fields—and a few of like mind whom he gathered around him with the determination that water power, one of the most valuable indigenous assets of Scotland, should be harnessed to the use of every householder. The success that we see before us to-day is the best tribute to the vision of these pioneers, which is being so splendidly carried forward by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and those associated with him.

There is one factor which is of particular importance on the economics of hydro-electric development, and that is the effect of inflation—or, differently expressed., the falling value of money. To many, a moderate degree of inflation seems unavoidable. Its effect on longterm assets, such as hydro-electric layouts, the life of which is practically indefinite, is remarkable. Some generating stations built about a quarter of a century ago are now producing at a cost which is far below the present-day cost of any form of generation. That is a very remarkable thing, and it is a fact. It would appear that a hydro-electric scheme which may be approximately economic at the time it is built is more than likely to be highly so in twenty or thirty years' time. Of course, if prices remained steady this would not be true, but the prospect of holding prices steady seems beyond the bounds of the possible, and to this I understood the noble Lord, Lord Citrine, to give firm confirmation.

In conclusion, I should be glad if, when my noble friend Lord Craigton comes to reply, he would indicate whether, within the Highlands, adequate main transmission lines already exist. I believe this is so; and, if I am right, could I urge that the installation of the distribution lines be speeded? I thank my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross for initiating this interesting and important debate.

8.2 p.m.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, it is unfortunate that, due to a variety of circumstances, the authentic accents and local knowledge of Scotland have been expressed from this side of the House only by my noble friend Lord Macpherson of Drumochter. I am sure that your Lordships will share my relief that this is probably the last occasion on which I shall trouble your Lordships on Scottish affairs, because my noble friend Lord Hughes, who has sat, and has been obliged to sit, in painful, involuntary and very well-informed silence, will in future bring his native talents and native knowledge to your Lordships' assistance.

But it has, at least, had this advantage from my point of view, in that I have listened to one of the most delightful maiden speeches it has been my pleasure to listen to, from the noble Viscount, Lord Stuart of Findhorn. It has been said in the debate that he has made many speeches, and that may well be true. I would say that for years I sat and listened to him, and the only speech heard him make was a very short one —"That this House do now adjourn". have also heard him make, or attempt to make, many other speeches as Secretary of State, and on those occasions it was, I would not say my pleasure, but it was my lot, to hear him almost constantly interrupted, so that. the Orkney, well-informed humour which has delighted us all on this occasion scarcely had a chance to emerge. Therefore, it was a great pleasure to me this evening—and I am sure it is one that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, shares with me—to see that there were five of my honourable friends listening with great joy to the noble Viscount, but in an enforced silence which they could not break because it was impossible for them to interrupt.

If I may also say so, with respect, I thought the noble Viscount spoke, as indeed did the noble Lord, Lord Forbes, in much more passionate terms, 100 per cent. in support of the—Highlanders, I was going to say, because I think they have common cause with the Hydro-Electric Board. Indeed, I have been delighted to hear the noble Marquess, Lord Ailsa, also, and the noble Lord, Lord Sempill, include themselves among the "100 percenters." Your Lordships have heard a number of excellent speeches from noble Lords opposite, all of which have praised the work of the Northern Board. They have gone on and on praising it until I knew the moment was coming when they were going to say, "but"—and then we had some criticisms.

I join with those (and this includes everyone in the debate) who have thanked the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, for introducing this subject for discussion, and I would echo, in particular, the praise of my noble friend Lord Citrine on the way that the noble Viscount assembled and presented his case. I thought it was a brilliant effort which we all very much enjoyed. It is not given to many of us to make a reputation in a first speech, or in one single speech, but the noble Viscount not only did that; he got the offer of a job, as well. It is a matter of regret for all of us that my noble friend Lord Citrine is no longer in a position to give him that job; but it is a very great thing to have made a reputation in one speech rather than, like myself, to have destroyed it with many.

Although the noble Viscount assembled his facts with great skill and presented them with remarkable and laudable lucidity, I thought he failed because he seemed to have some of his fundamentals wrong. For example, he spoke about the question of supply being thermal, from coal. Indeed, in another place they tabled a Resolution including not only material substances, but even the generation of electricity from wind—I rather think out of deference to the views of the honourable Member for Kidderminster, who was a signatory to that Resolution. But I think this question of supply is fundamental to the matter that we are discussing.

The noble Viscount interrupted my noble friend Lord Citrine to emphasise that what he was after was long-term planning. It seems to me an extraordinary thing that here we have a thermo-generating station with a life of twenty-five years, and the noble Viscount's observations, much as he supported and praised the Hydro-Electric Board, could only, if he had his way, result in at least some restriction being placed on the Board's expansion. He questioned the number of schemes that they should put into operation, and, with other noble Lords, asked, as it were: How far are they going? I should have thought that if you were really determined to have a long-term plan for constantly increasing the generation of electricity, the one thing that you would not neglect would be the unchanging supply of water—a medium which, not 25 years hence but 100 years hence, will still be working, and which, moreover, will be producing electricity at absolutely negligible cost. In my view, that is the whole fundamental of the case for not merely a continuance but an ever-increasing expansion, subject to other conditions, of the work of the Northern Board.

Then the noble Viscount dealt with costs, and he put his case very fairly. No doubt he got the costs out of the same brief that was supplied to all of us, and therefore I will not repeat the figures; but he did put a gloss—and that is why I interrupted him—over the fact that the Southern Board's costs are less by reason of the Northern Board's activities. In fact, if I may say so, he expressed himself rather unfairly, because he said the higher price paid by the Southern Board is a subsidy. My Lords, the 1959 Report of the South of Scotland Electricity Board deals with this very point, and it pays tribute to the tremendous value to the Board of hydro-electricity which it can switch on at peak time. I would say that, far from being a subsidy, if it can be shown that the Southern area's costs are reduced by 15d. by reason of the supply which it takes from the Northern Board, then it is the Northern Board which must be subsidising the Southern Board, and not the other way round. That is the net effect of it; but certainly it is not a subsidy, however much statutory regulations come into it.

I think it is imperative that we do everything we can to ensure that the maximum possible use is made of these natural resources. There is no question whatever but that there is going to be a constantly, steadily increasing demand for energy. May I quote the Government's own White Paper, Command 1083 —this is, of course about the nuclear power programme, but naturally it deals with other forms of the creation of energy? It says: Despite the present world surplus of coal and oil, we still face the eventual prospect that our growing energy demands will call for more and more supplies of nuclear power. By 1975 power stations will be consuming the equivalent of some 125 million tons of coal a year—well over double the present rate—and by the 1980's"— and the noble Lord was talking about long-term planning, and that is not so very far away— their annual requirements could well reach the equivalent of 200 million tons of coal. That amount is precisely our present coal production.

With regard to the present situation of coal in Scotland, I should like to read this extract from the Glasgow Herald of January 23 this year: Scotland has practically disposed of its surplus coal. Stocks at the power stations fell this month to 263,000 tons, which compared with 495,000 tons a year ago. In another place, on February 20 the honourable Member for Midlothian said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 635 (No. 57), col. 75]: Scotland imported 1¼million tons of coal from England last year…at a little place called Portobello, on the edge of the Midlothian coalfield, lorries have been running for 24 hours a day bringing coals from Newcastle to keep a generator going". It ill behoves me to lecture Scots on patriotism, but when you have to bring your coals from Newcastle to keep your generators going, and at the same time would think for one second of any possible limitation on the expansion of your own native resources, then it is something I cannot understand.

Then the noble Viscount toyed with the question of amalgamation, and here I heartily agree with my noble friend, Lord Forbes, that no possible good to the Highlands of Scotland can come out of consideration, or even discussion, of such a matter. The noble Viscount asked himself the question: could the welfare or well-being of the Highlanders be entrenched in any kind of piece of paper (I suppose) which might be drawn up to protect them? He said that he did not know, and he therefore thought that this question of amalgamation ought not to be considered just yet, or at the present, or words to that effect—I do not want to misquote him. The protection of the Highlanders is entrenched now in an existing organisation, the Northern Board. Why stick the Boards together with something which is not altogether compatible, and then try to build up some kind of protection on paper which is no good at all? I should have thought that some kind of arrangement like that would be disastrous.

I do not know whether, after the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, has replied, the noble Viscount will say a few additional words before he will ask leave, as I imagine he will, to withdraw his Motion; but if he does, I should like him to say whether there is any evidence at all that increased efficiency would result from amalgamation, when all the present trends are toward decentralisation. Look what the Government are doing with British Railways. The noble Lord is suggesting the exact opposite here. I would ask him also to say how that advantage which the Highlands now enjoy, of cheap hydro-electricity power, which will become greater with the passage of time, could possibly be preserved. I do not think there is really an answer at all.

There have been a number of references to the question of amenity, and I have been delighted to hear so many noble Lords say that scenic amenities have not been destroyed or damaged. In fact, as the noble Marquess, Lord Ailsa, said, in many cases they have been enhanced. I am relieved to know that in the Galloway Scheme the cost of production is now only ⅕a unit. It occured to me, when he was describing the marvellous operation of shifting the castle from one place to another, that that must have added a good deal to the overheads. I thought the noble Earl, Lord Haddington, who spoke with all the authority of the President of the Society for the Preservation of Rural Scotland, really summed up this question of the attitude of the people with regard to these scenic amenities. There must, of course, be differences of opinion. It is equally obvious that these things should not be judged until after the places have been restored. His objections were twofold. He said that plans are laid down so far ahead, say ten years, and that so much money is spent in advance that it is very difficult for a scheme to be abandoned. But he and everyone else would bitterly, and rightly, complain if the Board did not go to the greatest possible lengths in investigating every possible aspect of a particular scheme to see that it was going to be all right.

He spoke of people saying: "We want electricity; do all you can to increase the supply, but don't do it here". Then he himself went on to give a classic example of that, because he said: "You can't do it at Ben Nevis; it just wouldn't do". No one is prepared to dispute with him that this is perhaps the most beautiful and wonderful view in the world, but I think it may still be so afterwards. It is true that the drop of a waterfall will be cut from 450 feet to 250 feet, but, even so, that is a pretty spectacular drop, and one which I should not like to take. In any case, it will drop into a loch instead of into a meadow, and I should have thought that that might well have been an improvement.

These things must be considered and every objection weighed, but they are not the only things. The noble Viscount, Lord Stuart of Findhorn, mentioned the farmer who had a talk to him. Those are considerations which would weigh with us quite as heavily. There are also known, authentic, cases of places—Pitlochry is one, I believe—where the interest to tourists has been vastly increased. Not that I think Scotland should be run for the English and the Welsh and everybody else; I believe in Scotland being run for the Scots. Indeed, my Lords, the story of Scottish electrical development—which is what I started to talk about—in the last eighteen years is the story of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board. I think it is the greatest industrial success story of postwar Britain. That is a pretty broad statement, but I think a justifiable one.

And—this is what I find particularly attractive—it is a story not only of industrial development, but of magnificent social achievement. The most important thing, to my mind, is not that the Board has brought electricity to 92 per cent. of its potential consumers, but that well over 100,000 of those consumers—the connections—were hopelessly uneconomic connections who, but for the Board, would still be in the candle and oil-lamp age. Without this scheme, none of these 100,000 families would know the pleasure and convenience of switching on a light or watching television; they would not even know that one detergent washed whiter than all the others. They would not know the pleasure of using an electric iron, or refrigerator, or vacuum cleaner. And it is not merely that. From this great work has come many other things—170 miles of roads; between 300 and 400 houses, all built of stone, which has helped the stone-quarry industry to be revived and become a valuable export—all this without loss, without subsidy and without the destruction of amenities.

I think that this success is all the more creditable when we consider that the Board's area covers a quarter of the whole land area of Britain but services only one-fortieth of the whole population. This means that in every Highland square mile there is only one potential consumer, compared with 14 in every square mile in England and Wales. As my noble friend Lord Citrine said, no commercial undertaking would have dreamed of servicing such an area or of supplying rural consumers at the wholly uneconomic cost of £250 for an average connection, a cost that the Board cannot hope to recover. And no commercial undertaking could, or would, supply the remaining 10,000 families in outlying parts and odd pockets who are still without supply of electricity.

I do not propose to go into the question of whether supply should be diesel or hydro-electric or any other kind. But in dealing with them the noble Viscount expressed his sympathy almost up to the point of saying that they ought to be subsidised for the cost of connecting farms.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

I did say it.

LORD STONHAM

I am delighted. I was listening carefully, and the noble Viscount did not say where the subsidy was to come from. He did not say whether it was to come from the Southern Board, from the Hydro-Electric Board or from Government funds; but I am wholly in favour of that. But these people have no chance whatever of being connected unless the Hydro-Electric Board can continue with its programme. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, will be able to tell me that I am wrong, but the equivocal statement of the Secretary of State does not give me any confidence that the Board's activities are not going to be interfered wig h. The reason why I say that these 10,000 people will not have a chance is because the Board's commercial ability to finance these uneconomic connections is dependent upon its continued ability to export.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, that is exactly the point. That begs the question, with great respect to the noble Lord.

LORD STONHAM

I am carrying the noble Viscount with me; I hope that I can carry him a little further. It depends on the continued ability of the Board to export 25 per cent. of its output to the Southern Board. But it can do that only if it can meet the demand, which has been expanding steadily at an average rate of 7 per cent. a year over the last five years, and at 13 per cent. last year. How on earth can it expand its production unless it can progressively introduce new schemes? I am carrying the noble Viscount with me. The Board must go on earning this profit, as it were, from the South; but if the demand is increasing by 7 per cent. and the output does not increase at least at the same rate, the Board will not be able to export so much, because it must supply its own demand first.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

That is precisely the point I was making. I suggested that the responsibility should be taken away I for financing the connections by means of these exports. I said that the subsidy should come from some other source than the internal domestic funds of the Hydro-Electric Board; and if that system is adopted, the noble Lord's argument falls completely to the ground.

LORD STONHAM

No, my Lords; the mare I look at the present arrangements of the Hydro-Electric Board, the more I like them. As the noble Lord, Lord Forbes, said, electricity is the only thing which the people of the North of Scotland can buy at the same price as or at a lower price than the people of the rest of Britain. I am delighted to think that the North are getting a profit out of the people of lowland Scotland. It is reversing the whole historic trend of centuries. For centuries the Highlands of Scotland have been bled, exploited, denuded, depopulated. But the Hydro-Electric Board has to a considerable extent been reversing the process.

The noble Earl, Lord Haddington (I am sorry that he is not here now) said the Board was already supplying 92 per cent. of potential consumers, and surely there was enough water from other parts of Scotland to supply the other 8 per cent. But, my Lords, it is not just the 8 per cent., that matters. The Board has to supply this increased demand. and can do that only if new development schemes, such as the Glen Nevis project, can go forward. At present the Board enjoys this first-class business arrangement whereby it sells its electricity at 1½d. and buys it back at a little over ½d.

But, as the noble Viscount himself indicated, this situation is going to be further helped in a few years' time by the plan for pumped storage electricity. This scheme will enable the Hydro-Electric Board to pump water uphill, at low cost at periods of low demand, and allow it to come back at peak demand, generating electricity in the process. This electricity can then be sold at a higher price. I can think of no more delightful scheme—but then I am a Socialist, and the noble Viscount has not my advantages in this way.

Unless the Board is able to keep pace with expanding demands its exports will be ruined and the whole structure of its commercial prosperity destroyed. It will not be able to finance uneconomic capital expansion. To me, it is unthinkable that this should be allowed to happen, and doubly unthinkable that any Scots could possibly take part in damaging the Board in this way. Of course there can be no objection to an inquiry into the Glen Nevis scheme. In fact, the Minister is under statutory obligation to hold an inquiry, and I agree with the noble Viscount that after eighteen years it is not altogether a bad thing to have this general inquiry, although I am not too happy about the composition of the Committee.

All the members of the Committee are estimable and distinguished gentlemen of the highest principle, but I cannot understand—and perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, will tell us—why at least one or two people with experience of the electricity industry from the workers' side could not have been included on the Committee. Where I part company from the Government is that a decision on the Glen Nevis scheme, asuming an inquiry is held and completed before the Departmental Committee has reported, is going to be withheld until after the Committee's Report has been received and considered. I cannot see any possible justification for holding up the Glen Nevis scheme in that way, always assuming that the inquiry is in its favour.

I do not want to give noble Lords opposite unnecessary offence, but I am bound to mention the sinister coincidence of this twelve months' campaign of the organisation calling itself "Aims of Industry". They have conducted this twelvemonths' campaign, and at the end we are told we are to have this inquiry and that the Glen Nevis decision is going to be held up. Noble Lords opposite may have viewed with equanimity the fact that this big business, London-based, spent £107,000 with the laudable object of "dishing" the Socialists; but I do not think they ought to be easy in their minds when this same, to my mind, highly questionable organisation is employing its money in doubtful publicity methods for the purpose of "dishing" the Highland Scots out of their electricity.

When the two local authorities concerned and the Conservative M.P.S for the area support the scheme and the "Aims of Industry" oppose it, then I smell a rat—in fact, I smell several rats. All those letters in the local Press, from "Frustrated", "Exiled Scot" or "Nature Lover"—why! some of us in the past have written that kind of letter ourselves—these hidden persuaders who make these inaccurate, sentimental, illogical and inspired attacks on the Hydro-Electric Board, all come from Fetter Lane. As an Englishman, I am disgusted; but if I were a Scot they would make me furious. Then there is the sudden interest of the National Union of Manufacturers in the generation of electricity in Scotland, a body that has never shown any interest at all in manufacturing anything in the Highlands. It is impossible not to believe that their interest rises from a desire to peddle their wares rather than a sudden love for the Scottish crofters.

We all know about the question of cost. The initial cost of a thermal scheme is far lower than the capital cost of a hydro-electric scheme and is much more profitable in the short run. But a thermal station's life is 25 years, whereas the hydro-electric scheme will be working 100 years hence, producing electricity for virtually nothing. I think that the argument on cost can be completely answered in favour of the Hydro-Electric Board. But whether it can or not, in my view, speaking as an outlander, I would say to the noble Viscount that such arguments are irrelevant. There ought to be only one argument that matters to the people of Scotland; and that is that for the first time in centuries the Board has succeeded in halting that historic trend I spoke about. It has succeeded in producing in a most efficient way something which the people of the Highlands enjoy at less cost than the people of the rest of these islands; it has succeeded in halting the further depopulation of the northern part of Scotland.

We must not let the financial sharks come in and spoil this now. Otherwise, as my noble friend Lord Macpherson of Drumochter pointed out, the rural Highland glens will become more and more depopulated, to quote the same Inverness Courier: they will become the haunt only of the grouse, the red deer and the foreign landed proprietors with their wealthy English guests—the last half-sentence is my own and not that of the newspaper.

In the past, under Tom Johnston, to whom the noble Viscount, Lord Stuart of Findhorn, referred in such moving terms, and at present under the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, the Board has a great record. Let us in this House do all we can to see that it is given the assured future task of preserving the welfare of the Highland people and making available to all the new life and new hope which electricity can bring.

8.35 p.m.

LORD CRAIGTON

My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will not continue to bat on behalf of the Party opposite on Scottish affairs. I am sincerely grateful to him for keeping the supply going during the shortage. I must take him up on one point. He talks about "sinister coincidence", and says that he does not want to be objectionable to this side of the House, but that he smells a rat. Speaking with all the authority of the Front Bench in asking him to accept this in the right way, I must tell him that if he smells a rat, then it must be a pink one.

It is a great honour for me to join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Stuart of Findhorn on a powerful maiden speech, and one listened to with great attention and without interruption. It is particularly a great pleasure for me, because, as your Lordships may or may not know, I was once the noble Viscount's Parliamentary Private Secretary, then his Under-Secretary of State, when he was Secretary of State for Scotland, and I know of his great service to Scotland. It was characteristic of him to remind your Lordships, as did my noble friend Lord Sempill, and the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, of the great monument Mr. Thomas Johnston has left to himself, and the great work that has been carried on by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde. I must say that I was heartened with the welcome, coming as it did from a previous Secretary of State, that my noble friend gave to the Government's inquiry, and the welcome that so many others have given, either wholeheartedly or halfheartedly.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross for a moderate and constructive speech, and I agree with the opening words of what he said: that the Departmental Committee will find the speeches of your Lordships of great importance to them. It is not for me to evaluate the merits of the powerful arguments and expert advice put forward by so many of your Lordships—those are now matters for the Committee. But the speeches have shown how necessary it is to have this Committee to give us a considered opinion on these complicated questions.

I think your Lordships would expect me to say some of the things that ought to be said from the Front Bench before dealing with some of the important points that have been raised. The achievements of the two Scottish Electricity Boards are truly notable. When the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board was established in 1943 it took over vast areas of Scotland in which there was no electricity and no gas. The Board had to start from scratch, with no generating capacity of their own. The early years were devoted to surveying and the promotion arid construction of hydro-electric schemes. The first supplies were provided by diesel stations, and the first new hydro-electric power station at the Falls of Morar, in Inverness-shire, was brought into commission in December, 1948.

My noble friend Lord Stuart of Find-horn spoke of the 92 per cent. of possible consumers now connected, and he asked me how many consumers had been taken over. The answer is that in 1948, following the passing of the Electricity Act, 1947, the Board took over sixteen existing local authority and private company undertakings with almost 200,000 consumers and with power stations having a capacity of 230 megawatts; that is, 230,000 kilowatts. By the end of last year, twelve years later, the power stations had an installed capacity of more than 1,000 megawatts, with hydro stations under construction with a capacity of another 500 megawatts. In the twelve years the number of consumers has risen from about 200,000 to 400,000. As noble Lords have said, over 90 per cent. of the population have a public supply, including (and I will come back to this point) 80.4 per cent. of farms and crofts..

As your Lordships have said, the activities of the North Board have brought with them many benefits for the North of Scotland. Since 1945 an average of about 5,000 jobs a year on hydro-electrical constructions schemes have been provided. The Board have been successful in encouraging the establishment of new industries in their area, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Forbes, said, the country has gained something like 100 miles of public roads built or reconstructed by the Board, together with the local authorities, as part of their constructional schemes.

The noble Lord, Lord Macpherson of Drumochter, my noble friend Lord Forbes and the noble Viscount, Lord Stuart of Findhorn, rightly paid tribute to what the Board have done in assisting tourism and fighting rural depopulation. I am glad that one noble Lord, Lord Stonehaven, joined with me in saying something about the South of Scotland Electricity Board, who can also be proud of their achievements. Their new station at Kincardine, when completed, will comprise 20 per cent. of the total generating plant in Scotland—760 mega-watts. Their nuclear station at Hunters-ton, which is now being built, is, I understand, one of the most advanced designs in the country. The value of both these new stations will be increased by their use in conjunction with the Loch Awe pumped storage scheme now being built in the North Board's area. The South Board's present capacity is about 1,884 megawatts, compared with the North Board's 1,000, and they have more than 800 megawatts under construction, compared with the North Board's 500. They have connected 94 per cent. of the farms in their area.

Here is an interesting comparison of achievement in the supply of electricity to farms and crofts. The South Board, as I have said, have connected 94 per cent.; the North Board 80.4 per cent. The average for England and Wales is only 80.7 per cent., and this is an average of wide variations between, for example, 63.1 per cent. in Wales and 100 per cent. in London—where there are 82 farms. This is a really great achievement, especially for the North Board, who have made their connections out of their own resources. The North Board have matched the England and Wales average under conditions far more difficult than anywhere else in the United Kingdom. They have to serve 74 per cent. of the land area of Scotland, in which only 25 per cent. of the population of Scotland live. The consumer density is not likely to exceed 19 per square mile as compared with 195 per square mile for the rest of Scotland and 255 per square mile kr England and Wales.

The North Board have organised a service of bottled gas for about 2,000 consumers in some of the islands; but nevertheless 20 of the 47 potential user islands already have electric supplies. The North Board estimate that it would cost about £16 million to supply all the remaining unconnected consumers. In 1957 the cost per connection had reached about £350; now the average cost is about £500. These figures give some idea of the problems that the Board have to face. This problem of the needs of the remoter areas is, of course, one of the problems that the Departmental Committee is being asked to consider.

Another problem facing the Committee will be the extraordinary diversity in type and output of the Scottish generating stations. The North and South Board have between them 50 hydro-electric stations, of which seven are in the South Board's area, 13 steam stations, of which two are in the North Board's area, and seven diesel stations, all in the North Board's area. This is a point that has not been brought out in the debate. The stations in existence and planned vary in capacity between less than one megawatt and 1,200 megawatts.

Let me quote a few examples which put this problem into some perspective. The Glen Nevis scheme is planned with an output of 25 megawatts. The South Board are planning a station in the Lothians with a capacity of 1,200 megawatts—nearly fifty times the size of the Nevis scheme. Their largest station at Kincardine now has a capacity of 360 megawatts—three sets of 120 each; and they are now installing at Kincardine two additional sets of 200 megawatts each, bringing the capacity up to 760 megawatts. The next largest station is the Loch Awe pumped storage scheme planned for 400 megawatts. Then there are Hunterston nuclear station—360 megawatts; Portobello and Clydesmill—about 270 megawatts each and the North of Scotland's largest hydro-electric station, Loch Sloy, with 130 megawatts. There are many smaller stations. The Glen Nevis scheme is planned with an output of 25 megawatts, and the diesel plants on the islands have a capacity of between 7 and 8 megawatts.

Certainly with this extraordinary diversity it is wise to pause and take stock, bearing in mind also the recent emergence of more efficient steam generators, of atomic energy, the fact that some of the older thermal stations are inadequate and too expensive, and the possible advantages of pumped storage.

My noble friends Lord Colville of Culross, Lord Stonehaven, and the noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, saw and talked about the importance of pumped storage. I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Citrine, who spoke on the subject with far greater authority than any other Member of your Lordships' House. For us in Scotland pumped storage is a comparatively recent new development. In terms of output, how much can be achieved is brought out by the 400-megawatt capacity of the proposed Loch Awe Scheme, as compared with the 50-megawatt capacity of a large hydro-electric generating station.

As your Lordships know, pumped storage needs two essentials. First, an efficient high capacity base-load station, which, to run economically, must run continuously; and, secondly, a land formation which will provide a high capacity low level reservoir from which the water can be pumped into a large high level reservoir. In the case of Loch Awe, the two Boards are satisfied that by the mid-1960's conditions will be suitable for a pumped storage project from which both Boards will benefit. The scheme will be cheaper, both in production and capital costs, and more flexible in operation than any alternative method of generation. The capital cost of the pumped storage section of the scheme, including an allowance for transmission, is estimated at £44 per kilowatt installed, as against between £50 and £55 per kilowatt if a new station had to be erected in the South of Scotland.

Notwithstanding the loss of energy necessarily involved in pumping, the cost of the units produced will be appreciably less than alternative production costs. How much the cost will be depends on the particular stations used for pumping up the water and on the incidence of rainfall. The Boards estimate that it will vary between 9d. per unit and 1.2d. per unit, which comparies very favourably with the minimum cost of between 1.2d. and 1.3d. per unit for steam generation at the same time of the day. But it is already clear that pumped storage will make it possible to postpone for a period the coal or nuclear generating plant which would otherwise be necessary, and, as is to be expected, the North Board are examining other possible sites.

The place of pumped storage in the economy of Scottish electrical supplies is another of the points on which the Committee will no doubt advise. It is not for me to list all the points that the Committee will examine. Your Lordships have asked a number of questions. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has already indicated, no limit is placed on the range of the inquiry. My noble friend Lord Colville of Culross said there was no disparagement of the North Board in this inquiry, and I quite agree with him. It will be possible for the Committee to make any recommendations regarding the future of electricity development in Scotland, including, if they so wish, a variation of the present constitutional arrangements. I was sorry to hear the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, say about this, as about any aspect of important public life, that no possible good can come out of any investigation or discussion. That surely cannot be the case on any important matter.

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, I would agree with the noble Lord if he thought I was saying this generally. What I meant—and what I think I said, as he will find if he reads my speech to-morrow—was that no possible good to the North Board could come out of this inquiry, because any suggestion for amalgamation or anything of that kind must be damaging to them.

LORD CRAIGTON

I am glad of the explanation which the noble Lord gives. But surely if there were no changes at all it would be good to get rid of the sniping which has been going on for many years over what the North Board has done.

The Committee's writ is wide enough to cover the question of whether any Exchequer assistance is needed to complete rural electrification in the North of Scotland; and the members might also be expected to consider the extent to which the nation's electricity need should be met by the various sources of power available—coal, nuclear energy, oil-burning stations, hydro-electricity, diesel, and pumped storage. My noble friend (he was very nearly not my noble friend at that moment) Lord Forbes, spoke of a breach of faith. I think it is without question that the Committee will bear in mind the obligation imposed on the North Board in the 1943 Act—and I quote: To collaborate so far as their powers and duties permit in the carrying out of any measures for the economic development and social improvement of their area.

LORD FORBES

My Lords, does that mean that if there is another Board instead of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, they will also have the dual responsibility of providing electricity and the economic development of the North of Scotland?

LORD CRAIGTON

My Lords, it is for the Committee to advise my right honourable friend. It is for my right honourable friend to lay down the policy, and I think that if the noble Lord reads what I said he will see my right honourable friend's view of it.

Nearly every noble Lord who spoke, including the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, spoke of some aspect of amenity. I think your Lordships would like me to say something about it. My right honourable friend did not think it would be appropriate to include the question of amenity as one of the specific items to which the Committee should give attention, since he did not think it reasonable to expect them to make any more than general comments on this difficult subject, if they considered it appropriate. He felt that matters of this kind could hardly be dealt with by a Committee set up essentially to deal with technical and organisational problems, and, furthermore, that amenity considerations must also inevitably be settled in relation to particular proposals. When a constructional scheme is published the Statute gives anyone an opportunity to lodge objections to the scheme. Thus, for example, the objections which have been lodged on amenity grounds regarding the Glen Nevis scheme could be considered by a statutory inquiry relating particularly to that scheme.

Those amenity considerations that I have been discussing are provided for under the Hydro-Electric Act, but, apart from this, my right honourable friend is now considering in consultation with the local authority associations whether any further steps should be taken in regard to the general preservation of amenity. In particular, he is considering with the associations the standards and the technique which should be followed in defining areas of special landscape value in development plans, the measures of special control that may be necessary, and a range of related practical problems. When these discussions with the local authorities have reached a suitable stage, my right honourable friend hopes to have talks with the bodies concerned with amenity. My noble friend Lord Haddington asked if there would be a Glen Nevis inquiry. My right honourable friend has indicated that the appointment of a departmental inquiry will not preclude a simultaneous inquiry with regard to Glen Nevis, and he is now considering whether an inquiry should be held.

The noble Lord, Lord Stonham asked about the appointment of a trade union member or members to the Board. I am aware that this matter has already been ventilated in another place, and I am afraid I cannot say any more to your Lordships than that my right honourable friend has noted this point. Finally, I am grateful, as I know the Committee will be grateful, for the contributions that your Lordships have made to this debate, which will be studied and may alter the pattern of future electricity generation in Scotland.

LORD CITRINE

My Lords, would the noble Lord, in giving consideration to the question of trade union representation, remember that the Herbert Committee, which made an inquiry into the board operations of the Central Electricity Authority, contained an experienced trade union member?

LORD CRAIGTON

I will advise my right honourable friend of what the noble Lord has said.

8.56 p.m.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Craigton for the speech he has just made. In particular I am glad to think that he considers this debate to have been helpful to the Departmental Committee which is about to start sitting. That is what I hoped would happen. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate for the wide variety of contributions they have made and the way they have followed out the invitation I gave them in the first place. In particular, I hope I may be allowed to add a word of congratulation to my noble friend, Lord Stuart of Findhorn, for his delightful maiden speech, which I, like other noble Lords, enjoyed very much indeed.

I will rise for one second to Lord Stonham's fly and say that if he reads my speech in Hansard to-morrow he will realise that what I was trying to do was to set out a prima facie case on technical grounds for amalgamation, and then enter a caveat against it. If he will read it, I think he will understand what I was trying to say. Apart from that, I consider this Committee ought to set out with a fresh mind into this subject. It ought to be possible to discuss it and consider it in its fundamentals, and I hope that no suggestion will go out from this House that it is anything approaching iconoclasm for criticisms to be made of the Board, so long as they are made on justifiable and well-informed grounds. I take great exception to any suggestion from the other side that any institution like this is so sacrosanct 'that criticism is not permissible. I am sure noble Lords do not mean that; and I am sure that the Committee will not feel them- selves hampered in any way. I thank your Lordships for your patience in listening to me in the first place and for your kind words subsequently. I now beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.