HL Deb 30 January 1963 vol 246 cc389-416

6.43 p.m.

LORD MANCROFT rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether in view of the tendency for abnormal weather in this country to become annually more normal they will inquire of the appropriate authorities in Sweden, Switzerland and Canada how they manage to prevent their transport and other public services from grinding to a standstill as soon as the weather in the winter becomes wintry. The noble Lord said: My Lords, it may be thought that Her Majesty's Government have enough to contend with at the moment without listening to my grumbling about the weather, but I thought it might be useful for a very short while to look at the experiences of the last horrible month and see what lessons are to be learned and what we can do to prevent a repetition of the miseries in the future. Because we shall have a repetition. We shall be taken by surprise again; we shall again have nothing in preparation and shall again be grumbling that the weather is abnormal. One of the horrors of the war was the "bomb bore" who regaled us with stories of the blitz. One of the horrors of the last month has been the "freeze bore" who regaled us with his stories of the great freeze. I will regale your Lordships with no such horror. The worst thing that happened to me was that a power cut was made while I was shaving with an electric razor.

Bluntly, we have all hated the last month with the possible exception of the manufacturers of candles and oil heaters, the plumbers and those lawyers who rather ghoulishly talk about the weather as being "good probate weather". The most ominous of the reports we have read have been those of a water shortage, because we know perfectly well what happens in this country directly we have a water shortage. It is immediately followed by a flood. The country is knee-deep in cold and dirty water. We see pictures of stout Sapper sergeants rowing housewives at Wallingford round the back streets in punts. I shall be told that this is abnormal, and I maintain that it is normal. If, for various technical reasons, the Press should be short-handed at the moment, they need not worry. They can use the same pictures as last year; and they will do for next year as well. (I am not an expert on climatic conditions in Mesopatamia in the 4th millennium B.C., but I am prepared to bet that what really caused Noah to get out plans for the Ark and start building was listening to Mrs. Noah grumbling that the well had run dry.)

This will then be followed by a heat-wave. We shall be told that it is abnormal. We have no means of coping with that either. I shall be putting down Motions about the lack of air conditioning. This will be followed by drought and we shall be told that that is abnormal. And I shall receive from the Isle of Wight County Council firm instructions not to water my garden. The Isle of Wight County Council is an admirable body of men and women, very patient indeed, in view of the fact that half the House of Commons and nearly all the House of Lords live in the island. But I cannot make them understand that I do not want to water my lawn when it is raining. That, I think, is what has worried most people in the last few weeks. People cannot understand why in this day and age, in this year of grace 1963, when all the scientists combine to contrive means to blow us all to perdition, they cannot produce some means of stopping the cooker going off when you are halfway through boiling an egg.

Bear in mind, to begin with, that things do go wrong abroad. We are not the only people making mistakes. In weather such as we have had recently they have gone wrong, often catastrophically. I had a letter only yesterday from our noble friend, Lord Amory, the High Commissioner in Canada, commenting on the risk of points being frozen, which has been talked about here. He ends by saying: I have been able to write at such length because I am waiting for a train which has not arrived on time because the points were frozen. Everything does not go right abroad. They do grind to a standstill in exceptional weather like this. Everything does not always go wrong here. I should willingly pay tribute to the railway men, the busmen and the milkmen who struggled on and carried out their work in appalling conditions, and to some local authorities, too. Their good work only shows up the slackness and bad preparation of far too many other local authorities. I am certain that Her Majesty's Government did their best too. As I have no right to reply to this debate under an Unstarred Question, I would thank Her Majesty's Government in advance, on the off-chance that I may get a satisfactory reply.

It will, of course, cost far too much to copy what is done in those countries which have very heavy and severe winters. I am not suggesting that we should have a full insurance policy against this sort of weather happening every year. It is silly in one moment to complain about the extreme burden of Government expenditure and in the same breath propose other means of spending Government money. We are familiar with the cry, "Government spending must be cut to the bone—but not to my bone". And in another place we are used to Members calling for a greater reduction of Government expenditure, "but not in my constituency." One must be reasonable about this, and the cost of full insurance will be intolerable. But I maintain we could do more to insure against a reasonable risk.

Consider the actual cost of the last 30 days: road clearance running at £2 million a week; three days cost B.E.A. £100,000. What of the other airlines? The charges on the National Health Services are up 20 per cent. since Christmas. The fruit and vegetable trade tell us they have lost £10,000,000. Heaven knows what the other farmers have lost. Add to that the cost for all transport delays. Insurance claims for floods, frost and accidents have cost about £15,000,000. There are the repairs to postal and other utilities; and there is the loss through building and other industries being at a standstill. Sport and entertainment have heavy losses; and, my Lords, there is a loss of £75,000 per week on the takings for Bingo. The difference between all that—and I am told that it amounts at the present time to between £130 million and £150 million: that is what we have lost in the last month—and a basically sound insurance policy cannot be all that much.

I see that the Minister of Transport is asking for a report from his road engineers so that he may profit by their experience. Good. I hope he will listen to them, because we have sought advice before and not taken it. London Transport had consultations recently with the Swedish Underground about snow clearance. I do not think that much came of it. A joint committee of Swiss and German Railways conferred with our railways in 1957. I do not think that much came of it.

May I offer my noble friend Lord Derwent, who is to reply, a few other observations which he may like to pass on to his right honourable friend? In Canada, the snowploughs keep the roads open at a speed of 30 to 40 m.p.h. The first snowplough that I saw on a main road here, obviously constructed by a joint committee headed by Mr. Heath Robinson and Mr. Bud Flanagan, was going backwards at about 3 m.p.h., shovelling snow all over the driver. Half the ploughs have not been able to get through, or have been unable to remove snow from the road when they got there. In New York, over 11,000 of their dustcarts have snowploughs attached. We in this country have no machines for spreading salt on pavements. In Westminster, I believe they converted milkmen's trolleys for this purpose. If one walks through my Borough of St. Marylebone, one sees that our paving stones have been pushed up. They all have to be relaid and repaired, at great cost—and I give you one guess as to who is going to be asked to make a contribution to the cost.

Very few local authorities in this country know that the I.C.I. have perfected means of storing salt in bulk in the open. My right honourable friend is now perfecting an electronic device for reporting to his engineers when main roads become dangerous through ice. I hope that that will be copied widely. I hope also that he will inquire more carefully into the problem of the under-heating of roads. I know that it is expensive—£2 per square yard—but surely on any count it would be worth it, certainly at key points.

What about railways? We nearly had a coal disaster because of the great freeze-up. In Canada, coal trucks are thawed out in steam-heated sheds. In Czechoslovakia, all coal trucks are heated from below. In Canada, points, which freeze up so frequently in this country and cause so much damage, even in short spells of frost, are thawed out with steam heat. In Switzerland, they are permanently heated by electricity. I realise, of course, that in this country we have a real problem with the density of our railway system; but I believe that much more could be done. I am told that it would cost £20 million to heat the 100,000 vital points on our railway system. I should have thought that it was worth it. And is it really true that there is no means of communication between the guard and the engine driver on express trains? That seems to me to be absolutely crazy.

About airports; half the Canadian airports—115 of them—are kept permanently clear, and the other half, the smaller airports, are converted for use of skis. What are we doing in this country about perfecting a means of heating and clearing runways? I know that any means of fog dispersal—FIDO, as it was called during the war—is very expensive. But have we made any progress at all towards some satisfactory means of clearing fog and snow from our main airports?

Would my noble friend be good enough to consult with the Ministry of Health about hospitals and about auxiliary power and lighting?—because I think the public are confused about this. There was a letter in The Times, which had to be slightly amended and which caused considerable confusion. I should have thought that all hospitals having theatres, incubators and iron lungs should have a compulsory form of alternative power. It seems to me to be ridiculous that in Luton four ice-cream vans had to be called in aid to provide power for the operating theatre and that in Surrey there was a hold-up for 3½ hours because of the blackout. What really is the situation? I am sure that the public are worried about this.

And when my noble friend has finished chatting with the Minister of Health, perhaps he will buttonhole his right honourable friend the Minister of Housing. Outside plumbing in this country has become a bad joke. In Sweden, the bathroom and pipes are always in the middle of flats, and they do not have this trouble at all. In Denmark, flats and factories are centrally heated by surplus hot water from power stations, and in Canada, the plumbing comes in from basement installations four feet under ground. I am told by a Swedish architect, who wrote to me when he saw this question on the Order Paper, that he recently visited a 10-year-old comprehensive school at Crookston, Glasgow, built on the top of a hill. He reckoned that the cost of putting in double windows would have been paid for in three years by the fuel saved.

We owe a debt of thanks to my honourable friend Sir Gerald Nabarro for introducing his Bill for making the insulation of industrial premises compulsory, but what has happened to his proposal for the compulsory insulation of domestic premises? Bad insulation is costly, but I am told that the cost of efficient insulation amounts to only 1 per cent. of the cost of a house. A Swiss paper has sent me an article emphasising the importance they attach in Switzerland to double glazing and extractor fans. I wonder why we do not revise the model bylaws for new thermal installation rules. I would also, with all respect, draw attention to this article sent me, which began: It is, of course, understood that all British architects are mad. I am not adding my voice to that comment. I merely suggest that the building improvement, which has been impressive in recent years on the subject of pipes, heating and insulation, needs to be accelerated.

Lastly, there is the all-important question of fuel. I do not know how much the insufferable Mr. Doyle contributed to our miseries in the last month. It always enrages me, in an unofficial strike when the ringleaders say that they do not want to inconvenience the public. It is, of course, the inconvenience to the public that provides them with their best weapon. Does your Lordships' House believe that we should have a power go-slow in a heat-wave?

I suspect that something else is wrong. In the United States the fuel companies have emergency supplies permanently available. In France, they are able to pipe power across in peak periods. I suspect that the Central Electricity Generating Board have seriously underestimated the growth of normal demand in this country, a growth to which they themselves have contributed by their advertising and high-pressure salesmanship. Only 7 per cent. spare electricity capacity was available in the last month, and up to 14 per cent, would be needed to cope satisfactorily with the long freeze. The cost of that, spread over a period, would have amounted to 3d. in the pound on our electricity bills. It would appear to me, therefore, that there is a need for better planning, pooling and conserving of our fuel resources. That is one of the most important lessons that have come out of this last month. Whether the Gas Council's war with the Coal Board helped, I do not know. Something clearly was wrong.

We have had a long day, and I shall not take up any more of your Lordships' time. I would re-emphasise the main points. I am not suggesting that everything is bad in this country, and that everything went wrong. On the whole, we pulled ourselves together remarkably well (I hope I am speaking correctly in the past tense) and made the best of a bad job; but we could have done a great deal better with a little more planning, a little more forethought and a little more belief that the winter was not abnormal but much too normal. But I am not suggesting that all was well elsewhere.

The Mayor of Sudbury writes to me saying that in Ontario the average snow, fall was 93 inches. The temperature was 22 degrees below zero. That is Fahrenheit; in view of what happened yesterday I am not going to translate it into Centigrade. It was 45 degrees last year. Yet he tells me, there was and is no dislocation in Sudbury and no unemployment. Perhaps the noble Lord would like to call the Mayor of Sudbury in aid—because he has offered his services.

I do not argue that we should take out a full insurance policy—as they do in Switzerland, Sweden and Canada—for a hard winter which may well never occur. That would be unrealistic and ridiculous. But I do suggest that we should take a little more care and plan a little more carefully. We should have a reasonable insurance policy and should be able to avoid a certain amount of trouble. And trouble will arise again. Not for a whole month, perhaps; it may be for only a short time. But we shall be plunged into a comparatively shorter misery. Our national figure is St. George. I suspect that it ought to be Ethelred the Unready.

My Lords, I do not ask my noble friend for detailed answers to any of these questions. I merely ask him if he will give me an undertaking to consider these matters and prepare for next year, or later on this year, when it will inevitably happen again: because I believe that we have a tremendous amount to learn out of the miseries we have gone through in this last month, and we should be foolish not to try and learn it. There is one thing I should like to ask my noble friend, in conclusion—perhaps I should know the answer, but I do not: can he tell me where I can buy a good pair of spats?

7.1 p.m.

THE EARL OF AIRLIE

My Lords, I cannot possibly follow the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, in his witty speech, for which he is well-known, but we all owe him a debt of gratitude for raising this matter to-day. The last thing I want to do is to throw stones at Her Majesty's Government who are subsisting through a difficult time at the moment. But I am confident that your Lordships desire to have this matter ventilated, because the people of this country have been through a good deal of misery during this last month. One is proud of the brains which have been manifested in the organising powers of this country, but there is no question that we have failed in this last month and that we are the laughing stock of the world. One has only to look at the cartoons coming from Canada, one of which I saw this afternoon, to realise that.

There are certain things that I should like to put to the Government. First of all, the hospitals, which have already been mentioned, ought not to be handicapped again in the same way as they have been. Something ought to be done about this. Then, local authorities should be warned that they will not receive housing grants unless they put their pipes, not outside, but in places where they will not freeze up. Thirdly, there is the question of heating on the railways. I live in the Scottish Riviera, where we have had a modest time compared to people in the South: I had to come down here to get really cold. But there is no doubt that our railways are very lacking in heating facilities. Quite frequently a man comes along and says: "You have to realise that this is cold weather." Of course it is cold weather; but this trouble does not occur in Canada. As the noble Lord, Lord Man-croft, said, we cannot have a full insurance policy against these things; but we can do a great deal better than we have done.

There is the question of coal shortage. The National Coal Board put on a very good show, and they emphasise central heating with coal. But they neglect to make sure that the necessary article to carry this out is available at a moment's notice. You cannot get coal for love or money. It is monstrous that the public should be put to this inconvenience in 1963, quite apart from the cost involved. The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, gave some figures. Whether they are correct or not I cannot say; but there is no doubt that it has cost a lot of money. This is a country of development, and there must be a sufficient reserve power to meet the demands made upon it. The people deserve this, and they should have it. Ours is not a temperate climate, but a climate of extremes; and it must be remembered that they are short extremes and, therefore, you cannot have a full insurance policy.

Finally, on the question of the roads, these are not properly kept open. The proper way to keep roads open is never to let the snow gather; and there should be an emergency shift of men ready to go and deal with the snow as soon as it falls. If we did what the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, advocates, get in touch with the Northern countries and adopt their policy, we should be a great deal better off than we are now. The fact is that this country is not geared to meet emergencies owing to the fact that this is not a temperate climate but, as I say, a climate of extremes. We must travel more and keep up to date. Things change from year to year. I live, as I say, in the Scottish Riviera, and I have managed to keep warm. I have had put in (and I would advocate it to your Lordships) perspex for the large windows and polythene for the small ones. This double window glazing for windows facing North is not above the average man's ability to carry out for himself. I have kept perfectly warm, and others could do the same. I would advocate to the Government that, before they issue instructions to the local authorities for housing schemes, double glazing should be put in effect.

7.7 p.m.

LORD SHACKLETON

My Lords, I should like to inform the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, that he has the full support of the Opposition in regard to this important matter he has raised. But before tackling certain points, I should like to take up his gloomy forecast of the continuation of abnormal weather into normality. I think we should look to our meteorological history. It is, after all, a mere 7,000 to 8,000 years since the ice age when this country was, in fact, actively joined to Europe, and it is perhaps a natural adjustment in present political circumstances that the ice that joined us to Europe should return.

We are, we understand, in an interglacial period. It may well be that there has been a minor bit of glaciation this year. But Simpson, who made a great study of the climate of the pleistocene age, forecast that in another 30,000 years' time there would be no snow on the earth at all. This would offer even more uncomfortable prospects, because the sea would be several hundred feet higher, and we should not be able to ski; and this would happen, curiously enough, at a time of lower solar radiation. It is when we get increased solar radiation that, so far from it getting warmer, it soon gets colder, because there is increased evaporation, the cloud cover increases and we then move into a glacial spell. What is so mysterious to me, and, I think, to the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, is that one never really has to bother about the cold in the arctic. Perhaps I may refer to that, because I did occasionally find of some value my experience as a rather incompetent arctic explorer of the past.

I should like to take up a point made by the noble Earl, Lord Airlie, who said it was important to remove snow right away. In this country we do not really understand snow. We think of it, roughly, as something for Christmas cards, and a nuisance, as slush in the towns. Snow is a very flexible material which changes its nature at different stages. When it first falls it is so soft that if you have enough of it it is practically impossible to get through it on skis; and, obviously, if there is a wind, wherever there is an obstruction, which may be in the nature of railways and roads, you immediately get a snow drift. This is the moment when it must be swept, and when, as the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, made clear, certain local authorities really "went to town". I believe that the engineers of the Hampshire County Council were up for several days on end, and swept, so far as I know, practically every road, except the unadopted road in which I happen to live—but that is another matter. They really worked hard at it.

As soon as the wind comes the snow begins to drift hard. At this stage it may be difficult to sweep, but your Lordships will be encouraged to know that this is the moment at which one is able to build an igloo. You should equip your car with a saw or a large knife, because the igloo is built out of blocks of snow. If you are able to move, instead of suffocating in your car, you can go out and, in the space of an hour, build a very comfortable igloo in which the temperature will be reasonably warm and in which you can remain for a long while. Then comes the later stage, when with more wind and some thaw the snow ceases to be snow and becomes ice. This is the time when it really is too late to do anything very much about it. You can only wait for the thaw, unless you have some very powerful scrapers indeed.

I think we ought not to concentrate our concern on the public services only. It is, of course, the private services which are inadequate. The problem of the coal supply has not been a lack of coal in the coalfields; it has been the size of the stocks held by the coal merchants. I do not know the answer to this. It is no good blaming Lord Robens of Woldingham about it. Nobody is proposing to nationalise private coal distribution. We all get taken by surprise. This is a matter of our outlook. We become extremely helpless individuals when we are confronted by snow. We saw the pathetic picture of men, searching Dartmoor for an escaped prisoner, slithering over the snow, going into it up to their knees and thighs. If they had been provided with two moderately long pieces of wood of a flat nature, even if they had never worn skis in their lives, they would have been able to travel. I would recommend that the Government have a suitable supply of short skis. They are much easier to use than long skis, especially for old men, and they would introduce some mobility.

I will not go so far as to advocate that we establish a stock of sledges and dog teams. The tragedy of present-day exploration is that dog teams have almost entirely disappeared, and the most flexible way of getting around has given way to Snocats and Weasels and various different pieces of machinery which are very suitable until such time as they break down—when you find that you are unable to eat them. It may well be that we could, none the less, as the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, has suggested, prepare just a little more. I would suggest to the Government that, although this particular kind of weather spell may not recur for another ten or fifteen years, it will come again some time; and it would be reasonable if the Government (who do not generally shrink from issuing guidance on many subjects) were to introduce guidance of some kind to make sure that local authorities—and I think it is local authoritites who are particularly concerned—were ready to act quickly.

Some of the problems we cannot solve. The problem of electricity breakdown when thaw and frost occur at the same time is something you cannot cope with anywhere in the world. The Arctic is a place over which you can always travel provided the temperatures are low enough; but the moment they rise to somewhere near freezing point you are in trouble. In summer, you cannot travel there. Even Nansen spent two months sitting on an ice flow surrounded by patches of water, unable to move. It was the effect of fog and freezing which caused the major power cut. None the less, I think it is worth studying.

Incidentally, water is always a problem in cold countries. Water is the most difficult thing for an Arctic explorer; it is one thing he is apt to be short of. Here again, I think we might be given some advice. If you have to provide your own source of water from a frozen supply it is easier to use ice than snow. If you try to melt snow in a pan you almost invariably burn the pan. This might also be included in the hints to householders. I do not think I need go into the question of frostbite, of which I do not think we have had many examples.

Considering what has happened in previous years, I should also like to add that I think it is rather satisfactory how much better the public services have coped as compared with 1947. This is particularly true of the railways. As the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, made clear, we owe a great debt to people who have gone on working in these conditions. I am very sorry that the Bingo industry lost £75,000. I can only presume that somebody saved £75,000 and this may not have been a wholly bad thing. But it is true that they were not equipped at London Airport. I am told that there were two machines for clearing the runways, and one of them fell over at the crucial moment. I was diverted to Manchester as a result. I think there are further steps that can be taken. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, will heed the weighty and serious arguments which the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, has put forward.

7.17 p.m.

LORD AUCKLAND

My Lords, although the very sensational news from Europe has somewhat overshadowed the headlines of the Press in recent days, the importance of the Question which my noble friend Lord Mancroft has put down is still very much with us, particularly as the weather forecast to-night predicts that temperatures will return to the twenties. Sussex had four inches of snow this morning, and there may well be much more by to-morrow morning. Therefore this problem is certainly still with us, especially as it is now only the nether and of January, and in 1947 the really big Arctic spell started only in the middle of January.

My own decision to take part in this debate was prompted primarily by the fact that during this spell I have been travelling regularly from my home in Surrey to London by rail, as have, no doubt, many of your Lordships. It has been taking between two and three hours on certain occasions. May I at once pay a very sincere tribute to the railwaymen during this time, especially to the train drivers and the signalmen and to those who keep the permanent way and the points clear. One reads certain rather scurrilous letters in the national and local Press blaming the railwaymen and the railway drivers. It may well be that the heads of British Railways require some criticism, and I would urge the Government to try to persuade the public relations staff of British Railways occasionally to use a little more tact.

The other day I was travelling to work from Ashtead in Surrey to Waterloo, and the train ground to a halt at Raynes Park. It stopped there some time and somebody got out of the train, asked a porter what was wrong and received an extremely insulting answer. I am not suggesting that it was the porter's fault that anything was wrong, but no notice was displayed along the line as to what the trouble was, and this was at a time when there was relatively little snow on the ground: in fact, it was during the recent thaw. I feel that a. great deal of public criticism, some of it ill-informed, could be allayed by a little more cooperation from the public relations staff of the railways. I should say, in fairness, that at Waterloo, and indeed at the main line termini and at many of the wayside stations, information has been given very readily; but in some circumstances public relations has fallen down, and this has added to the discomfort of the general public.

It has been mentioned that in Canada and other countries the fact that it freezes almost constantly means that the railway lines can be kept more or less up to schedule, and one of the troubles in this country is that one gets a freeze for a few days, then a thaw and then another freeze, and it is admittedly very difficult, in those circumstances, to keep the points clear. But I wonder whether my noble friend would consult his scientific experts to see whether any kind of compound can be thought about which would enable points to be kept clear in our vagaries between freeze and thaw, which are, after all, not unusual. I daresay there are many scientific difficulties about this, but I wonder whether it has really been considered sufficiently.

The terms of the Motion mention countries such as Canada, Sweden and Switzerland, but I suggest that we in the South can also take quite a lead from Scotland. I have lived in Scotland on and off for some years, and although I rarely visit that country nowadays I nevertheless get the local Perthshire paper and see pictures of how transport manages in that part of the country. It has often been said that Scotland gets much more snow than here, although this year I do not think that has been strictly true. Nevertheless, roads such as the Devil's Elbow and the A.9 at Drumochter Pass and elsewhere are kept open through long stretches of the winter and with much more severe snowfalls which often include drifting.

I agree that one of the difficulties in the South is the shortage of manpower. I wrote to the engineering department of the Leatherhead Urban District Council and asked their views on this matter of snow clearance, and I think I should say, in fairness, that this council have done a very good job, no matter how much criticism may be directed towards them, and I think that local councils generally have done an exceptionally good job during this bitter weather. Of course, some have fallen down in certain respects. Some of the tractors and snow-ploughs which have been used have been woefully out of date, but I do not think that is by default of the councils; it is often the direct grant from the Exchequer to local authorities that has put them in this position. Surrey County Council have even had to import salt from Yugoslavia to put on their roads. I feel that the Government must look into this question of seeing that the local authorities get sufficient money to keep the roads open.

It is all very well for people to write to the newspapers and say: "Why wasn't my road cleared?" Certainly in our area the local authorities have done their level best to keep not only main roads clear but many of the side roads, but they have been handicapped not only by shortage of men—which is a problem which any Government must find very difficult to solve—but also by being without equipment, which is something I feel the Government can look into very carefully.

I now touch briefly on the subject of hospitals, and I should like to ask my noble friend whether he would consult with his right honourable friend to see that hospitals so far as possible are warned in time of a power cut, because, as I said just now, the winter is still very much with us and we may well have to expect more power cuts. It seems a lamentable situation that hospitals should have to hire generators from ice-cream firms and American Army bases. Lives are often at stake here and it is false economy not to provide for these contingencies. I do not think that this Motion has been put down necessarily to criticise the Government but it has been very well timed, and I hope the Government will take cognisance of the fact that the measures which have been suggested must be taken, otherwise we shall have a picture of false economy causing more and more hardship.

7.29 p.m.

THE MINISTER OF STATE, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD DERWENT)

My Lords, one thing is clear from what noble Lords have said: none of them wants to throw stones at Her Majesty's Government, only, apparently, at me. I am grateful to noble Lords who have taken part in the discussion on this Question of my noble friend Lord Mancroft. I hope during the course of my reply virtually to answer all their questions except some of my noble friend's own hypothetical questions which he will not want answered to-night. I will be as quick as I can, but I am afraid I have to cover a great deal of ground, because from what noble Lords have said to me outside the Chamber they are each particularly interested in a different aspect of the question. May I, before I start, say how grateful I was for the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, who, apart from Arctic exploration, raised certain interesting points which we will indeed study?

As regards the speech of my noble friend, Lord Mancroft, I agree with the theme behind it, which was his request to investigate what, if anything, had gone wrong, but I must join issue with him over the terms of the Question. I am sorry to labour the point, but unless we get it right some of the things I am going to say will really rather make nonsense. The noble Lord's Question rests on three premises: first, that the severe winter that we have been having, this abnormal winter, is becoming more and more normal. When it comes to a question of costs, it is important, I think, to show my noble friend that in fact these abnormal winters are becoming more and more abnormal. I will not go back too far in the investigations I have made, but perhaps I may go back to 1765, which I think is more or less modern; it is 198 years, roughly 200 years ago.

The method I have used for proving my point is this: I have taken the weather in the London area, because the figures show that when London has had an abnormally severe winter so has the rest of the country in that year, and if most of the country has had an abnormal winter so has London. The London figures were easier to get at; that is why I have taken them. To decide what we call an abnormal winter we take the months December to February, which are the cold months—December, January, February—and we call a winter abnormal when the average temperatures during those three months are less than 37 degrees. We find in this period of 198 years that there have been 29 of these winters only, and 6 fell in the period 1765 to 1800 (rather less than fifty years), 11 in the period 1801 to 1850, 7 in the period 1851 to 1900, but only 5 in the 62 years of this century, unless, of course, February happens to be a very cold month, in which case I regret to say this year will be the sixth this century. But on the whole these very cold winters seem to come less often in the latter part of the period.

LORD SHACKLETON

My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to intervene? Did he give the impression that if we have a warm February this will not count as an abnormal winter?

LORD DERWENT

No. I am saying that in calculating these abnormal years I have taken the three-months period. It may well be that if it is a warm February the average will go up for the three months. What appears to happen is that we occasionally have an isolated very cold winter over the whole of that period. Whether this is an isolated year or not, I shall not be able to tell you till next year. But on tae whole these cold periods come in small groups. They do not seem to come very often. They usually come in clusters at intervals of about 60 years. The last such cluster was in the 1940's. Then we get other periods of virtually mild winters, except perhaps for the odd week. What I want to say to your Lordships is that the troubles are caused by prolonged winters, not very cold weather for very short periods. This is one of those years, but they are not normal years.

Having made that point I would say that the second premise of my noble friend's argument—it is an implied one, and I think the implication is clear—is that transport and other public services in the United Kingdom grind to a standstill at the onset of winter weather. I really think this is somewhat of an exaggeration. Even in the exceedingly severe weather we have experienced since Christ- mas, although services have been interrupted and delayed, with much inconvenience and considerable hardship in certain cases, except for very short periods nothing came to a standstill. What I should like to examine is what in fact has happened, what we have done in the country generally (I am not speaking about the Government) and what we may be able to do.

May I take first the highway system?—because probably that has been the hardest hit. My right honourable friend the Minister of Transport some time ago asked his divisional road engineers to report on how the local highway authorities have been getting on, what they did in their particular areas to cope with the problem, whether they were successful, what they, the divisional road engineers, would recommend and so on. That information, of course, has already started to come in, and when this cold weather is over it will be collated. We have not waited until the end of the period to have a look at this.

With regard to motorways, they have been accepted as a direct responsibility of the Ministry, and they have been kept open throughout. There has been no occasion when they have been closed, though for short periods the total width of the road has had to be reduced. As regards the trunk roads, for which the local authorities are agents for the Ministry, they, on the whole, have been blocked for only very short periods. In the West country, which is in many ways the worst hit area, complete blockage of trunk roads, which occurred in one or two places, was of short duration and single-line traffic was restored almost at once. The total width of the roads was not—I quite appreciate that.

During this period we are talking about some 30,000 men and 10,000 appliances have been engaged in snow clearance on the highways. The highways authorities' resources were supplemented by 700 appliances owned by the Ministry of Transport. I think that answers one of the questions of my noble friend, Lord Auckland. Machines and men were borrowed and hired from contractors, private firms, the Army and the Royal Air Force. I will not do it at this late hour, unless your Lordships want it, but I could give very detailed examples of the appliances that were used, and where and when; but I think that perhaps this evening we need not go into that.

Now I turn to the railways. They certainly did not grind to a standstill. There have been, I agree, delays and cancellations, but train services can often be run when no other form of transport can run and that has been happening in one or two cases during that bad time. There is one thing I want to say about the railways in these conditions. We have a problem in the United Kingdom which is not met anywhere else in the world. Our railways have the highest density of traffic of any country in the world. If you have, shall we say, a line down the Danube which runs half a dozen trains a day each way, and one gets blocked, there is probably a certain amount of time to clear that and it may not affect the other trains greatly. But in our higher density, if one train gets stopped the pile-up of other trains being stopped accumulates very rapidly indeed. It is a point we ought to remember when we are criticising railways for not running the services they should in this bad weather.

LORD SOMERS

My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend? Is not one of the greatest disadvantages on the Southern Region the fact that the electricity is conveyed by the conductor rail which almost invariably gets covered with ice?

LORD DERWENT

I do not think I am going to go into that technical problem this evening. That is a matter for the Southern Region, and I know that it is being examined. What stage they have reached I am not sure at the moment.

I think your Lordships would like to know what is happening about points heating, because that is one of the great problems of all railways, even in the countries that my noble friend has mentioned, such as Sweden and Canada. What are we doing? A greater number of mechanical aids in that direction are being used this winter than ever before in British Railways. The most vital problem of all is this fact of the snowing-up and freezing-up of switch points. I am giving a few figures here, because I want to make quite clear that the railways are most active in regard to this matter. As the result of intensive experiments by British Railways, 719 points heaters were installed and working at the beginning of the winter, and during the winter another 698 have been, and are being, completed. Of those that were ready at the beginning of the year, nine were electrically heated and the rest were gas-operated. Six hundred of the existing points heaters have been installed in the North-Eastern Region, where experiments have been concentrated in three areas—York, Darlington and Newcastle. This is the largest scheme of its kind in the world. We are not lagging behind other countries in this way. As regards keeping in touch with what goes on abroad, the method used at the moment is a Dutch technique and is carried on in conjunction with James Mills, Limited, of Stockport. They have developed this method of heating points.

Turning to the question of how much we are going to spend in any given year, I must repeat that this is an abnormal year. If we are going to have all the points heated within one year or two years it means that something else has to go by the board: for there is not enough money to do the whole thing at once. In view of what we have installed in the winter, I think it is right that the cost of these improvements should be spread over a number of years. It has been estimated that these heating units cost about £200 each, so that if we were to equip all 100,000 or so switch points, that would cost nearly £20 million. At the moment, therefore, we are doing it at junctions only. We are keeping very closely in touch with the railways of France, Switzerland, Holland, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Sweden all of whom have a problem. But it is a slightly different problem from ours. Certain parts of France know that every year they are going to get a certain quantity of snow at a particular time and they have to contend with it. We can take a little gamble by getting our railways system modernised more gradually.

May I just mention one matter which has not been mentioned to-day in your Lordships' House but has been mentioned in the Press? I refer to the question of the ports. No major port has been affected in any way by being snowed up, although one or two of the small ports have been affected by ice and so on. But, of course, the turn-round of shipping has been delayed, and I must say that, from all I have heard, the work done by the dockers in this frightfully difficult weather for them has been really quite remarkable.

The third premise in my noble friend's Question is that people in Sweden, Switzerland and Canada are conspicuously more successful than we are. It is difficult to know if this is true. As a matter of fact, having produced this assumption in his Question my noble friend then proceeds to blow it up himself. I do know this, however: that a friend of mine has been travelling around by train in Switzerland and he says that nearly all the trains during his visit were half an hour or three-quarters of an hour late, and a number of them had no heating because it had given out. He says that he also saw a number of men crouched by the points lighting straw to heat them. This is in a country that always has snow, and in this exceptional year they, too, have suffered almost as much as we have. I will not go on to deal with Canada. There are a variety of things that I could read to your Lordships showing that their troubles are extremely severe.

There is one other matter that I think your Lordships should consider—namely, that methods and appliances which work well in other countries do not always work well here. There are two features of our climate which make things difficult. Its high degree of humidity creates all kinds of difficulties. As the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, mentioned, in our winters, and particularly our severe winters, we have a lot of fluctuations about freezing point. That presents all kinds of exceptional difficulties which, in countries like Sweden, do not arise.

There is one point raised by my noble friend Lord Mancroft, on the subject of communications between guard and driver, that I think he would probably like to have cleared up. A telephone link between driver and guard is already installed in many multiple unit trains—which I suppose my noble friend will know refers to small diesels with sections which are put together. To provide that system generally on locomotive-hauled trains would mean costly wiring and connectors in every passenger and freight vehicle liable at any time to be used as part of a train. This would he extremely expensive; and although it would dispense with the need for such connecting wires, the terminal apparatus of a radiotelephone system would be far more complex and expensive and less reliable than a conventional system. There are few occasions when telephone communication, whether by radio or wire, between the driver and guard on a railway train would be advantageous, and it is not particularly relevant to cold weather conditions. The railways do not therefore consider that the expense would be justified, either now or, so far as they can see, in the future.

May I say one word more about snow ploughs, and so on? My right honourable friend the Minister of Transport is in constant touch with countries in Europe and across the Atlantic as regards equipment, and he will continue to keep in touch. As a matter of fact, some of the plough heads used here were imported from Switzerland and Germany. The general arrangements for snow clearing and for the prevention of snow on highways rest with the local authorities, and the work is done by them. The question then arises whether a local authority is going to set up, even with Government help, machinery, plant and the whole set-up to deal with abnormal years. The ratepayer is going to have something to say about this because not only is it most expensive, but the capital so employed is, most of the time, locked up and useless. It is only in occasional years when it is used and really it is a great waste of money. I think I have answered all the questions on transport, unless noble Lords have anything to remind me of.

May I say a word about hospitals, which I know was another question raised by my noble friend Lord Auckland? A recent survey indicated that all hospitals at which operating theatres exist have emergency lighting provision, and all hospitals which undertake major operations have emergency lighting and power at least for their operating theatres and other important departments. There are no operating theatres in about 10 per cent. of hospitals, and most of these have not the emergency alternative. The cost of providing all hospitals with the full standby cover—that is, for the whole hospital as well as the operating theatre—is most difficult to estimate precisely, but it would be a large sum and it is considered that improvements in this regard should be taken slowly, because the essential ones are already in operation.

During this particular cold weather (there is always room for improvement; we are not suggesting otherwise) our major airports were out of action only on very few occasions. The greater part of these were due to blizzards which made flying dangerous, and not to inability to clear runways. There was also, of course, some disruption of services due to the aircraft themselves being iced up or snowed up. For instance, Heath Row was closed during a blizzard—nothing to do with ice—for eight hours on December 30, followed by two hours for snow clearance, which could not be done during the blizzard. On January 20 it took 6½ hours to deal with freezing rain falling on the runway. So far as I know, those are the only occasions of closure of Heath Row. Gatwick, with only a single runway, had slightly more delays; Stansted had no actual closure at all; Prestwick was never closed, and so on. So, my Lords, in fact nearly all the stopping of flying was due to the inability of aircraft to take off in the bad flying conditions, and not to the runways.

My Lords, I should like to say a word or two about fog. The inability of aircraft to operate in conditions of poor visibility in fog is not a problem peculiar to the United Kingdom, as we all know. Research and development is going on very fast, and during the December fog a Ministry aircraft, fitted with the blind landing system developed by the Royal Aircraft Establishment, landed and took off several times at Heath Row in conditions of "nil" visibility. We believe that this country leads the world in automatic blind landing, and it is because of the progress in this field that Mr. Thorneycroft in 1961 stopped development work on FIDO. The December fog, which we all remember, closed Heath Row to all traffic for four days. It is interesting to note that Gatwick, which is a diversionary airport to Heath Row, was not closed at all during that period.

One noble Lord raised the question of water—I am sorry to be so long, but it is your Lordships fault for raising so many different subjects. First of all, in regard to freezing of mains, some has occurred, although it has been very rare. The protection lies in the depth at which mains are buried. At least 3 feet of cover continues to be insisted upon by the Ministry of Housing. We are under great pressure—though we have not given way at the moment—to have a less cover than 3 feet, but that is the regulation. In regard to filters, some types of filter used in water purification, which involve a slow percolation of water in open filter beds, are vulnerable to freezing, although this does not happen very often. There is no remedy which would not involve enormous expenditure. As I say, this causes very little trouble, and we are not likely to take any steps over this.

In regard to domestic water trouble, there is continuing pressure by Her Majesty's Government—this is not really a Government matter—to secure maximum protection against freezing in the design stage; that is to say, the location of plumbing away from the outer walls. There are various Ministry of Housing recommendations to the water undertakers and those who make the building by-laws. We continue to stress this, and I would suggest that your Lordships might like at some time to look at the Ministry of Housing Circular No. 57/56, which urges local authorities and water undertakers to insist that their by-laws should be altered in order to bring this about. There is virtually nothing we can do with the old houses—I do not mean those which are ready to be pulled down, but those which have their plumbing outside. If we tried to put this all inside the expense would be fantastic, unless the owners themselves desired to do it. Local authorities will have to wait until those houses are ready to be pulled down. A most valuable defence against waste of water is that any occupier of property should protect his own property by lagging, and should know where he can turn off the water supply if there is a burst on his premises.

Perhaps I may say a word or two about soil and waste pipes, which in many houses are to be found outside. They can, of course, be placed either externally or internally. The Ministry of Housing and Local Government are engaged in the preparation of building regulations to supersede building by-laws in England and Wales, apart from the County of London. The draft which has been sent out for comment provides that soil and waste pipes should be placed internally in all buildings. From the comments which have been received, including those of medical officers of health, it seems to be a moot point whether they should be placed inside. The Building Regulations Advisory Committee are at present considering what advice they should give to the Minister. This matter is not an easy one to decide.

As regards power generally, apart from the difficulties arising from unprecedented demands upon gas and electricity, the main troubles were due to the effects of a freak combination of high density air pollution, high humidity, and, freezing conditions on exposed electricity transmission equipment. If we had only had a little rain after the fog things would have been much easier. I am told that these conditions are extremely rare, in combination, anywhere in the world. Research is going on co see what we can do about this, but so far no one quite knows the answer.

My Lords, in regard to coal, the industry has suffered from frozen washeries, frozen coal in wagons and consequent shortage of wagons. But throughout the difficult period—though I take the point made by my noble friend that the matter needs looking into—they did maintain all the supplies to industry, including the power stations and gasworks. Domestic coal has been the difficulty, and the problem has been one of delivery more than anything else—not so much in the North, as in London where demand has been three or four times greater than was expected. The railways have been extremely helpful to the Coal Board in this matter. There are plentiful supplies of coal at the pithead, and it is entirely a question of movement. This concerns mainly the house coal market, and not coal supplies for industry. Remedial measures are in operation and are working well, and we hope that such measures will continue to work well if we get another bad spell.

As regards gas, the trouble stemmed primarily from the demand, which in some cases was as much as 50 per cent. above normal—a quite fantastic demand. I am not saying that it should not have been expected, but I think they did surprisingly well, considering all things. The situation is now normal all over the country. The emergency movement of coal to low-stocked gas installations by road, rail and sea worked well, and on the whole they got what they wanted. It was simply a question of the enormous amount of gas that was needed.

LORD CHAMPION

My Lords, has the noble Lord any information on fractures of gas mains caused by frost, which in many cases have caused not only loss of power but loss of life, owing to gas seeping into houses?

LORD DERWENT

No, my Lords, I regret to say that I have no more information on that point, beyond what the noble Lord himself has, which we have read; but there will be a report on that in due course. We have not yet received it from the Gas Board: they have to look at it first.

On electricity, the highest maximum demand met so far has been over 29,500 megawatts, on January 22, and that was the day when the highest potential maximum demand was estimated at some 32,000. There has been under-estimation in the electricity industry, and I will tell your Lordships why. The generating plant takes from five to seven years to build, and the industry has to estimate the demand it must plan to meet at least five years in advance. That, I think we all know, was just one of the difficulties. This is often before industrialists or builders have thought of the projects whose demand will eventually have to be met in five to seven years' time. So in preparing its programmes the industry plans to meet the demand in average cold winter weather with a plant margin of 14 per cent., and this covers also what they estimate may happen in a particular bad year in the period ahead. The plant programmes, on which capacity available this winter was based, were determined in 1956–57 when demand was expected to grow at 6 per cent. per annum. So they said in 1956–57: "This is what we expect in 1962–63. We have a 14 per cent. margin"—or they thought they had at that period—"and we think the demand is going to grow by 6 per cent. per annum."

Since 1956–57, the rate at which the load is expected to grow has been raised progressively, because they realised that 6 per cent. would not be enough, and last year the rate adopted was 7.9 per cent. However, the capacity needed to meet this rate of growth in demand cannot be fully commissioned until 1967, when the 14 per cent. margin will, if the present calculations are right, be there. It is not an easy calculation for the Electricity Board to make, and, as it turned out in this very bad year, they have underestimated; but the estimate was made in 1956–57.

Before 1967 they must obviously take some more interim measures, and the Generating Board plans to install 700 megawatts of gas turbines in 1964–65. These are small generators of 50 to 70 megawatts capacity, powered by aero engines. They can be built much more quickly than conventional plants; they have a low capital cost, but except as a temporary measure are not advisable, because they have a high running cost. Next winter the 14 per cent. margin is likely to be even more strained than this winter, should something go wrong; but in 1964–65, with the first batch of these gas turbines in operation, the position should be better than it is now. Next year is rather a crucial year, I know.

As regards the cuts we have had, there have been widespread electricity cuts both by the Generating Board and in parts of the distribution system. There have been 22 deliberate cuts on the Generating Board system, all between January 3 and 27, and these have been attributable to two main causes: the work to rule in the first three weeks of January—this mainly affected power stations in the London area—and severe icing, to which I have already referred, over dirty insulators which, owing to lack of rain, were still covered with grime from the smog in the beginning of November. Those are the two main causes of the cuts. There are certain other things, into which I will not go, which the Generating Board are planing to do.

I think the question of spreading cost over a period of years is important. The unrestricted demand was reduced in three ways over this time: first of all, by the Generating Board's cuts and reductions in voltage and frequency; secondly, by other breakdowns and low voltage on the Area Boards' systems; and, thirdly, by exhortations to consumers to economise. Only the reductions in the cuts by the Generating Board are known. To have eliminated these cuts would have required an extra 2,500 megawatts of generating capacity, together with the associated transmission and distribution capacity, the cost of which might have been in the region of £270 million. My Lords, these and extra things which we are going to do must be spread over years.

May I just say one thing? I know that Mr. Doyle was mentioned, and I do not want to say too much about that regrettable affair, which did have a very adverse effect. I should, however, like to take the opportunity of paying tribute to the devoted service of the great majority of workers in the industry both at this time and throughout the cold spell.

My Lords, I do not think I have much else to say, except that, on the question of learning from foreign experience, the supply industry of this country has very close and regular contacts with its counterparts overseas, covering all aspects of electricity. I hope I have answered all your Lordships' questions, although at rather a great rate. If any of your Lordships has any particular points which I have not referred to, and to which you would like an answer, I hope you will let me know.