§ Mr. Eggarasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will list all the nationalised industries nongovernmental organisations and agencies for which his Department either has responsibility or provides funding, as well as those sections of his Department which provide services to the general public or to private organisations; and if he will indicate separately those which at present (a) charge no fees, (b) charge fees which do not fully cover the costs of providing those services, (c) charge fees which exactly cover the costs of providing those services and (d) charge fees which more than cover the costs of providing those services.
§ Mr. Peter Walker:I am responsible for four nationalised industries (National Coal Board, electricity supply industry, British Gas Corporation and British National Oil Corporation) and one non-departmental public body (the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority). In addition, my Department from time to time makes small grant-in-aid payments to bodies such as the British National Committee of the World Energy Conference and the Petroleum Law Education Trust. I have written to the chairmen of the nationalised industries which I sponsor and the chairman of the UKAEA asking them to reply in respect of their organisations.
My Department provides the following services:
- (i) Gas meter testing (including disputed meter testing);
- (ii) Electricity meter testing;
- (iii) Government oil pipeline and storage system (spare capacity in this system, which was constructed for
613 defence purposes, is utilised for commercal throughputs: BNOC manages this activity on behalf of the Department). The Department aims to recover at least the full cost of all three services listed above.