Orders of the Day — Ministry of Fuel and Power Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 23 February 1945.

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Photo of Commander Redvers Prior Commander Redvers Prior , Birmingham Aston 12:00, 23 February 1945

In the course of the Debate much stress has been laid on the production of coal and, except for the brilliant speech of the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell), very little has been said about consumption, which I consider equally important. The Minister for the post-war period has the terrific task of organising the use of our generating power in the most economical manner possible. Take, for example, the generation of electricity. Here in London we still have within a very short distance of each other A.C. and D.C. supplies, and if any one wishes to move from one district on A.C. to another district on D.C. it is at a very grave disadvantage and must be the cause of a waste of man-power, material and capital in meeting the change of requirements for household electricity. Above all we see in our generating stations a huge waste of the power produced by coal. All the latent heat produced by coal is lost in the cooling water, while those who live in close proximity to the stations are often having to go without any heat at all.

The hon. Member for Seaham spoke about fuel research. In 1920 I worked in a factory which was burning, roughly, 100 tons of fuel a day and by changes in our generating system and up-to-date methods, we reduced it by nearly two-thirds. I had occasion to visit the Fuel Research authorities and found them most useful. The hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) spoke about the allocation of moneys for research. There is a huge field for research. Then the hon. Member for Seaham spoke about the gas grid. Everywhere one looks one sees a waste of fuel which is most urgently needed. If this Ministry of Fuel and Power is disbanded and its various functions distributed among other Ministries I fail to see how it will be possible to face the great problems of fuel consumption which must arise. Can it be possible for those various Ministers to negotiate with the utility companies and the local authorities to co-ordinate their supplies of electricity and their supplies of gas? Surely it would be much simpler for all these negotiations to be under one single Ministry. The powers of the Ministry are not, in my opinion, sufficiently wide, and in any case they do not deal with the question of labour. I would suggest that hon. Members should see the other side of this Ministry and give them credit for what they have done in this very critical period of the war. Vast numbers of men, working in this industry, have been taken away. I would suggest that the Ministry be continued.