Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am ar 25 Gorffennaf 1922.
I am very sorry. I hope my hon. Friend will accept my explanation, and regard the matter as closed, with the further observation that he does himself a great injustice if he thinks he is not persona grata with myself. Perhaps he will allow me to pass to the merits of the Clause he has moved. I cannot ask the House to accept this Clause. We have by the Clause last passed dealt with the real substance that was desired to be obtained. My hon. Friend moves a Clause that provides that when a generating station is transferred to the joint electricity authority they shall be under an obligation henceforth to supply that authority company, or persons to whom it is transferred, electricity at a cheap rate and under conditions act out in the Clause. The cardinal objection to the Clause is this. Nobody is bound to transfer their stations to the joint electricity authority. If they wish to do so, then they make their own terms and contracts. They may say that they will not transfer their stations, unless the authority undertakes that it will supply them with a certain quantity of electrical energy at a certain price, at a certain frequency, and under conditions which are the subject of bargaining between the parties in their discussions for the transfer of the station. The objection to the new Clause is that it hampers the bargaining of the parties. I desire that there should be the greatest freedom, and that the joint electricity authority that proposes to purchase and the undertaker who has a station that he may, on terms, be willing to part with should be free to make a mutually satisfactory bargain. This was a necessary Clause of the 1919 Bill when compulsory purchase was the subject of legislation. It was, again, a necessary Clause in the Bill the Government first introduced in 1920 which continued the compulsory scheme. Under the purely voluntary principle the party is able to make his own terms for the sale of his station, and I respectfully suggest to the House that it is quite unnecessary to say on what terms that settlement should be made.