§ Mr. Mike Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Energy what was the total amount of depreciation at replacement cost of the Electricity Council and boards in England and Wales in 1974–75 and in any of the previous five years for which figures are available.
§ Mr. BennI regret that figures for depreciation at replacement cost are not available. Exercises undertaken within the electricity supply industry indicate that depreciation provisions related to current price levels using either the current purchasing power method or the current cost accounting method recommended by the Sandilands Committee would exceed historic cost depreciation. However, the effect of inflation on depreciation provisions cannot be looked at in isolation or without regard to the other important aspects of inflation accounting currently under consideration by the Morpeth Committee.
§ Mr. Mike Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Energy what was the total profit after depreciation and all other costs, except interest payments, earned by the electricity boards in England and Wales on their contracting work and on their sales of appliances, respectively, in 1974–75 and any of the five preceding years for which figures are available.
§ Mr. BennThe trading and net revenue accounts of area electricity board's contracting and sale of appliances activities are shown at Statements A6(a) and A6(b) of the Electricity Council's Statement of Accounts and Statistics, copies of which are available in the Library. Separate figures are given for each activity for individual boards to the gross profit stage and indirect costs are analysed in detail for each board for contracting and sales of appliances combined. The analysis of indirect costs between the two activities involves difficult problems of allocation.