Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am ar 25 Gorffennaf 1922.
I understand that, but the Clause must be read as a whole. It provides that the prices charged for electricity by a joint electrical authority should 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 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 Commissioners may allow. Let the House consider the case I am putting of something which is not immediately carrying its full load and producing its proper revenue—the Commissioners looking at it, and saying, "Over a term of years this will produce an adequate revenue, and we ought not to burden the consumer at once with an extravagant price in order that next year we may reduce it, and the year after we may reduce it again." We ought to do what is always done in such cases by business people—equate, and if there is some deficiency in the early stages, we will make that good in the way which is indicated in Subsection (2), to which my hon. and learned Friend directly applies. Having provided, therefore, that each year is not necessarily to produce such a financial result that you might have to make such a charge as would prevent your getting the customers that are required, and prevent your making your undertaking successful, you have to provide such machinery whereby in the interim that matter may be dealt with.
Sub-section (2) does it. It provides that if receipts are insufficient out of revenue in that year the deficiency shall, unless otherwise provided for out of reserve—which is a perfectly common business process—be apportioned amongst those undertakers within the district who take the supply of electricity from the joint electrical authority in proportion to the number of units of electricity supplied to them. Who is going to apportion it amongst them? Themselves. They are members of the joint authority. It is not a case, as suggested by my hon. and learned Friend, of some bureaucrats coming in and dealing with the matter. This Board, which has as part of its constitution those undertakers as essential members of it, considers how to deal with this temporary deficiency which has arisen. It may say: "We will carry it to reserve." It may say: "Well, we all have our own reserves"—as these distributing agents have. "This is a small matter. We will wipe it off by a small levy amongst ourselves." Or they may go further and say: "It is so small, and the margin is negligible, that we postpone dealing with it until next year." In other words, this Clause, I submit to the judgment of the House, provides the ordinary business method by which business people who conduct undertakings of this kind would deal with it. It is not a question, as my hon. and learned Friend suggests, of bureaucratic control at all. It is not a question of bad or loose estimating, but of making provision for a plant which is not becoming fully remunerative in its infancy.