METROPOLITAN WATER BOARD BILL (By Order).

Part of Private Business. – in the House of Commons am ar 18 Chwefror 1935.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Mr John Llewellin Mr John Llewellin , Uxbridge

We must approach this matter really from this point of view. This House has set up a great institution in the Metropolitan Water Board, which is responsible for supplying some 560 square miles of the most thickly populated area in the whole world, and some 7,250,000 people. We all had a certain amount of misgiving during the second dry summer. It was a ques tion whether the water supply of London would hold out during that summer or not. In fact, it did. We are short-lived both in our political memories and in other memories in this country. but surely our memory is not so short-lived as to forget entirely that we had grave misgivings during the months of last summer as to whether the water supply of this great area would hold out or not, and we had, of course, to place restrictions on the supplies of a large number of people. Now this board is coming to the House and putting up a scheme for two large reservoirs. The effect of carrying the Instruction would be to cut away one-half of the Bill. It would leave it with only half its value as a supply proposition for the Metropolis.

Are we going to do that after just hearing in this House ex parte statements on one side or the other, or are we going to send the matter to a Committee upstairs? That is the whole and sole point that this House has to decide when it votes, if it does vote, on this Instruction to-night. There is not one of us who would like to see a man, apparently like Mr. Secrett, dispossessed of a farm of which he has made full use. After all, the Metropolitan Water Board will have to pay him full compensation for all these miles of pipes, and probably 10,000 tons of manure as well, and rightly so. But when we are informed that this is the best place in the opinion of the board, I do not think any of us can say that this big public body has just said, "Here is a good agricultural farm; we will take it." They have, obviously, gone into this matter from the point of view of knowing where best to get their supplies of water. This farm happens to be near their main intake. This new reservoir therefore happens to be an extension of the existing works, and from this point of view it is really the right place in which to put the reservoir, if indeed no better place can be found. But the people to decide whether another and a better place can be found are a trusted Committee of this House, after hearing the evidence on each side, and I have not the slightest doubt that Mr. Secrett, who has been able to organise considerable opposition in this House, will be able to put up quite as good a show before the Committee to whom, I hope, the House will allow the whole of the Bill to go.