Orders of the Day — ELECTRICITY (SUPPLY) BILL [Lords].

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am ar 25 Gorffennaf 1922.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Mr Arthur Neal Mr Arthur Neal , Sheffield, Hillsborough

I am rather glad that my hon. Friend's speech has been deferred to the Third Reading, because it may give him an opportunity of reading the Clause. I am quite sure that the speech he has made in seconding the Amendment of my hon. Friend was certainly made without his having taken the trouble to read the Clause, or, I think, the Amendment which he was seconding. The Amendment is to a Sub-section which deals with the borrowing powers for particular expenditure rather than the general borrowing powers of the joint electricity authority. It is a perfectly common form not only in the Electricity Acts, but in every other Act which deals with the control of the borrowing powers of the authorities, for instance, of municipal corporations who have to obtain sanction for their borrowing. Somebody ought to be charged with the responsibility of seeing that these borrowing powers bear as strict a relationship as may be to the life of the asset in respect of which the borrowing is to be made.

In the Committee I accepted an Amendment to insert the term of 60 years. Unless I am very much mistaken—I have not verified this—but I believe in the Standing Orders of the House there is one which provides for the limit of 60 years in respect of the sanction to borrowing powers by the House in the matter of private Bills. Certainly 60 years is the usual term granted in respect of plant, not of wasting assets. Therefore, I went further, anti I promised I would see, in consultation with my advisers, as to whether we could not include in the Clause terms in respect of the matters specified, and that the Mover of the Amendment has suggested. My hon Friend is immediately answered by the hon. Gentleman who seconded the Amendment, who says that these terms are altogether inappropriate. He further states that the Electricity Commissioners or the Minister are embarking upon a policy of stereotyping everything. I am now dealing with the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for the Mossley Division (Mr. Hopkinson), who says that there can be nothing more inappropriate than an attempt to put in a Clause a term of years as a maximum which every applicant would forthwith regard as something he ought to have.

An Amendment may be put into an Act of Parliament fixing terms for the authorisation of things. At that moment your troubles begin, because the person who wants borrowing powers wants to arrange the kind of terms which ought to he given. Although it is quite true you are not bound by them, it is equally true you raise expectations and find it extremely difficult to get away from them. Does anyone suppose for a moment—dealing with the point just put forward in the speech of the hon. Member who last spoke—that the Electricity Commissioners would dream of giving a long term for wasting assets? The fact is that they are giving very short terms indeed for wasting assets. They are constantly in touch with the industry. No one is better qualified to know what takes place from day to day and from year to year; the improvements that are made, and the obsolescence and depreciation which are necessary. They fix a term of years in consultation with the leaders of the great electrical industry, and they take care that no loan period exceeds the life of the assets. If this Amendment were accepted, they would be very much handicapped in doing exactly what the hon. Member who moved it desired they should do. May I in passing say that if this Amendment were accepted, the low term for a generating station would be 10 years? I am sure my hon. Friend has not visualised that, because he says, "any other assets" 10 years. How would that fit in with a great generating station with a long life before it? That undertaking would have a limited loan period of 10 years.