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 stated the reasons in Committee, I will tell the House, briefly, now. Section 12, which was a limitation on the powers of the joint electricity authorities, was in the Bill when compulsion was possible, when it was possible to take away a station from its owner without his consent. It was, therefore, necessary in the Bill to put in words providing that the owner of the station should have a supply from the joint electricity authority to whom his station had passed. But that state of things has gone entirely. No one is bound to sell his station unless the terms are satisfactory, and no municipal authority or urban district authority would ever dream of Felling their stations unless the terms were satisfactory. Does the hon. Member, who is himself a member of a local authority, suggest to me, who was for many years a member of a local authority, that it is possible to find anywhere in the land a courted, a borough, a county borough, an urban district, or a rural district authority that would sell its station to the joint electricity authority, and find that by doing so it was unable to get a supply from that station?