Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am ar 25 Gorffennaf 1922.
I beg to move to leave out Sub-section (2).
The trial of the bureaucrat is all over this Bill, but I do not think that any Clause discloses the trail more clearly than this Sub-section. How are the authorities to know where they stand? If the producing authority is to conduct its business on ordinary commercial lines, it is its duty to calculate properly in advance so that it will be able to meet any deficiency. This Sub-section is an encouragement to sloppy estimates. It is almost to imitate the way that the government of the country is carried on. No electricity authority would think of carrying on its business in that way and have to bring in additional estimates. All Governments do it., and this Government has been as bad as any previous Government. The authorities must know where they stand. There is no provision made for them to collect the money from their own customers. The producing authority is to come along at the end of a year and say, "Our accountant has been off with influenza, and we have made a mistake. We find that a number of units were not accounted for, and we are going to divide it up amongst you." That is something on the lines of the telephone authority which comes along and charges you for calls which you have not had. That may be good enough for a Government Department, but this is supposed to be a business enterprise. Sub-section (1) says:
The prices charged for electricity by a joint electricity authority shall be so fixed by the authority, subject to such directions as may be given by the Electricity Commissioners, that, over a term of years to be approved by the Electricity Commissioners, their receipts on income account shall be sufficient to cover their expenditure on income account (including interest and sinking fund charges), with such margin as the Electricity Commissioners may allow.
It is their business to calculate and to make a thorough job of it year by year, and not to come along at the end of the year when all the customers have paid their accounts and say, "We want more money." The thing it utterly unbusiness-like, and the Clause uoght to be deleted and the thing put on to the ordinary business lines of a commercial company.