HL Deb 19 December 1983 vol 446 cc564-74

8.34 p.m.

Viscount St. Davids rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to introduce legislation on electronic residual circuit safety devices such as exist in most EEC member states and some Commonwealth countries.

The noble Viscount said: My Lords, we seem to he having an evening of high technology. In asking this Question, the first thing I had better do is to say what I am talking about. I am quite aware that the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, knows more about this subject than I do—and I believe that he is to speak after I have done so—but the rest of your Lordships are owed an explanation.

There are very few houses in this country which do not have an electrical system, and it would be very difficult indeed to imagine a factory or workshop which did not have one. Such systems must be almost universal. The great majority of them are protected from major disaster by fuses; short pieces of metal, either very thin or very soft. If too great a load is put upon the system, the fuses burn or melt through and switch the current off. That is the standard method; and a fuse burns through in something less than half a second.

That system is very satisfactory as far as it goes. The only trouble is that if what is wrong with the circuit is that you are catching hold of a live wire, it takes rather less than half a second to kill you. So the system cannot be said to be totally satisfactory. Strangely enough, something worse than that can happen—that is, fire. Here, I must go into some figures. The number of people killed by direct electrocution in this country every year is around 80. There are also a number of injuries, but I will not go into that aspect. But there are some 30,000 fires a year which the fire brigades believe are due to electrical faults. In those 30,000 fires a further 180 people die every year.

Those are not vast figures compared with road casualties or compared with the number who die by smoking cigarettes. But if they were caused by something like fireworks, we would all be shrieking our heads off. They are serious figures, and if there is any reasonable way of reducing them we should do so.

I want to return to the subject of fires because they are one of the major causes of death. We have a habit of burying wires inside walls, under floors and behind skirting boards—particularly in positions where there is a lot of dust, which is also a fire hazard. As long as the circuit is healthy, nothing goes wrong. But if wires become old, overloaded or badly damaged, one can get a leak of current into the surrounding material. In these days, there are a number of very old circuits, simply because of the financial stringency we have been going through. Also, technology is advancing fast. We have heard about an example of that this very evening in this House. More electrical appliances are being attached in electrical circuits every day—circuits which were never designed to have any such thing done to them—and so the danger is increasing.

If it is possible to prevent some of the deaths and some of the fires which occur, we should do all that we can to make sure that happens. I became involved in this subject because I am the chairman of a very new body—the Electric Boat Users. We have a habit of attaching our boats periodically to a source of electricity to recharge our batteries. It means that we put power cables around the scenery, out in the rain, close to water. We were advised by the electricity board that we were under high risk. We were not the only people under high risk, but we were in the high risk category. Other people under high risk were those who operated any kind of electrical equipment out of doors—such as hedge cutters or lawn mowers; any tools attached to an electric cable.

We were advised that what we ought to have were electronic safety devices, which work in a rather interesting manner. They are in fact electronic seesaws. They are balanced between the positive and negative polarity of a normal electric circuit on the basis that a healthy circuit has the same current flowing both through the positive and the negative. If there is a short to earth anywhere, the current unbalances, the see-saw tips, and the whole thing switches off. It does not take half a second to do that. An electronic residual circuit safety device switches off in between two-thousandths and four-thousandths of a second. That is about 100th of the time of the normal metallic fuse.

It was, I suppose, inevitable that as chairman of this new society I had to get the first machine and test it. I did so and I was delighted. I found that it produced so much more safety that nowadays when my particular machine is not afloat in my boat it has an honoured shelf in my workshop: through it I run all the tools that I use out of doors; our electric lawn mower and anything which needs connecting up to power is run through this machine. I consider that very well worth while. I would have liked to produce one in this House to show your Lordships, but I think it would probably have been out of order. Nevertheless, if your Lordships wish to see one at the end of the debate I have brought mine; it is in my locker, and I am told by Black Rod that I may attach it to the electricity and show how it works. However, since other Members of this House are not present and will not be seeing this machine. I am happy to say that I will be able to show one because we electric boaters have managed to find ourselves a stand, No. L6, at the Boat Show; there we shall have one of these devices on the stand and shall be able to demonstrate it.

If the noble Earl who is going to reply to this debate is unable to give me a satisfactory answer—I am sure he will not be able to because I am sure he has not got an Act of Parliament in his pocket ready to produce at a moment's notice—at least I shall be able to show a number of people how these things increase their safety and save lives. If I can save one or two lives by spending my time here this evening and taking up your Lordships' time, I think I shall have done a worthwhile job. Anyway, there it is: I have such a machine; I have tested it. I think if your Lordships go further into this matter you will find that this is something which should have a wider use.

It is not only, of interest to those with workshops. It is going to spread into the law courts. I can quite imagine that anybody, a customer or an employee, whose health is endangered or whose property is damaged by an electrical fault in going to law is going to ask the defendant, "Were adequate precautions taken to make sure that I myself or my property were not damaged by lack of suitable protection?" If the answer is that it was only done by old metallic fuses the courts might not be very happy about the defendant's answer. So this may well go into the law courts.

There is also going to he the whole question of local authorities. One of the places where electric circuits are likely to be inadequate is in council housing. It is not only likely to get out of date but it is likely to be very considerably overloaded. The great load that goes on the wiring in houses mostly does so in the evening. It is then that the lights go on, the electric fires go on, all the various electrical devices go on, and on circuits which were not built to stand such a strain a very considerable load is built up.

That load can cause a leak of current through inadequate protection, and if that leak occurs in a cupboard space, as it may well do, you get a heating up in that area which can build up until the space is actually on fire. At that moment, no doubt, the fuses will blow, but since it will be late in the evening the family will go to bed. It is very hard to imagine a worse build up for a tragedy than a family going to bed in a house which is actually on fire. That is one of the causes of the many fire casualties.

The local authorities are going to have to install these devices for their own protection and for the protection of their tenants. They should certainly be doing it. In other countries these devices are compulsory, not necessarily nationally but usually by local government, in quite a number of EEC countries and in a number of Commonwealth countries. In this country I cannot see it being done nationally. I believe it is something which should be pressed on local government. Also perhaps it should come into the matter of health and safety at work.

However, it is quite obvious that now that we have these electronic safety sockets we really must consider installing them more widely and making their existence known. This is the purpose of my Question. Why should we not be putting some legislative force, possibly by lesser legislation, on making sure that these devices are much more widely used?

Lord Campbell of Croy

My Lords, before the noble Viscount sits down may I ask him one very quick question, to which I think other noble Lords may like to have the answer? The noble Viscount gave a very interesting description of the device he uses himself. Can he give any indication of the cost today of such devices?

Viscount St. Davids

My Lords, the single socket that I have cost £40, which I think is a fair enough price for the lives of my wife and myself. But for a more complicated set which would protect a house or a flat the cost would be somewhat more. On the other hand, you would than have a number of sockets and it would cover completely the safety of the whole House.

Lord Campbell of Croy

I thank the noble Viscount, my Lords.

8.48 p.m.

Earl Attlee

My Lords, I apologise that my name was not included in the list of speakers; I ask your Lordships to put that down to my inexperience. I am in an invidious position, possibly, because the noble Viscount, Lord St. Davids, has been helpful to me: on Friday I was so ignorant about this subject that all I knew was vaguely what the matter was about. Since the week-end I have learned much more, and I am afraid I am going to take issue with the noble Viscount on several points.

The Order Paper mentions electronic residual circuit safety devices. It is true that there are such things as electronic residual devices, but I would suggest that the one the noble Viscount has is not electronic—although, as I say, there are such things and it is possible that his may be. In fact, the normal name for this unit is "residual current devices", which are known as RCDs. We find also the "residual current circuit breakers", but in my short speech I shall refer to RCDs.

The National Inspection Council of Electrical Installation Contractors is normally known as NIC. I spoke to them this morning on the telephone and they pointed out, with regard to the electronic aspect, that the RCDs are electro-mechanical in operation.

The noble Viscount said that there were about 80 deaths each year. My information is that last year there were, in fact, 40 deaths; but perhaps the year before there were 80. The noble Viscount also mentioned 30,000 fires which were attributable to electrical faults. The insinuation, therefore, is that if RCDs had been fitted most of the fires would not have occurred, and that the 180 people who died in them would not have done so. My information is that RCDs are not produced to stop fires. They are produced to stop electric shocks. The majority of fires are caused by overloading and the units to take care of overloading are either the standard old-fashioned fuse or miniature circuit breakers.

I agree with the noble Viscount that whether there are 40 or 80 deaths a year that is wicked, and it is appalling that people should die through electric shocks when, if an RCD had been installed, they would not have done so. Unfortunately, it is not death by electric shock that should concern us. For most people who suffer an electric shock one of two things happens. They take hold of a piece of equipment which has shorted and either they are bonded to it and cannot let go, thereby suffering the most appalling burns which can incapacitate them for life, or, if not stuck to the equipment, they are thrown from it, very violently. For example, they can he thrown through a window and suffer the most fearful facial injuries, or thrown against a wall and break their ribs, an arm or their nose. By far the biggest trouble with any kind of electric shock is not death but damage to the hands or face from either being stuck to the equipment or thrown from it.

The noble Viscount also said that with this equipment the tripping time was between a two-thousandth and a four thousandth of a second. My information, which may be wrong—but certainly I have read this in the catalogues—is that for RCDs which are fixed to socket outlets the reaction time is in the region of thirty thousandths of a second. That is still sufficient time to avoid death. I am not sure that I agree with the noble Viscount on how an RCD works. Basically, there is a primary and a secondary winding in the RCD, and in a healthy circuit there is a balance. If there is a leak to earth the current will be switched off and the amount of current leaked to earth is between 25 and 30 milliamps. One can get RCDs which are more sensitive, but the trouble is that in many systems—particularly the older ones—one gets a small amount of leakage and if one makes the system too delicate it will keep on switching out.

The NIC works to what are known as the wiring regulations and at present it is working to the 14th and 15th editions. From 1st January 1984 it will be working only to the 15th edition. It is most interesting that in the 15th edition there are at least three very important recommendations, In fact. I am not sure whether these are recommendations or rules which installers have to abide by. The first is that from 1st January all sockets which are for plugging-in equipment which will be used outside the home must be protected by an RCD. Secondly, where the supply authority has no metallic earth return to the transformer—in other words, where from the mains the earth return merely goes down into the ground and not back to the transformer—all socket outlets must be fitted with an RCD. Thirdly, on caravan sites all sockets—presumably all output sockets feeding power and electricity into caravans—must also be protected by RCDs. In other words, whether this is the power of law or not, by next year we shall be reaching a situation where such protection is coming.

The final words of the NIC to me were that in its view the fitting of RCDs would be the greatest single measure for the reduction of accidents and deaths through electric shock. I realise that I seem to have spent my time, if not knocking the noble Viscount at least saying that I did not agree with what he said. In fact, we are only talking technicalities because we both feel that if these RCDs are fitted many lives would be saved.

8.58 p.m.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon

My Lords, this has so far been a most interesting and informative debate. I have listened with great fascination to both the noble Viscount, Lord St. Davids, and the noble Earl. Lord Attlee, and have heard their explanation of these circuit breakers with the greatest of interest. As I understand it, the correct term for them is residual current operated circuit breakers, and they are not in any sense electronic in operation.

As the noble Viscount told us, a large number of people are killed every year. The noble Earl says 40 and the noble Viscount says 80, but whichever is the correct figure it is too many, particularly if people can be protected by better equipment. Of course, the situation in which the noble Viscount used his residual current operated circuit breaker was exactly the sort of situation which is the most dangerous and where such a circuit breaker would be most useful.

As the noble Viscount said, the normal nature of protection is through a fuse or, increasingly in modern electrical installations, by means of miniature circuit breakers which are themselves an improvement on a fuse which merely melts and takes a certain amount of time to do it.

The residual circuit breakers detect an earth leak. The normal fuse of the minature circuit breaker detects a short circuit and immedately trips out. These particular circuit breakers detect an earth leak, and as the noble Earl said, it then goes through a toroid and by means of, I suppose, a transforming type of operation increases the current and thereby trips a switch. The main protection that is received is by the person concerned, who is less likely to get an electric shock.

But I have to say that people who suffer electric shock do not sustain injury only through being attracted to the supply, to the wire, or through being thrown away. They also sustain injury because the heart stops beating. I think I ought to emphasise that that is usually what happens to a person when he is electrocuted.

The best form of protection is given by these particular appliances out of doors. I would certainly recommend people, if they can afford it, to fit such a switch, or whatever it may be, of this type if they are going to use appliances out of doors. But at £40 such a switch is very expensive. At most houses switches are not usually fitted out of doors, and it is unlikely that many people, in particular those without great sources of income will be persuaded themselves to fit them out of doors.

We must also bear in mind that modern outdoor garden equipment is much better protected than such equipment has been in the past. For example, today most motor mowers are protected by double insulation. They also run on nylon bearings, rather than metal bearings. There is a great degree of protection to the public due to progress made in the design of the equipment. But of course if when using a motor mower someone runs over a wire and is then silly enough to pick up the wire, he will get an electric shock. In those circumstances, the residual current operated circuit breaker will probably prevent him from being killed.

But there are drawbacks—and very serious drawbacks—to the general installation of these particular circuit breakers inside houses. For example, if they were installed to protect the whole circuit and there was perhaps even only a small leak to earth, it would trip the whole circuit in the house. That might be very inconvenient for the housewife who perhaps had a freezer or a refrigerator, and who had gone away for the weekend. The leak to earth, which might not be serious and which would certainly not cause afire, would trip out the freezer and the refrigerator, and the housewife would return to find great pools of water all over the kitchen or outhouse—wherever the appliances were housed—and all the food spoiled. So it would not be sensible to protect a whole circuit by means of the circuit breakers.

Furthermore, one must say—

Viscount St. Davids

My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord for one moment? The circuit breakers can be made with a number of different sensitivities; they can be made more sensitive, or less sensitive. Undoubtedly those which would be put on freezer circuits would be the less sensitive types.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon

My Lords, I was talking about protecting the whole of the house circuit with a single circuit breaker. If individual socket outlets were to be protected, the cost would indeed be enormous. At present, house wiring for a power supply is carried out on a ring main basis. If one tried to protect the ring main circuit with a residual circuit breaker, the slightest leak on the total circuit would trip the whole of the ring main. The ring main is designed to fuse when an appliance goes wrong. That is the whole objective of having a fused plug. If one now interposes one of these circuit breakers, one may very well defeat the whole objective of the ring main circuit. To get full protection one would have to have an individual supply from the supply source to the individual socket; and that would be going into the realms of enormous cost. So there are serious drawbacks in a general sense to the installation of these particular circuit breakers.

I do not want to speak for too long, but I believe that there are other things we could do to protect the public from both fire and electrocution. One measure which I believe could be practical and indeed effective would he to ensure that all appliances were properly wired. One of the greatest problems and one of the most serious risks to people arises because their appliances are not properly wired. For example, people will connect an earth wire to a positive terminal. That is absolutely lethal; I repeat, absolutely lethal. It is an odd thing to do, but people certainly do it. Therefore I suggest that if we are to introduce legislation at all, we might consider introducing legislation of a type that would require manufacturers to provide moulded plugs with every appliance they sell.

Another possibility is better education of the public. The public, as I think the noble Viscount mentioned, believes that it can just pile electrical appliance upon electrical appliance and nothing will happen. But, of course, it overloads the system. I believe that improved education by the Government and perhaps, even better, by the electricity boards themselves would help in this situation. People do the most peculiar things. They have too little respect for electricity. If one has worked in a power station, one has considerably greater respect, although even then, there are highly trained people who do ridiculous things. I may perhaps tell noble Lords of one incident which happened at a power station to show how foolish people can be. This was the case of a charge engineer, a properly qualified engineer, who found that something had gone wrong in his control room. He went out to the compound and climbed on to a circuit breaker into which 30,000 volts were flowing. Naturally, the whole system arc-ed and he was electrocuted. So even the best of us can make mistakes and do foolish things when dealing with electricity. It is necessary for the public to be educated in the proper handling of electricity and to have proper respect for it.

Another step that we might consider is to have proper and perhaps compulsory periodic inspections of all household wiring. In some of our older houses, the electrical wiring will be in a bad state, particularly if it is rubber-covered rather than PVC. covered. The Minister may care to think about this. I am not asking for legislation, but he might certainly consider whether the Government should be discussing with the electricity hoards the possibility of more frequent inspections and perhaps even compulsory inspections of houses and other buildings. I am sure that this would help, although I am also confident that I will not be given a favourable reply in present financial circumstances. I think that we should, at some time, consider whether to extend the improvement grant system so that the owners of older houses can receive some assistance in rewiring.

I believe that all these measures would probably contribute far more to electrical safety than the installation, at high cost, of these residual current operated circuit breakers. I have very much enjoyed the debate. I think that we are all grateful to the noble Viscount for raising it and to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for helping us with his technical knowledge.

9.12 p.m.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy (The Earl of Avon)

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, that the question raised by the noble Viscount, Lord St. Davids, is an important one, concerning, as it does, the safety of the electricity consumer. The question is also highly technical. Speaking from this Dispatch Box, I should like to say to the Chief Whip opposite that I consider it totally unfair that he has put up as a spokesman for the Opposition yet another expert to talk to me on this subject. I am afraid that I cannot claim any expertise in these matters. I feel, however, that it might help if I set the Question in the context of the present statutory requirements and the measures taken by the electricity supply industry to protect the consumer.

I was fascinated by the persuasive talk of the noble Viscount. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, was, I believe, speaking against him and then, in his conclusion, was rather for him. I was therefore nearly persuaded back again. My only experience is having one of the noble Viscount's electric boats creep up behind me, which I found a most intriguing experience. Not only is the boat quiet; it is also totally unsmelly. On the River Avon it was quite a charming experience. Otherwise, my only problem—it was probably my own fault—was to cut the wire of an electric hedge cutter.

Having said that, I should like to proceed to the more serious topic. Electrical safety depends first and foremost on the premises being wired to a satisfactory standard. The Electricity Supply Regulations 1937 lay down the statutory standard for acceptance by electricity boards of consumers' wiring for connection to the supply system. But the consumer himself is responsible for maintaining his installation. I cannot stress too strongly the importance to the consumer of having his wiring installation and his electricity appliances checked regularly to ensure that they meet recognised safety standards. This should he done by a reputable electrical contractor.

A roll of such contractors is maintained by the National Inspection Council for Electrical Installation Contractors, which is made up of representatives from all sectors of the electrical contracting industry, such as the Electrical Contractors' Association and the electricity supply industry together with representatives of my department and the Health and Safety Executive who attend the council's meetings as observers.

The standards to be observed by electrical contractors in installing wiring systems are in turn laid down by the Institution of Electrical Engineers in their wiring regulations. These are regularly revised in the light of technical developments and. in fact, they are currently in their fifteenth edition. These statutory and other provisions are designed to protect the electricity consumer, his family and his home against accidents arising from faulty wiring or appliances. Further essential protection is provided by a proper earthing connection. It is in this context that the devices referred to by the noble Viscount are, of course, relevant.

Put simply, the proper earthing of an electrical installation ensures that if a breakdown of insulation occurs anywhere in the system the resulting surge of electrical current will flow rapidly to earth, so blowing the fuse and isolating the faulty part of the circuit. The consumer is also responsible for ensuring that his electrical installation is effectively earthed. This, too, can best be achieved by installation and regular inspection by a reputable electrical contractor. I saw the noble Lord on the Woolsack sipping his water just now and I only hope that he was sufficiently earthed. But, knowing that Black Rod is here. I am sure that he was.

In the past installations were earthed by connection to the incoming water main, but increasing use of electricity in the home and the introduction of nonmetallic piping has rendered this practice unreliable. The electricity supply industry has long recognised the problem facing some consumers in obtaining satisfactory earthing and some years ago adopted a policy of providing an earth terminal. This system gives adequate protection against accidents within a house or other premises in which it is installed. Although this facility was at first provided only to new installations, the electricity supply industry started extending it to include all existing consumers some three years ago. This work is well advanced and an earth terminal will be available to all 20 million domestic consumers by the end of the decade. It is of course a major and costly enterprise.

Despite the statutory provisions on electrical safety and improvements in the inherent safety in the design of electrical appliances, there are, as we have said unfortunately a number of fatal accidents each year from the use of electricity in the home. Electricity boards are under statutory obligation to report these to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy. These have averaged—and I am happy to use this figure in the House this evening—about 60 over the past five years. One noble Lord gave the figure of 80 and another gave the figure of 40. The number of fatalities is, of course, relatively small, but I agree that any death is a tragedy. However, it is not a large proportion, and happily their incidence appears to be slowly declining.

Noble Lords have mentioned fires. I am informed that it is not possible in very many cases to identify the particular cause. Some are no doubt due to electrical faults, as the noble Viscount said, but the most practical and economic way of preventing them is to have, as I mentioned earlier, the electricity system inspected regularly. The majority of these accidents arise from the misuse of electrical appliances and interference by unqualified persons with electrical installations. I must honestly say—and I think that I agree with the noble Earl—that something like this is unlikely to be changed by legislation. The statistics suggest that the overall standard of electrical safety in the home is high, but I have no doubt that all those working in this field are constantly seeking improvements.

That brings me to the circumstances in which the devices referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord St. Davids, may be appropriate. There seem to me to be two sets of circumstances in which they might be particularly necessary. First where the consumer has no access to either a metallic water pipe or an electricity hoard terminal for effective earthing of his system. But these cases, as I have said, are becoming fewer and with the progress of the supply industry's earthing terminal programme will, I hope, be eliminated by the end of the decade.

The second set of circumstances which the noble Viscount put forward is where electrical appliances are used outside the house or other premises. In these circumstances, the consumer is himself likely to be in more direct contact with earth so that the earthing system inside the house may not adequately protect him if he is using a faulty appliance. This situation applies particularly to the use of electrical appliances in the garage or garden and to other outdoor activities—for example, yachting marinas and caravan sites which have electrical points.

The devices referred to are designed to switch off the electricity supply if there is a small variation between the current entering and leaving the circuit to which it is connected. Its ability to respond rapidly to a small current variation can minimise the risk of a consumer receiving a fatal shock when using a faulty electrical appliance in positions in which he or she may he especially vulnerable. If a consumer frequently or even occasionally uses electrical appliances in these circumstances and is concerned about possible risks, then, of course, he would be well advised to consult a reputable contractor.

The current edition of the wiring regulations of the Institution of Electrical Engineers recommends the use of such devices in these circumstances. These regulations set the standards for installation of electrical systems by reputable electrical contractors in this country and are approved by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy under the statutory Electricity Supply Regulations. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, mentioned some of the suggestions; and if they are considered appropriate, I am sure that this is where they should be incorporated. As I pointed out earlier, the institution's regulations take account of the latest technical developments. These include those in member states of the Community. Indeed, we are attempting to harmonise our requirements with those of the Community wherever they are technically compatible. However, I am advised that there is no common practice or standard in the Community on the use of these residual current safety devices. Such information as is readily available suggests that the situation in most Community countries is similar to that in this country; overall safety of wiring installations is governed by statutory regulations, but the use of such additional safety devices is left to the consumer to decide.

The noble Viscount asked whether the Government intended to legislate on this matter: in point of fact that is the Question he has put to us tonight. For the moment we have no intention of interfering with the present legislation under which the consumer is responsible for the effective earthing of his installation. In spite of the noble Viscount's eloquent speech, we do not believe that the present situation requires that consumers be compelled to install these devices. We believe that installation would he costly; the noble Viscount has mentioned his price. Moreover, I believe that there would he the disadvantage—the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, mentioned one of these—that if sensitive enough to give the level of protection desirable in all parts of the installation, it would tend to he activated by normal operation of other parts of the system. The noble Viscount gave his response to this.

Consequently, we believe that the best way of equipping an installation with these devices would be to locate them so as to control various parts of the system. But this of course would add to the expense. This is not to say that the use of such devices would he other than a sensible precaution in the particular circumstances which I have described. But cannot the decision best be left to the good sense of the consumer? The issue of electrical safety is kept under close and continued review by my department's chief engineering inspector and his colleagues in the Institution of Electrical Engineers.

Their conclusions are reflected in the institution's wiring regulations, which all reputable electrical contractors observe. Should any development suggest the need for more stringent action by the Government, the noble Viscount can rest assured that it would be speedily brought to our attention and, if we were convinced of the case, acted upon by appropriate amendment of the statutory regulations, In the meantime, I reiterate that the best protection for the consumer against any electrical mishap is to have his electricity system installed and regularly checked by a reputable contractor.

House adjourned at twenty-four minutes past nine o'clock.