I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

I am moving the new Clause on behalf of the Opposition. It shows our concern that giant corporations enjoying vast resources and having access to great wealth should not be put in a privileged position.

The Opposition are firm advocates of public ownership, because we believe that private ownership has led to the misuse of economic power in the community and because we believe that, far from enhancing human dignity and freedom, private enterprise reduces them, and so we support nationalisation. We support nationalisation because we believe that with the removal of the private profit motive, the relationship between management and men may be improved when men believe that their welfare and, in this context, their safety are placed before the profit motive, and we believe that in consequence they will be happier at work.

The new Clause attempts to redress the balance between a giant corporation—a State corporation—and private individuals. We put forward the Clause because we do not want to create a situation of State capitalism. We want our State industries to be more accountable and more responsive to the needs of individuals.

The issue before us this morning, stated very simply, is whether the Gas Board should pay compensation in those cases where gas accidents, mainly explosions, have led to loss of life, injury or damage to property. At present under the Gas Act, 1965, the gas authority is absolutely liable for damage caused by an escape of gas from an underground gas storage. At common law it is liable for damage resulting from an escape of gas from mains or a piped flow only if negligence can be established against the authority.

The public has to deal with two situations: first, the situation that exists when gas escapes from an underground storage when the gas authority is under an absolute liability; and, secondly, the situation which exists when gas escapes from pipes from a distribution system in which the gas authority is not absolutely liable.

If our new Clause is adopted, as we sincerely hope it will be, it will have the effect of making the new Gas Council absolutely liable for damage caused by an escape of gas from any gas mains or pipe, as it is now absolutely liable for damage caused by an escape of gas from an underground gas storage.

I shall refer to this item in a little more detail later, but at the outset I wish to make it absolutely clear that what the new Clause will not do is to make the new Gas Council absolutely liable for explosions which take place in the home as a result of defects in domestic appliances over which it could be said that the gas authority, the Gas Council, could have no control.

rose—

I am reluctant to give way now. Perhaps a little later I will give way to my hon. Friend.

One part of my argument is that in the new Clause we have confined absolute liability only to those situations in which the Gas Council or other public authorities have absolute control. We have not attempted to extend the scope of the new Clause to those situations where it could be perhaps rightly argued that other persons are responsible because of their own failings.

The Post Office Engineering Union has taken counsel's opinion on the law as it at present stands and it does not appear to be very clear. I shall try to summarise that legal opinion.

Under the provisions of the Gas Act, 1948, gas boards are required to supply gas under certain conditions. Therefore, the boards are under a statutory obligation to supply gas. Since Parliament at that time foresaw that in carrying out such a duty gas may escape, that Act provided for penal liability for failure to rectify a gas escape within 24 hours of receiving notification in writing of such an escape. It has long been felt that where an authority is under an obligation under statute to supply gas, damage caused by its escape is not actionable without negligence, though one exception to this rule is underground storage. This particularly applies in a claim for nuisance.

The advice given to the POEU was that the decisions of the courts and the provisions of the Gas Act, 1948, make it absolutely necessary for the law to be amended if the public is to be fully protected against the hardship caused by gas explosions following leakages from gas pipes. We should like to have from the Minister the Government's view about the complex state of the law.

My interest in this subject stems from experiences in my constituency and from representations made to me by the POEU. I have taken up two constituency cases which highlight the injustice of the law as it stands—one case resulted in damage to property and the other case resulted in death. I consider loss of life and injury to be much more important matters than damage to property and I hope to argue that point on later Amendments.

On 31st December, 1968, an explosion occurred in an unattended automatic telephone exchange situated behind some shops in the main street in Newcastle Road, Madeley, Staffordshire. This occurred during the life of my predecessor, Stephen Swingler, who was then the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme. Stephen Swingler wrote to the then Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Power, my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Freeson). My hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, East who was then the Minister, said in a letter dated 28th January, 1969:

"A gas leak was reported in the early hours of 31st December and an emergency team from the Gas Board went to the spot to trace the source of the gas. The explosion took place an hour or so after their arrival in the automatic telephone exchange. It appeared that gas had escaped into the exchange from a fracture in the main under the roadway, but this is not yet established firmly or in detail. No one was injured but the exchange was as a result damaged, nearby cars, flats and shops were damaged. A large number of windows were broken. The Gas Board admit no liability. They insure against this kind of risk and the matter is with their insurers. This is the normal position a board takes in these circumstances. It follows that they cannot join issue direct with your aggrieved constituents, though they did authorise without prejudice and with the householders acknowledging this, the repair of damaged windows at the Board's expense. I think that the best course would be for your constituents to submit claims and consult with their insurers or their legal advisers. This is how the issues are dealt with in other cases, and the circumstances do not seem to warrant by-passing these processes by a public inquiry."

On Stephen's death, this case was taken up, during the temporary absence of a Labour Member of Parliament for Newcastle-under-Lyme, by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley). On 29th August, 1969—a delay of eight months from the time of the accident—the West Midlands Gas Board wrote to him saying that a letter had been received from the Board's insurers as follows:

"Our enquiries into the above explosion revealed that as a result of a fractured gas main, gas entered GPO underground ducting and from there travelled to and collected in a GPO automatic telephone exchange. The probability is that, as the Press reports indicate, an automatic operation inside the exchange ignited the gas and the explosion occurred. We are quite satisfied that the gas main did not fracture as a result of any negligence on the part of the Board and as a consequence we do not consider any legal liability rests with the Board. Therefore, although we have the utmost sympathy for the numerous third parties, we have no alternative but to decline legal responsibility on behalf of the Board."

The insurance company, we were told, proposed to write on the above lines to all the claimants.

This case illustrates the injustice which can be done to ordinary people. As a result of this incident, involving without a shadow of doubt two nationalised industries, neither of which would accept responsibility, one of my constituents, Mr. J. Wilton, was unable to secure compensation for damage amounting to £26 to his garage. When I compare the annual turnover of the gas authority and the annual turnover and revenues of the Post Office telecommunications business with the income of Mr. Wilton, it seems to me that £26 becomes a major issue of principle.

Not only was Mr. Wilton's garage destroyed, but a property company, Lower Mill Properties, which owned a block of flats, also suffered loss. I do not care quite so deeply about its loss. Being a business, those concerned could well look after themselves. However, this company has been trying until January this year to get redress, but unsuccessfully.

I do not propose to read the correspondence which I have had with the Department about this case; the Undersecretary of State will be well aware of it. But it became apparent to me from correspondence with the Department of Trade and Industry that it had no intention of changing the strong and privileged position of the gas authority. Far from being concerned with defending the interests of the individual, the Government have preferred to defend the interests of the giant, financially strong public corporation.

This impression of injustice has been reinforced in my mind in recent weeks in dealing with a case involving the death in March this year of a 77-year-old Newcastle-under-Lyme man, Mr. Stubbs. At his inquest, as reported in the Newcastle Times, a neighbour of Mr. Stubbs, Mr. Spender, said that before the explosion he and his family smelt gas. He called the gas board's emergency service and extinguished all naked flames within the household. Soon after the telephone call, a gas fitter arrived and found that the leak was coming from outside. Mr. Spender said that the fitter was just about to warn Mr. Stubbs of the danger when there was a terrific blast and the next thing he knew was that there were crowds of people outside. Mr. Stubbs caught fire and subsequently died.

It is important not to cast aspersions on employees of nationalised industries. The hon. Gentleman has considerable experience in the Post Office. If a Post Office engineer is called upon to give an independent report, irrespective of its effect on the industry, surely the hon. Gentleman does not suggest that the engineer will make a report which is other than truthful? That being so, it is fair to draw the parallel that gas board engineers fully realise their responsibility. We should therefore pay tribute to them and not suggest that they might not report fairly or properly because of the effect that an independent report might have on the industry.

Certainly in this case I would not make such an aspersion. The levels of danger are different. After the Madeley gas explosion the Post Office swore that it was the gas board's responsibility and the gas board said that it was the Post Office's responsibility. However objective engineers believe themselves to be, they have institutional loyalties. As Post Office, gas board or electricity board men they tend to develop a loyalty to their organisation. However objective they think they are being, they will be less objective than an outside inquiry.

An analogy is to be found in the Bill. The Department is responsible for meter readers. If there is a dispute between a customer and the gas board, the Department is able to put in meter readers to deliver an impartial judgment. Disputes arising from death and injury are more important than disputes arising on the size of the bills. The men who are responsible for the preparation of bills within the gas board are also likely to be men of honesty and integrity.

In highlighting these two cases, I realise that I may be giving the impression that there is a growing hazard from natural gas. I want to put this into perspective. The accident at Madeley occurred before conversion to natural gas. In several respects natural gas is much safer than town gas, although in one specific way, to which I will refer later, it is much more dangerous.

In support of this view let me add that in 1970 the Minister of Technology received a report on the inquiry into the safety of natural gas as a fuel from Professor Frank Morton. He had been appointed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever) on 13th March because of the growing concern over the hazards of natural gas. Much of the report deals with the problems of conversion and I shall not address myself to those. The report illustrates how much safer natural gas is in the home because it is non-toxic. Deaths due to gas poisoning either accidentally or by suicide have dropped dramatically over the last few years. That is why when people speaking for the gas authority say that the number of deaths has diminished and therefore there is no problem, some of us become very concerned.

We appreciate that the total hides the true position. The report makes it clear that the high-pressure bulk transmission system for natural gas in Great Britain has been designed, constructed and laid to the most exacting standards and all possible safety precautions have been taken. It is also apparent that the governors used in the distribution system at all points at which it is necessary to control differences in pressure at various stages, including the supply of gas from street mains to consumers' premises, are of a very high standard of design and quality to provide for the adequate protection of the system against sudden pressure surges.

Professor Morton said:

"The surveys of consumers' appliances and installations made prior to conversion…and the subsequent replacement of many unserviceable appliances and rectification of defective conditions, should lead to substantially higher levels of safety and efficiency in the use of gas, provided that consumers comply with the recommendations issued by the gas boards following these surveys."

I fully accept this.

Following this report I believe that the domestic consumer need have no unnecessary fears. There is still a great deal of room for worry on the part of others. Let me give the reasons. Writing on page 10 of the report Professor Morton explains that:

"Fire occurs when gas escapes from its containing system, mixes with air and is ignited from some source. Explosion results when the speed of flame travelling through the gas-air mixture exceeds certain limits and particularly when the gas-air mixture is confined. The gas may escape as a result of leakages in transmissions and distribution lines, failure of joints to remain gastight, leakage through pipe walls as a result of corrosion, or from ill-fitting or mal-adjusted connections. It may also escape as a result of careless or accidental misuse of an appliance or from the failure or malfunctioning of the appliance."

This Clause is concerned only with explosions following gas escapes

"as a result of leakages in transmission and distribution lines, because of the failure of joints to remain gas-tight, because of leakage through pipe walls, as a result of corrosion, or from ill-fitting or mal-adjusted connections."

12.15 p.m.

It is not concerned with the careless or accidental misuse of an appliance or with the failure or malfunctioning of the appliance. It is from the area distribution systems that the main hazards arise. To quote Professor Morton again:

"Medium and low pressure feeder and street mains are occasionally of welded steel construction but are more often built up of sections of cast-iron pipe connected by socketed joints. The traditional type of joint in the older cast-iron mains, of which there are many thousands of miles throughout the country, is the open socketed type in which the sealing material is hemp yarn held in position by lead. The transition to dry, manufactured gas and natural gas has caused frequent leakages from these joints as a result of the drying out of the hemp packing."

I will return to this because to a great extent it is the nub of the problem. Professor Morton said:

"The transition to dry, manufactured gas and natural gas has caused frequent leakages from these joints as a result of the drying out of the hemp packing."

He went on to say that action has been taken and

"as a result the number of leakages per mile of main has dropped significantly in the last few years".

He goes on:

"Leakage from the older types of gas main has been a familiar problem for many years and the gas boards are well aware of the danger from leaks and the cost to themselves of any substantial loss of gas. The use of higher pressures, drier gas and latterly natural gas in the district systems has caused the gas board to undertake intensive programmes of clamping, sealing and—where necessary—renewal."

So far so good. But some of this, as I shall show later, is open to argument. Consider Professor Morton's last statement in the light of the complacency that we face from the departments in the gas authority. Professor Morton said:

"The total length of gas mains in the country is so vast, however (of the order of 120,000 miles of main and several millions of joints), that many years will be needed for the elemination of all risks."

That is a most significant statement.

I am waiting to hear how the Government at this late date intend to deal with this statement. If many years will be needed for the elemination of all leaks, at least we have to acknowledge that leaks can destroy the lives of Post Office engineers and electricians either literally or by disfigurement or invalidity. This paragraph of the Report appears to be far too complacent. Perhaps this is because Professor Morton sought only the opinions of unions in the gas industry and not those unions whose members are especially affected by leakages, such as the electrical unions working on the distribution of electricity and the Post Office Engineering Union.

There seems to be a conflict of view about piping. I have already quoted the views of the coroner in my own constituency. I have also underlined the fact that in practice in my constituency at least—and probably it applies to the whole of the West Midlands—there is only limited visual inspection of piping before conversion. That is a statement taken under oath at an inquest and not one made by officials far removed from what happens in the field.

Following the terrible Clarkston Toll explosion, while the Paisley jury could not find fault or negligence on the part of any person or persons, it found that

"…the accident was caused as a result of gas escaping through a fracture in the four-inch gas main laid beneath the pavements in front of the shops in Clarkston Toll shopping centre into the unventilated void below the shopping centre, which gas subse- quently became ignited and exploded, and there was no evidence laid before us from which we are able to hold it proved what the cause of the ignition was".

It had been proved to the jury's satisfaction that the main fractured as a result of stress and corrosion.

Incidentally, after the verdict the chairman of the Scottish Gas Board, Mr. Ronald Parker, said:

"There will be—in fact it has already started—a careful review of our current practices to see what improvement can be made."

We want more than improvement. We want the avoidance of all such incidents. We shall be interested to hear what has followed from that terrible gas explosion which received so much publicity.

In citing that case, I want to re-emphasise to the Minister that for some family each individual gas explosion is as important as a major disaster. We expect the Department to take them very seriously.

It has been argued by many people—and I have cited the coroner of Newcastle-under-Lyme—that trouble is caused because gas is put through at double the pressure to that for which the system was provided. Some of those to whom I have spoken are not convinced that the pressure is the cause. They remind me that it was a feature of the old town gas that, being damp, even when a pipe disintegrated the damp gas could create for itself a pathway of moulded soil from which it would not escape. Instances have been quoted to me where a pipe has virtually disappeared but where, because of the dampness of the gas that had gone through it, no leakage had occurred because it had created for itself its own pipe. As is clear from Professor Morton's Report, natural gas has not this property.

Leakages are producing alarm among some employees of other nationalised industries who are employed in underground manholes, which are confined spaces subject to explosion. They are especially threatened by the defect revealed in the Morton Report concerning joints. Affecting Post Office engineers probably more than others, there is also the growing practice of the gas authority of testing for gas by sealing off Post Office ducts rather than using steel probes. Thus not only are members of the general public faced with hazards for which there is no compensation; employees of other nationalised industries also face the problem. I shall refer shortly to the risk which exists in connection with telephone kiosks used by the general public, since they also are subject to this hazard.

Does not my hon. Friend agree that in any circumstances where there is a duct coming into a piece of apparatus from the soil there is always a very great risk?

Of course there is a risk, and I am trying to outline it. I notice that from time to time the Minister does not look quite as serious about this matter as he should. I emphasise that what we are discussing is not only the destruction of property; it is the destruction of the lives of ordinary people. I need only show hon. Members the face of a man burned in a gas explosion which is portrayed in the Post Office booklet on gas precautions to demonstrate the reality of what we are discussing. It is a very serious problem about which all should be concerned.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer) is better able than I am to speak for employees in the electricity industry. I know that he has questioned Ministers diligently on this subject. If he succeeds in catching your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have no doubt that he will speak with great experience of the electricity industry.

I intend to confine my present remarks to the representations made to me by the Post Office Engineering Union. One of its Assistant Secretaries, Mr. Brind, has the terrible responsibility of having to process the claims of Post Office engineers and their families after gas explosions have damaged their lives. Perhaps at this point I ought to declare my own interest, since it will be known that I am an officer of that union.

Despite the impression give by the gas authority, since the advent of natural gas, the number of gas accidents involving those who work down manholes has increased alarmingly. I quote from the Post Office magazine Engineering Safety of July, 1971. On the front page of that edition Alistair Campbell reports:

"Gas accidents in the Post Office have multiplied more than five times over the past seven years. In the two years since Engineering Safety last put the spotlight on gas hazards, the accident figures have almost doubled. Where men are involved in such accidents the consequences are almost always serious for eight out of every ten cases are explosions. Faces and hands almost always get badly burned—one of the most miserable and painful forms of injury. Suffering can be long—and absences from work from two to five months are extremely common. The accident figures are even more worrying when looked at against the huge effort being put into precautionary measures."

The point the article does not make is that it is not only faces and hands that are normally damaged when a gas explosion takes place. Usually the men are in a crouching position, so they receive the blast not only in the face and hands, but in the groin. Impotence can therefore be one of the consequences of a gas explosion when working in a confined manhole.

12.30 p.m.

In 1963 there were 12 gas accidents. By 1970 the number had risen to 68. The evidence is that they are increasing in the short run. What are the reasons for this? They are those I have indicated which were either treated scantily or ignored by the Morton Committee Report.

Of the various cases in which explosions have taken place down manholes, I will refer to an instance when an explosion took place before tests for gas could even be made. Such an accident occurred in the London area in April, 1970. A member engaged on a cable recovery operation was removing a manhole cover while another member went to the gas vehicle to obtain a gas detector. The manhole cover lid had been removed for only some seconds when the explosion occurred. There were successive explosions along the road with manhole covers being blow from their positions. Counsel said that there was no evidence to show that the gas board knew of any leakage or could reasonably have suspected any such leakage before the explosion occurred. A consultant engineer said that it was difficult to ascertain the cause of the explosion. He said:

"From the information to hand, there were no naked lights in the vicinity and the possibility is that a steel tip on one of the men's boots may have made a spark by striking the manhole surround, which brought about ignition of the gas."

The young man concerned suffered burns to his face and hands. He will get no compensation from the gas board. I have outlined that case because it illustrates the total injustice of the situation.

The more normal case is where a test for gas has been made by engineers, no positive result is obtained of the presence of gas, work commences, and then an explosion occurs. That situation has become much more common with natural gas. The reason, which I have outlined, is that revealed in the Morton Committee Report when dealing with defective joints. The old town gas was a wet gas, and it helped to keep the hemp seals effective by keeping them damp. If the gas leaked it made the earth around the pipe damp and that retained the gas.

Natural gas is a different animal; it has different properties and opposite tendencies. It dries out the seals and makes it possible for gas to leak from the pipe. Having leaked, it passes easily through the earth—it does not dampen it—to some natural cavity. Pressure builds up and, when it passes a certain point, the gas passes quickly down the path of least resistance at speed.

That path can well be a Post Office duct leading into a manhole in which men are working. That gas can be ignited by just the movement of a cable or even, as I have illustrated, by a spark from a boot during normal operations. Such an explosion can lead to terrible consequences; but, because the gas board is not absolutely liable at common law, no compensation would be payable. As I have already explained, natural gas also escapes more easily through corroded or fractured piping.

It could be said in answer that if there were audio detectors down the manholes some accidents could be avoided. Unfortunately, such is the way in which we treat safety that the Post Office, which can contemplate spending £200 million to £400 million on new types of equipment, will argue that the provision of audio detectors is too expensive. Basically I agree that rather than have improved methods of detection, it would be far better to prevent the leakages.

In addition to danger from leaks from hemp seals, men who work down Post Office manholes now face an additional hazard—the change in the method of de-detecting leaks. The old method was for the gas authority to drive a steel spike into the ground at various points within the reported area. A probe was then inserted and coupled to a meter which indicated the gas content until it could be determined where the heaviest concentration existed. That gave the gas authority an indication of the source of the leak.

With the development of polythene cables and plastic water pipes, the gas board decided that this method was too expensive because it had to carry an insurance premium to cover the damage to polythene cables and plastic water pipes. Instead, the gas board has decided to use a method of detecting through Post Office ducts. The board persuades the Post Office to lift the covers off any manholes in an area and then to seal the duct entrances. After that the area is vacated for a period. A probe is then inserted via the duct seal to ascertain which length of duct has the highest concentration of gas, thus giving the board a lead as to the source of the gas leak.

That method can and does lead to accidents. Early in 1970 an accident occurred in the Greater London area from this cause. Two days before this incident, the gas board was involved with a leak which affected the cable ducts and manholes. To trace it, the ducts were sealed off. Two Post Office men, not having been told of this and having taken a gas test using a standard indicator, entered the manhole. While they were removing the faulty cable, probably because of the movement of the cable, an explosion occurred.

Although they are injured, those men are unlikely to receive compensation. They have suffered terrible injury through no fault of their own but because of a defective system operated by the gas board. What is most terrible to contemplate is that the gas board is prepared to use a method of gas detection to avoid damage to a polythene cable and water pipes because it will have to pay an insurance to cover that damage, yet it is prepared to use a method of gas detection which it knows can cause loss of life or serious injury to Post Office engineers, because it will not have to pay for that loss of life or injury.

That is the present state of the law, and it is a damnable situation. It would be an intolerable attitude for any private industry to take, but for a nationalised industry, backed by a Department of State, it is even worse.

I have talked about the threat to Post Office engineers, as I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central will be able to talk about the hazards to electricians. Perhaps the Department will take more notice about dangers to the public. I have said that the dangers in the home have reduced, but there is one situation in which danger to the public has increased as a result of conversion to natural gas.

I take it as a sick joke when I see that the Gas Council, preparing for the new powers of the British Gas Corporation, has published a booklet entitled "Natural Gas on Target". The target could well be the public in telephone kiosks.

I have just received a letter dated 20th June, 1972, from a branch secretary of the Post Office Engineering Union in East London. He writes:

"Dear John,

Reports of North Sea Gas in East Area

I have many more cases throughout the area, but here are a few from one notice-board at a T.S.C. Date 19.6.72.

25 reports of gas of 100 per cent. on Detector No. 5 from 2nd June 1972 to 13th June 1972."

He says that four were in cabinets and 20 in manholes and footway boxes, but perhaps the Department will not concern itself over-much about this. Perhaps it can shrug that off as someone else's responsibility. Cabinets mainly concern the lives and limbs of Post Office engineers.

12.45 p.m.

But the remaining case was a public kiosk at the corner of Belgrave Road and Northbrook Road in Ilford. It was reported on 31st May and cleared on 7th June, 1972—a week in which a hazard existed for the people of Ilford. Mr. Lay says that, although this was cleared in a week, no doubt because it was a public kiosk, he is used to gas leaks taking much longer to clear. He says that the other 24 cases took much longer.

He says that the danger here

"…is that we the Engineers, by virtue of our type of work, i.e. manholes and footway boxes…would take tests. Call boxes, maintenance—a subs, apparatus man would go to clear fault and would not take gas test…"

Indeed, he does not carry detection equipment in his kit.

This is a sentence which the Minister should note and on which he should have discussions with the Post Office as well as the Gas Board:

"There could be lots of kiosks that are potential bombs and no-one will ever know, because they are not in the usual line of testing."

On both sides of the House, at Question time, I have heard both the Postmaster-General and the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications answering hon. Members on both sides who deprecate vandalism in public call boxes. But vandalism is nothing compared with the irresponsibility of allowing call boxes to go unexamined when the escape of gas through ducts could turn them, as Mr. Lay says, into potential bombs.

Against the background that I have outlined, there should be no doubt on the part of the Government that they should place upon the new Gas Council an absolute liability for damage. The present Chief Secretary said during the debates on the 1965 Gas Act:

"…'Absolutely liable' means that it shall be unconditionally liable—that the plaintiff in any case does not need to prove negligence or breach of any other of the rules of law, statutory or common law, which would give rise to a liability."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th April, 1965: Standing Committee B, c. 341.]

How useful would it be to escape from argument about the common law and what an advantage to the individual citizen in circumstances like this to be able to escape from the common lawyers.

We know that onus of proof can be difficult for the ordinary individual to prove. One of my hon. and learned Friends has advised me that a Court of Appeal decision recently may have gone some way towards placing the onus of proof on the gas authority. At present, if one has to prove liability, one has to enter a lottery.

I quote from a learned work, "Damages for Personal Injuries and Death", by J. Munkman, LL.B.:

"If we are to talk about real law reform, then I agree negligence is unsatisfactory, and the remedy for this is to recognise that (with some exceptions for 'give-and-take' situations) it is a tort (i.e., a duty imposed by law), for which compensation is payable if bodily injury is caused to the plaintiff (whether negligently or not), by the defendant, or by servants, agents, animals or property under his control."

I was very interested to read a recent article in the Listener, by Sir Leslie Scarman, Chairman of the English Law Commission, who wrote:

"During the last hundred years our law has evolved the doctrine of negligence, the principle that compensation for accidental personal injury depends upon proof of fault. What this principle means in practice is that, if you are injured in an accident, you have to prove someone is to blame, if you are to get any compensation—other, of course, than your National Insurance and supplementary benefits. This was all very well when society was much less at the mercy of machines."

I might say in parenthesis that this was all very well before the advent of natural gas. He continued:

"Indeed, there is justice in the view that a man must be proved to have done wrong before he can be compelled to pay damages. But does it make sense today? If you are knocked down in the street, why should your compensation depend on whether you are lucky enough to be able to prove by evidence that the motorist was at fault? Suppose you were rendered unconscious and nobody else was there to see what happened. Law under which one man, because he has evidence, may recover damages measured in thousands of pounds, while another, because he has no evidence, can get nothing, is clearly suspect. One could go on accumulating instances, but the problem of compensation for accidental injury is enough to reveal the need for apparatus to ensure that problems of law reform are tackled before they become a social scandal."

The law relating to damage caused by gas explosions is already a social scandal. I have read with interest the debates on the introduction by the 1965 Act of the doctrine of absolute liability on the part of the gas authority for damage caused by leaks from underground storage. In the debate in the other place Lord Champion said:

"It is exceptional to impose absolute liability",

but he emphasised that it was because underground storage was absolutely new in this country, and

"for that reason people may be uncertain and apprehensive about the possibility that some accident may injure people or damage their property."

In support of his argument he said that absolute liability was placed on nuclear reactors by the Nuclear Installations Act, 1959, adding:

"underground storage has already been widely practised abroad and its safety and practicability are well established. Nevertheless, the Government considered that the imposition of absolute liability to the extent provided for in Clause 14 of this Bill was justified because of the novelty of this development in this country."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 17th June, 1965; Vol. 267, c. 213.]

Since 1965 there has been the development of another novelty which would justify the extension of absolute liability from underground gas storage to underground gas pipes. I repeat that the new Clause does not cover domestic apparatus. The novelty to which I refer is natural gas. In the Second Reading debate on the 1965 Measure my right hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Mr. Frederick Lee), then Minister of Power, was able to say of natural gas:

"there is the possibility of natural gas being found under the North Sea. It cannot, of course, be assumed that any gas will be found there or that, if it were, the amount would be significant in relation to our fuel supplies."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th February, 1965; Vol. 706, c. 580.]

That illustrates the novelty. In the last debate on legal liability, natural gas was being talked about only as a possibility.

If people wanted assurance against underground gas storage, which the Government knew to be safe, how much more do they want assurance against the consequences of gas leaks, which an inquiry has declared for the time being to be inevitable! I repeat that Professor Morton has said that the gas leaks will continue. Is it because there is danger that the State is refusing to accept liability? Will it accept absolute liability only when, as in 1965, it knows itself to be safe, when it knows that it will never have to pay compensation? If so, that is disgraceful.

People want not only assurance but rather more compensation. The common law is expensive. All complex legal argument is expensive, and it would be better to simplify the procedures so that cash can end up in the pockets of those who have suffered from a gas explosion rather than in the bank balances of the lawyers.

The imposition of absolute liability on the Gas Council could well lead to higher standards of gas safety in the areas which I have discussed. I have described how being subject to liability if it damages polythene or plastic, it adopts detection measures which put the lives and limbs of electricians and Post Office engineers at risk. If the pounds and pence of those lives and limbs were assessed against the pounds and pence of polythene and plastic, we might find the Gas Council becoming more safety-conscious.

If the property in my constituency to which I have referred had been damaged by subsidence resulting from coal-mining, the National Coal Board would have accepted full liability. It would have taken me one leter to obtain satisfaction for my constituents. My constituent whose garage was damaged would not have been treated so badly. If the members of the Post Office Engineering Union who were hurt had suffered as a result of sewer seepage, they would have been compensated by the sewerage authority. An absolute liability is placed on nuclear energy installations. That is reasonable. It is right that the price of coal should reflect the damage caused by its extraction and that those who benefit from the production of nuclear energy should be prepared to insure those who might be at risk. On the same argument, the price of gas should also include an element to cover compensation for those damaged by its distribution.

I should not need to emphasise that individuals are far less able to carry the burden, and neither the Government, the Gas Council nor the gas consumer has a right to expect those individuals whose property has been damaged or—more important—those whose lives have been destroyed, alone to pay the price for the lack of total gas safety.

1.0 p.m.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding), with customary modesty, explained that he was making an outline case. I think he did himself injustice because the House should be grateful to him for the careful and painstaking way in which he introduced new Clause 1. We on this side of the House—and I in particular, perhaps, because of my close connection with the electricity supply industry—feel that the new Clause is necessary to put right a serious situation, in which there is a continuing danger of injustice to employees in the public services and to the public itself because great risks are being incurred with no proper system of compensation.

It is a situation likely to get worse, as my hon. Friend said. It is not only he who has raised the issue. I have raised it from time to time; my hon. Friend the Member for Wands worth, Central (Mr. Thomas Cox), with his practical experience, has also raised it. I believe that hon. Members opposite have done so as well. It is an extremely serious matter and we hope that the Undersecretary of State will not only take the argument seriously but will accept the Clause.

First, I turn to what the lawyers know as the generality of the case. Those who served on the Standing Committee will know what I am referring to. Clause 2 lays certain duties on the new Corporation:

"It shall be the duty of the Corporation to develop and maintain an efficient, co-ordinated and economical system of gas supply for Great Britain…"

Those words are all right as far as they go, but nothing is included to place any duty on the Corporation to maintain a safe system of supply. The question of safety is covered, in so far as it is covered, by Clause 31, but the way in which it does it is remarkable.

Clause 31 places the responsibility for safety regulations on the Minister. I only wish from time to time that Ministers would accept their responsibilities in certain matters instead of passing responsibility back to the industry itself. But the responsibility under the Bill and under existing legislation for ensuring safety is with the Minister, who must make safety regulations. What is remarkable about Clause 31 is that it entirely dodges the responsibility of the Corporation itself for ensuring safety and being liable for the consequences of neglect. Under Clause 31, the Minister is to make regulations, but afterwards it seems to be assumed that it is a matter really of protecting the gas undertaking against innumerable individuals who are credited with a sort of mischievous desire to do all kinds of things which would be to the detriment of the gas undertaking, to its pipes, its apparatus and its installations.

I could quote, although I will not do so, from numerous subsections which have been put into the Bill to protect the Corporation rather than its employees and the public. I suspect that much of this wording goes back a long way to the early Victorian days—wording which has been taken over in a succession of Gas Acts since then. Gas was one of the earliest of our public services and indeed recalls "Fanny by Gaslight" and the transformation of Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde, who went onto the streets of London and committed his crimes with old-fashioned gas lamps in the background.

I believe that our first gas legislation was the Gas Works Clauses Act, 1846. I suspect that in that Act one will find early traces of the attitudes to be found in this Bill, in which it is more or less taken as a privilege granted to the public that they should be able to obtain a supply of gas. A similar attitude pervades the railway. If one reads the regulations on a railway station one learns how lucky one is to be able to travel on the railway at all. I suspect that some of that attitude remains in the wording of Clause 31.

In the interests of public safety this attitude should be superseded by a more up-to-date outlook. The need for a change is very much greater today because of the adoption as the new commodity for giving heat through the gas industry of natural gas in place of the old town gas. My hon. Friend has saved me the trouble of quoting from Professir Morton's Report of which I have a copy. Since my hon. Friend has quoted that document I will not do so, but I would emphasise what my hon. Friend has had to say. We made this point when we discussed this matter in a rather different way in Committee.

Natural gas has put enormous strain on some of the old local gas networks which, as I say, go back to the very early days of the gas industry. Probably, in some places, there is no record of where the pipes are. They are old gas pipes and old gas networks. They stood up reasonably well when town gas was inside them. They leak very badly when natural gas is flowing through them, not simply because of the possibly greater pressure but because of the nature of the gas.

Instead of having a damping effect, which tends to moisten the seals in the ground around, it has in fact a drying effect, as my hon. Friend pointed out. This means that throughout the country we now have this very great hazard from these old gas networks, which really should not be used at all in these circumstances; they are leaking, and leaking to an increasing extent. My hon. Friend has emphasised the great risks and hazards in which Post Office engineers are placed because they have to go into their underground chambers for the connection of their cables. In many ways there are similar risks faced in the electricity supply industry.

Here I declare my interest, if I have to. I have received from an official of my union, the Electrical Power Engineers Association, a letter written of behalf not just of one union but of the electricity supply industry. It came from Mr. Tom Allock, secretary to the Employers' National Committee of the electrical supply industry. He was writing on behalf of the safety, health and welfare committee of the National Joint Advisory Council for electricity supply, and that includes management representatives of the electricity boards as well. I quote his words:

"The Safety Health and Welfare Committee of the National Joint Advisory Council are concerned at the growing number of explosions caused by natural gas leaking in substations and other supply industry premises and even into all-electric houses. Supply industry staff have been killed and injured, as have members of the general public."

I raised this—my hon. Friend was good enough to refer to the fact—in the House recently. In short, I asked the Minister, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Leicester, South-West (Mr. Tom Board-man) who is, I think, the Minister for Industry, who appeared for a fleeting moment—I thought I saw him just now—but who went out again, what he was doing about this, particularly from the point of view of the electricity supply industry, that being the industry with which I am greatly concerned.

In reply he said—and I thought that it was, in many senses, a scandalous reply, and said so at the time—that this was a matter primarily for the gas industry and he would get the Chairman of the present Gas Council to write to me. As I explained to the House, I can always carry on correspondence with chairmen of the gas boards or the Chairman of the Gas Council, if I want to, at any time, and since the Minister, under existing legislation, is primarily responsible it is little short of scandalous that he should tell us, when we put down Questions, that we can correspond with the Chairman of the Gas Council. Having, of course, nothing against the Chairman of the Gas Council I corresponded with him—or, rather, he corresponded with me; and I have a letter which he wrote and I will quote it to the House. It gives some interesting figures. He says:

"The difference between total gas available and gas sold and used"—

which is known to the gas industry as gross unaccounted for gas—

"was 7·8 per cent, of gas available in 1960–61 and 8·5 per cent. of gas available in 1970–71."

It will be noted that that figure, which I think is very considerable in itself, means a loss of some 2 per cent. It in increasing, and that is not denied. I think the reason why this loss is increasing is the loss of gas from the old networks because of the increasing spread of the new natural gas supply which, as has already been explained to the House, is putting an increasing strain on those old networks. In fact, the Chairman of the Gas Council, Mr. Hetherington, in the last paragraph of his letter of 24th April says:

"The figures arise mainly from the distribution of gas to consumers through low pressure systems".

That is the point—the old, ancient gas networks. He says:

"The loss of gas in high pressure systems where it would be readily detected is negligible. Such systems are inspected at regular intervals."

1.15 p.m.

There was no need for him to say that, really, because it is common ground to all those who have studied the subject, including Professor Morton. The higher pressure system, the basic transmission system for natural gas from its entry into the country at the sea coast, is, in the main, a modern installation, and one would expect that the joints would be made in such a way that they would stand up to the more onerous conditions imposed by natural gas.

Therefore, the case made by my hon. Friend seems to me 100 per cent. sound. It does not leak in any way, which is more than can be said of the old networks of the gas industry. It is an extremely sound case, and it seems to be one accepted by the gas industry itself.

In talking on this subject in a rather different context in Standing Committee I made a point which I made earlier here in an intervention in my hon. Friend's speech, and which is bound to arise in any circumstances where there is apparatus which is connected to the soil through ducts. Natural gas, when it gets away from the pipes to which it should be confined, lurks about under ground, and it may store in the crevices and cracks below, and eventually pressure moves it upwards. If it finds a convenient duct which leads into a telephone kiosk or into a Post Office underground chamber or box or into an electricity supply station—well, in it goes. One particularity about natural gas is that it does not smell in the familiar way of old-fashioned town gas, with which most of us, I suppose, at some time or another in our lives, were very familiar indeed. Therefore, it is given by the clever gas chemists a smell of its own, an artificial smell, which is put in to help detection.

Therefore, it may be said that, surely, when there is natural gas about in an electricity substation one has a detector or one's nose and one knows that it is there. Unfortunately, with certain soils—I am not expert on this, but I am told by those who are experts—if gas is long enough underground the smell is taken out of it so that it cannot be detected. I have worked at various times in the past in electricity substations and I am familiar with them. They contain high voltage apparatus which is usually totally enclosed, particularly if it is a highly loaded substation in an urban area. A low supply network with maximum pressure of about 400 volts is open and in the air; it is a normal routine operation to operate a switch in the air, or to operate an isolator, and a spark is thrown into the atmosphere, and normally it will be immediately extinguished by the air itself. Of course, if natural gas is present, there will be an explosion. This is the situation explained by the official of my union who wrote to me, and electricity supply staff have been killed as a result.

The new Clause would impose an absolute liability on the new Gas Corporation to pay the necessary compensation. In itself, that would not bring back to life those who were killed in these circumstances. None of us wishes to be vindictive towards the gas industry in this matter and we appreciate its difficulties. In the ordinary way, those engaged in that industry are responsible people. However, a Clause of this kind would put the Corporation and the district representatives into the position that unless they took every precaution to avoid leakages, even to the extent of replacing some of the old networks as quickly as possible, they would be very much at a financial loss. This kind of Clause, putting an absolute financial responsibility on the Corporation, would have the useful secondary effect of making it bring up to date the old gas networks and putting the risk beyond reach.

I was somewhat startled to find when looking through the last annual report of the Gas Council, for 1970–71, that there was no reference to the safety of natural gas. It is true that on page 6 it said:

"In the course of his conclusions, Professor Morton stated that natural gas can be stored, distributed and used with safety in correctly designed and properly maintained equipment."

That is true, but nothing is said of the existing gas networks. It went on:

"He emphasised the non-toxic nature of natural gas, and added that its use does not increase the risks of fire and explosion."

The Gas Council is picking from the Morton Report everything favourable to it and saying nothing of Professor Morton's damaging conclusions about the state of the networks. It went on:

"In view of Prof Morton's conclusions and recommendations, studies of problems associated with the installation and maintenance of adequate ventilation were intensified."

That refers to apparatus installed in consumers' premises and there is no reference to improving the networks. It went on:

"Codes of Practice and appliance design were reviewed and assistance given in the drafting of new building regulations."

It would be very much to the credit of the Gas Council if it would tell the public, the Minister and the House in its annual report what it is doing in practice to reduce the hazard.

We argue that the only way in which to bring the gas industry to a proper sense of responsibility in the matter is to put a new financial responsibility on it. The fact of being in a rather special position as against most people in the matter of negligence goes back to the early history of the industry, but this state of affairs cannot be tolerated indefinitely.

As the law places an absolute liability on the industry in the storage of gas, it seems hard to explain why the industry should not have an equal absolute responsibility in the matter of the gas pipes used in the networks. The majority of hon. Members have a respect for the industry as one of the most successful of the nationalised industries, but it is running away from what should be its proper public attitude in this respect and it is tending to shield behind an out-of-date legal situation.

The way in which to remind this industry of its responsibilities and to impose upon it the duty of improving the networks is to put on it an increased financial risk, and that is the purpose of the Clause. I hope that the Minister will not only say that he fully accepts the strength of the arguments deployed this morning, but that he will take the matter much further and will accept the Clause without quibble.

We have had two speeches of some importance on the new Clause. I say immediately that the Government, the Gas Council and the gas boards do not treat at all lightly, or with anything but immense seriousness, safety factors within the gas industry. It would be wrong for the debate to give the impression that there was increased danger, or that the country's gas system did not meet the most rigorous standards of safety which have been built up over many years.

The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) reflected on the merits of nationalisation and private enterprise. It is my right hon. Friend's responsibility and mine to ensure that the gas industry, as is the case with all the nationalised industries, which are major assets of the country, is able to function fully and properly as an efficient organisation. That is why the Bill is introducing a reorganisation of the industry.

I should like to reply to some of the specific queries of hon. Members. For example, the hon. Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer) said there was no duty in the Bill to maintain a safe gas industry. That is not correct. It is not stated in Clause 2, but there are other references to safety in the industry; and there are, of course, aspects of the law of the land which go further than the Bill in placing a massive responsibility on the Gas Council.

rose—

May I finish this point? The hon. Gentleman went on to say that there needed to be a more up-to-date attitude on gas safety. These arguments are being put forward on the grounds that an alteration will be needed in the law of liability. I would emphasise that there are in the industry some of the most up-to-date and advanced methods to ensure safety. In the same way I believe that responsibilities placed upon Ministers in this respect are properly acted upon.

I would certainly reinforce that statement from my own personal, although short, experience in this office. The codes of practice laid down in the Bill and prepared by my Department have resulted from consultation with outside bodies. Hon. Members will appreciate that on certain matters I have been willing to go further than any other Minister has ever done in seeing that the House has knowledge of these matters and in seeing that relevant papers are placed in the library. Therefore, I would not accept any comment that there is other than the most up-to-date approach both by the Council and by the industry to questions of gas safety.

I referred specifically to Clause 2, which is the key Clause laying down responsibilities of the new Gas Corporation. It does not mention safety and I feel that it should do so. I also referred to defects in Clause 31 which we strongly criticised in Committee.

I do not think that counters my argument that the whole approach of the industry is based on the feeling that it wants to ensure the highest degree of safety possible. I will explain the legal aspects in relation to the working of these provisions a little later.

The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme suggested that natural gas is a novelty. That is not true in the sense in which he was discussing the danger factor. He mentioned the drying out of joints, and I would stress that this danger arose with other types of gas which come from oil products, such as the naphtha process. Town gas manufactured from oil-based materials sometimes had injected into it a certain degree of precipitate to ensure that the sort of problems mentioned by the hon. Gentleman would not occur.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the possibility of injury, and I am the first to wish to ensure that there is a full understanding of the necessity to protect all people working with gas apparatus and other types of equipment, be they electrical or Post Office, into which gas may seep. But I also believe that responsibilities lie with other industries when men are working in surroundings where gas may be used. The example of the Post Office man who was injured through not having been warned that the Post Office ducts had been sealed off to detect leaks must be a responsibility not of the Gas Corporation but of the Post Office, which is responsible for controlling its own workers. The concept that such a liability would lie with the Gas Corporation in the case of error seems to me to be asking for a major alteration in the law which would not be acceptable

An example was given involving a gas leak in a Post Office kiosk, and the question of notification was raised whether that box was closed to the public. These things must be the responsibility of the management of the industry concerned. In terms of the legal responsibilities that are sought to be laid down by this new Clause, it would be wrong to suggest that the responsibility to which I have been referring should be taken away from the industry in question and the legal obligation placed on the Gas Council.

The hon. Gentleman said that it was only when somebody was killed that a thorough investigation took place. I must nail that statement, since it is not correct. All explosions are investigated and any serious explosion is investigated very thoroughly, and in such instances reports are made available to my Department. From time to time all mains are monitored by sensitive mobile detectors for breakage and the frequency of investigation depends on the age of the mains and any deterioration which may be known about them.

On the point made by the hon. Gentleman that a visual inspection is of major importance, I suggest that in many instances, particularly in respect of conversion, visual inspection would mean the digging up of ground around joints. This is unnecessary with the use of other much more modern methods, which are more efficient than visual inspection and can be applied to deal with a specific problem.

In the case of the explosion which occurred in my constituency, I was informed that notification to the Department takes place only when death occurs or there is damage to property amounting to over £100. The Minister should not imply that he is notified when there has been severe burning or mutilation.

I do not withdraw anything I have said in regard to testing and the responsibilities of the Gas Council and the way in which it carries them out.

The new Clause places absolute liability on the Corporation for the consequences of an escape of gas from any of its mains or pipes at least up to the consumer's side of the meter. Liability may extend further since it is possible—and I say no more than that because we do not know how the courts may interpret it—that the courts will interpret the expression

"pipe used for the supply of gas to customers"

in the new Clause to include the pipes between the meter and the consumer's appliance, even though such pipes would not normally be the property of the Corporation and might have been installed without the knowledge, or indeed the inspection, of the Corporation. Absolute liability means that the Corporation would have to pay full compensation in all cases except to the extent that it was proved that the escape was due to the plaintiff's negligence.

Obviously one sympathsises in the case of accidents to human beings. The question of compensation for damage to property is important, and I accept it. But the new Clause would impose very onerous liability on the Corporation. It would be held liable for all damage caused by an escape of gas save only when the plaintiff suffered as a result of his own fault. The industry therefore would be liable even when the intervention of a third party caused the leak. It is not clear whether the Clause is restricted only to the mains in the streets or whether it extends also to leaks from pipes on the consumer's side of the meter.

The Clause has been, so to speak, a coat hanger for a wide debate and, therefore, in urging the House to reject it, I must deal fully with the legal aspect. Two kinds of special legal liability are relevant. One, known as strict liability, arises under common law when a person has custody of a dangerous thing and it escapes and causes damage. A series of cases have established that the gas industry is not subject to strict liability in this sense. The other special kind is known as absolute liability, which is the kind of liability the Opposition are trying to introduce by the Clause. This has been applied by Parliament under the Gas Act, 1965, in very few cases indeed. Those which are uppermost in the minds of hon. Members concerned with energy matters relate to nuclear installations and underground gas storage. In each of these cases the person responsible for the installation is absolutely liable.

These varieties of special liability lead away from the principle normally referred to, which the Scots summarise as "no reparation without culpa"—which is, no damages without negligence—but the essential point is the degree of control which can be exercised over the installations.

In the cases of absolute liability which I have mentioned, the operator has either complete or never less than substantial control over the particular operation. Thus, nuclear installations comprise isolated sites, fenced off and with no unauthorised access. With common law strict liability, there is an implicit assumption that the keeper of dangerous substances ought to take special care to keep control and to stop them from escaping. This is done specifically with the underground storage to which I referred.

1.45 p.m.

However, in the overall gas industry throughout the country the pipes run under streets, and the streets are pounded by heavy traffic. It must have fittings which run underground and in places where there may be excavation with which the Gas Council has nothing to do. Under the new Clause, the Gas Corporation would be held liable for any damage resulting from that situation. Surely that could not be right in law.

The gas industry follows the highest standards in determining the kinds of pipe it uses for particular purposes and in its practices in laying mains and minor delivery pipe work. To introduce absolute liability under the new Clause would in no way lead to greater safety in the supply of gas. If I could be convinced that the Clause would do anything to save one person's life or to prevent damage to any house or home, I would find it much more acceptable.

The hon. Gentleman seems to be very carefully skirting the great risk, and that is the possibility of leakage in the old networks due to the introduction of natural gas. Does the gas industry take responsibility for the condition of those networks?

I said in Committee—and I thought that I said it today, but I am willing to repeat it—that the Gas Council and the gas boards do everything possible to ensure, not merely once-and-for-all inspection, but constant inspection of the type of joint problem which we have debated. It is my experience that if there is any doubt in the mind of the Gas Council it will come down on the side of replacement or reinsulation to ensure safety. That is the sort of assurance which the Opposition have the right to demand and which it is my responsibility as Minister to give, and I give it readily because I know that the management of the Gas Council and the gas boards is as concerned as any of us to ensure that the type of incidents which have happened are cut to the minimum.

But it would be absurd to say that there could never be an accident in an industry as large as the gas industry. We want to ensure that accidents are kept to the absolute minimum and that safety measures exist which can be used in cooperation with other people who have to work in areas where gas pipes are laid.

I should like to deal with some of the trade union points which have been raised. I recognise the connection of the, hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme with the union of which he is a member. There is long-standing co-operation between the Post Office and the gas industry at local level going back to before the war.

Consultation with the Institute of Gas Engineers has led to the adoption of safe practices for Post Office personnel which the Post Office must make effective. The gas industry also has its codes of practice designed to ensure that mains are laid safely and do not fracture and to lay down standards of gas piping—which the British Steel Corporation at times says is too high. We have not always been able to meet from our own production the degree of safety required by the Gas Council for pipes. This shows the extent to which the Gas Council goes in trying to meet criticism.

A lot of high-faluting technical information is going backwards and forwards about the safety of gas installations. Although I was not a member of the Committee which considered the Bill, I am connected with the gas industry. A point which affects hundreds of gas-consuming households is the incidence of theft from gas meters. It is the tenants responsibility to reimburse the gas board. In my constituency there are bogus gas collectors who open the meter with a key and pay the tenant a rebate out of the money they have purloined. There is nothing in the Bill which deals with that. The public want to know who will take the liability away from the tenant for the money which is in the meter.

The hon. Member for Hammersmith North (Mr. Tomney) has been in the House long enough to know that that is a good googly on this new Clause. He and I know only too well who has specific legal responsibility for money deposited in meters. I should be delighted to have more words with the hon. Gentleman about how we might overcome this problem because I know that theft occurs in London flats and also in other conurbations.

There is a later Amendment—I do not know whether it has been selected—which provides that more prepayment meters should be available at the demand of the tenant. Gas boards have been moving away from this type of meter for the reason given by the hon. Gentleman. I congratulate him on getting his constituency interest injected into the debate.

To sum up: I understand the safety problems, and it is realistic that we should consider them. If I believed that the new Clause did anything to make the regulations more effective and more binding or did anything to save even one life, I should take a different attitude, but I do not believe that we can change the whole structure of liability under the law by a new Clause in the Gas Bill. I urge the House to reject the new Clause.

The Minister said that everyone wants to take advantage of gas. If that were so, one part of my argument would disappear. The truth is that not everyone wants to take advantage of gas. Hon. Members who represent coal mining constituencies are conscious of the need to support coal and prefer to use electricity which is produced from coal.

The Minister has not met my point that, had the houses in Madeley which were blown up by gas been destroyed by mining subsidence, there would have been a liability on a nationalised concern, the National Coal Board.

I thought I had made quite clear that mining subsidence is caused by extraction underground which is entirely within the control of the National Coal Board. Under the law the National Coal Board is responsible. The gas boards are unable to have complete control of their own installations under the streets and into peoples homes.

Had the Minister met my argument about sewage seepage I should have taken that point more seriously. If people's health is adversely affected by sewage seepage there is an absolute liability on the sewerage authorities. In no sense can it be said that the sewerage authorities have absolute control. They are in the same position as the gas boards.

It may be that the gas boards could exercise greater control over distribution by laying pipes deeper in the ground and taking greater precautions, but it is not reasonable to say that we should not alter the law of liability. A different technology has been introduced in the gas industry, the novelty of which makes it perfectly reasonable to ask that the gas board should accept responsibility.

I am disturbed at the Minister saying that a leakage of gas into a telephone kiosk or a manhole is the responsibility of the Post Office. The Madeley case is a classic case in which two nationalised industries hid behind the law of liability. Each one denied its responsibility, each one said. "Go and sue the other."

2.0 p.m.

When poor, humble people who have suffered damage consulted Stephen Swingler and the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) and later myself, we had to say, "The law is such that you are unlikely to succeed against either nationalised industry". It is disgraceful that nationalised industries should hide behind one another. They are really only Departments of State. If either one is responsible then someone should pay compensation, and it is not reasonable for a Minister to be defending his particular little patch saying, "Let us pass the responsibility over to someone else."

There are bound to be cases of doubt in law, and where three parties are concerned in any legal action for negligence of damages it is not an unusual legal position for either of those who may be responsible to make it clear that they do not consider themselves to be responsible and then the third party has to sue one or the other and the court adjudicates. I do not believe it is a possibility in law to make this type of case absolutely clear. It would be quite wrong, where there could be shown to be some responsibility belonging to an authority other than the Gas Corporation, to make the Gas Corporation pick up the Bill which is what the Clause would do. On the specific point I do not believe that this sort of incident can be used as an argument for an alteration of the whole of the law.

I should have thought it better in such circumstances, if the gas board is arguing whether it is the responsibility of the local authority because it has not maintained the roads correctly or the responsibility of the Post Office because it has not inspected the telephone kiosks hourly to see whether there is gas in them, that the gas board should pick up the bill rather than have the poor citizen bear the full financial responsibility as a result of the deficiencies of the authorities.

The Minister's reply has been disappointing. I have given the figures of the increasing number of accidents occurring as a result of leakage. After having heard those and the figures presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer), I cannot understand how the Minister can read from his brief, talking about the absolute, vigorous standards of safety on the part of the gas authorities.

We appreciate that the drafting of the Clause is not as precise as it might be. We recognise it might have limitations but

I beg to move Amendment No. 3, in page 2, line 5, leave out

'the desirability of having members who are familiar with'.

We regard this as a very important Amendment. To some extent, we return we will advise hon. Members to divide because we believe that the Government will appreciate our concern if we do so. We believe that they should think much more seriously about this than they have done in preparing for this debate. We believe that they ought not only to be concerned with the prevention of these accidents but that they ought to inquire very seriously into individual hardship caused by explosions, which will occur whatever standards of safety are followed by the gas industry.

For this reason we propose to divide on this issue.

Is not this a running sore throughout current Government legislation in this Session? There must be some fault in the parliamentary draftsmen whom the Government employ at the moment. We had precisely the same problem in the Sound Broadcasting Bill, where honest sentiments were expressed but nothing was imposed upon the Independent Broadcasting Authority. Now it appears that the same is happening here. It is a trend which ought strongly to be deplored.

My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) is on to a very good point. When legislation comes before this House there is an increasing tendency, rather than to spell out precisely what we mean, to insert permissive Clauses which cause no end of difficulty.

We must try to be more specific. The Government's proposal to abolish the regions and to put in their place a gigantic corporation has aroused a great deal of emotion and anxiety, and the reason for it was expressed a great deal better than I could do it by the Minister himself in Committee. The hon. Gentleman said:

"By abolishing the area boards and creating the British Gas Corporation the Bill can be superficially alleged to concentrate all power at the centre. To that extent there is substance in the suggestion that this is a centralising Measure. But the extent to which that power is devolved down the line, and the extent to which the management of the British Gas Corporation decides to delegate and set up subsidiary management structures, is by no means yet clear. That will be a matter for the Corporation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B; 15th February, 1972, c. 68–70.]

The Amendment will make the whole section relating to that particular Clause more positive.

Surely the area boards will need a specific direct voice. I have had long experience in local government and can remember the difficulties about whether a thing is desirable or needed. That shows to some extent the defectiveness of the wording of the Clause. Many things are desirable, but not everything is needed. In the Amendment we suggest that things are needed which are not necessarily desirable. I should not be prepared to give any Minister complete discretionary power to decide what he thought to be desirable. Parliament is entitled to spell out and to ensure the kind of representatives who will be appointed to the Gas Corporation.

I should like to clear up one point. The hon. Gentleman said that he would not want to leave the discretion of what was desirable either to me or any Minister. I can understand that argument. I might use it in exactly the same way if I were sitting on the benches opposite. However, the desirability is spelled out in the Bill. It is not left to the Minister. The following sentences specifically state what is desirable. Therefore the desirability is not a judgment of the Minister, but of the Act.

Yes. The Minister and I have no quarrel on that. We are talking about the Act. Perhaps I should read what we are talking about in clear terms. The Clause states:

"in making appointments to the Corporation, the Secretary of State shall have regard to"—

this is what we want to strike out, of course—

"the desirability of having members who are familiar with the special requirements and circumstances of particular regions and areas."

The hon. Gentleman will be appraised right away that I was trying to illustrate the great concern we had because the Minister was conferring that there would be a lot of discretion left to the Corporation as to how these areas which will be wiped out shall be administered in future. The Minister will see the difference in our wording. I am not trying to make a debating point; it is a real point. If the Amendment were accepted, the Clause would read:

"in making appointments to the Corporation, the Secretary of State shall have regard to the special requirements and circumstances of particular regions and areas."

That is specific. There is no permissive aspect in that. It is mandatory on the Secretary of State to do precisely that. I am glad that the Minister is appraised of that point. The Amendment would have the effect of strengthening the Bill in that respect.

We were surprised to learn that the 12 areas should be abolished. We were surprised in the sense that the Government have never made any disguise of their philosophy that they believe in competition. There were 12 areas which, to some extent, were competing against each other. Each area had its own individuality. The Minister will recall that some hon. Members objected to the description of Scotland as an area. Scotland is not an area; it is a country.

In attempting to strike out the question of desirability, we are trying to make what I should describe as a second-best job. I know that the people of Scotland have had great strictures about the Bill, and the creation of the Corporation. However, if the Amendment were accepted something mandatory would be placed on the shoulders of the Minister concerning the selection of members for the Corporation.

In substantiation of that point, it must be realised that in proposing the Amendment I am not on my own; there is ample documentation about the concern that is felt.

The Daily Telegraph, which is hardly what I would describe as a paper which subscribes to the political philosophy which I hold, way back in 1971 published an article on this matter which illustrates the point I am making: that people believe we are creating a gigantic gas monopoly and that Parliament has a particular responsibility in the wording of the Bill.

Mr. Kelf-Cohen in the Daily Telegraph wrote of

"the threat to consumers of the latest reorganisation plans".

That is why it is important that we get right the direction we give to the Secretary of State as to who should comprise that Corporation. Mr. Kelf-Cohen, under the heading, "The great gas monopoly," said:

"The Government tells us that it is determined to foster competition and to reduce the power of monopoly. We are promised an important pronouncement on this subject next session. It was the determination of the Prime Minister which brought the end of restrictive practices, which stifled competition and bore heavily on the consumer. It is strange that his Government should now be promoting a Bill which will strengthen monopoly and will make 13 million consumers more helpless than ever."

That illustrates why it is so important that we get this whole matter right.

In further supplementation to the argument in favour of the Amendment, in case it is suggested that we are trying to trivialise something of great importance that has already been voiced outside Parliament, we have the "Gas Journal" which I presume has knowledge of the industry we are discussing and of the Bill which we are trying to bring into legislation. We on this side of the House are often accused of being emotive in language when putting forward some of our propositions, but there is nothing more emotive in language than this caption, "Enter Big Daddy."

The "Gas Journal" is concerned about the monopoly, who should comprise the Corporation, and the power which would be vested in the Minister. Its concern about who should comprise the members of the Corporation is shown in the first sentence of this article:

"On the very day the wizards of Oz ran out of magic, the wizards of Whitehall succeeded in turning 12 princes into frogs, some of whom may well find themselves without a lily pond."

That is much more emotive language than that of my hon. Friends and myself. It shows that there is a depth of feeling outside about the composition of the Corporation and how it should act. Under the title, "Enter Big Daddy", we read:

"The British Gas Corporation, likely to be established in early 1973, will have a profound effect on many people within the industry and some effect on many outside it."

That is a very good point. It shows that this is not a discussion merely of administrative expediency. When we discuss the structure of this great industry, we are talking of something which has more connection with consumers than most things that we discuss.

We are talking about how people will be affected by this Bill. If we were to allow the Government to get away with such permissive wording, we would be failing in our democratic duty. It is important to get the method of appointment of members of the Corporation right.

Advertising is important in such a highly intensive consumer organisation. The 12 area boards at present advertise on their own and employ people full time on this work. Of course consumers have to be told what products and services they can buy and what protests they can make if the services are not adequate. Something will be lost in future, because the 12 boards provided cross-fertilisation of ideas and were autonomous in deciding their advertising policy.

A relevant quotation here is the little ditty that I repeated in Committee:

"The codfish lays a million eggs,

The hen lays only one;

But the codfish does not cackle

When its little stunt is done.

The artful hen we praise,

The codfish we despise;

But every thinking man agrees—

It pays to advertise."

I talked extensively on the regional problem in Committee and I do not want to delay too long now, because I think that I have persuaded the Minister that he does not want to be associated with permissive legislation. He may have been impressed by my point that we need more mandatory provisions.

Every area is concerned about the abolition of the regional boards. Another paper which is hardly an admirer of this party is the Spectator. For a long time, its views and mine coincided on such issues as the Common Market—on which I understand that it has changed its view—but on the broad political issues, its philosophy is hardly the same as ours.

An article by Mervyn Jones under the emotional heading, "The Centralising Tyranny of London" is important with regard to the appointment of the members of the Corporation. People in Yorkshire and Humberside are concerned about about this centralised tyranny, and I know that Scotland is concerned too. It puzzles people that, when decentralisation is going on all over the world, the mother of Parliaments, who is supposed to have given ideas to other nations, is centralising.

This article said:

"The public industries account for so great a part of the economy, particularly in Scotland and Wales, that the Secretaries of State and permanent advisers should be involved clearly. At the moment, they seem to be warned off the nationalised industries field."

That was said on 7th November, 1970. I wonder whether the same comment would be made in 1972. I think that it would, in view of our serious regional unemployment problems and the fear that the Corporation might make employment in this industry more difficult.

I said that when we question the Minister, we are told that these matters are for the discretion of the Corporation. On one of my points, he did not know what would happen. This Amendment is an attempt to remove many of the permissive aspects in the appointment of members of the Corporation. We are trying to make its composition mandatory. This is second best, but even at this stage of the debate, we have a responsibility to try to strengthen the Bill. I hope that I have pursuaded the Minister to accept the Amendment and thereby to improve the Clause and strengthen the Bill.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) both on his Amendment and on the manner in which he moved it. If I imply that there is territory that he has not covered, I know that it is not because he did not have it in mind but that he knew that some of his hon. Friends wished to deal with other areas and thus he wanted to limit his remarks so as to help us make progress.

My hon. Friend pointed to the slackness of the phraseology of the Bill. In an intervention, I referred to the general slackness of the drafting of legislation throughout this Parliament. It is necessary to put it right. It is a somewhat ironic reflection upon the Government that, so far as I can see from studying the Bills they have introduced this Session, the only Bill which was drafted precisely was the Housing Finance Bill, a Bill which we should have preferred to be drafted slackly. Here, on the wording to which my hon. Friend rightly objects, we enter the realm not of fact but of notions, taking into account people's thoughts.

The Minister, who has as always been very accommodating today, may well give assurances about which he will be sincere, and we shall totally respect his sincerity. But Ministers come and go. The hon. Gentleman may be promoted, or at any rate move out of the Department, and when he goes his assurance is forgotten. It is buried in either the brown Committee volume or the blue bound volume of the OFFICIAL REPORT for postgraduate students of politics to study. It is forgotten by everyone else. That is why, although I do not question the Minister's sincerity, assurances are no substitute for what is stated in an Act which lays obligations on those who are subject to it, and that is why the principle behind the Amendment is very important. What my hon. Friend is concerned about is not just the wording which says that the Secretary of State shall have regard to the desirability of having members who are familiar with special requirements, with all the subjectivity allowed to the Secretary of State by that, but the lack of obligation imposed upon the Secretary of State.

I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever) has arrived, because I shall deal with problems which greatly trouble both him and me, the problems of the Manchester travel-to-work area. No doubt he will join me in voicing them.

Once the Secretary of State has had regard to "the desirability", that is the end of the story. If he then does what he likes, he has fulfilled his statutory fuction. The Government should accept the Amendment so that there is imposed upon him the requirement to have regard to the special requirements and circumstances of the regions and areas.

It will come as no surprise to the House that the particular region and area to which I wish the Government to have particular regard is the North West, and most of all the Manchester travel-to-work area. It is significant that the Bill excludes Northern Ireland. There are many reasons why it should do so. That Northern Ireland is an area with its own special problems, no one will deny, but it is much smaller than the North West and much smaller than Scotland. I do not quarrel with its having its own specific legislation, but Scotland is part of the Bill and is just subsumed within it.

My hon. Friend will not take it amiss when I say that, for all Scotland's many problems which I should be the last to minimise, the North West is a larger area than Scotland and has a larger population. Because it is not a separate country but is simply a region of England, it is that much less likely to have its own problems considered, and therefore it is all the more important that the Bill should impose upon the Secretary of State the necessity to consider our special requirements and circumstances. At no time more than today have they been more important and more necessitous of consideration. The scope for the Bill to help in dealing with its problems is considerable and will be even more considerable if the House compels the Government to accept Amendment Nos. 6 and 8, under which the scope of the Bill and of the Corporation to provide employment would be widened, because the Corporation would be able to go in for independent manufacture. 2.45 p.m.

Here I come to the employment problems of Manchester and the North-West, which the Secretary of State would be required to take into account under the Amendment. Exactly two years ago, when the present Government came to power, the North-West was a relatively prosperous area. It is no longer so. Two year ago, of the regions and countries of Great Britain, which excludes Northern Ireland, the North-West was fifth in terms of unemployment. Scotland, the North, Yorkshire and Humberside, and Wales, all had greater unemployment problems. Today, we have reached such a sorry pass that not only did we long ago overtake Yorkshire and Humberside with regard to unemployment problems but yesterday's unemployment figures gave the staggering information that the North West now has worse unemployment than the unemployment black spot of Wales. That is a concern of the Department of Trade and Industry, which under the Industry Bill would have the obligation to provide employment. If the Amendment were accepted the Bill before us could be used for promoting employment, and the Secretary of State would have an obligation to consider those employment problems in a way which is not now provided for.

When we consider the disastrous announcement yesterday that Irlam is doomed, with 2,400 redundancies within the next two years; when we take into account that the Gas Corporation will represent a growth industry, and, if the Bill is amended as we wish, will be able to expand that growth industry further; when we take into account that it could provide the employment so sorely needed in an area once prosperous and now in a state of dismal decline; we see that it is very important that the Government accept the Amendment.

We have many other problems in the North West which the Government should take into account, and to which the Secretary of State should have regard as the subsection will require if amended. We do not simply have unemployment, grave though that is. We have also our housing problems, the problems of inter-urban stress.

The fact that the Secretary of State would be required to have regard to these problems would inevitably impose upon him, too, the requirement of manning the Corporation in a way which would include people who could deal with these problems and have them in mind. Some of my hon. Friends, with whom I greatly sympathise, have a suspicion that public corporations, both large and small, are far too much manned by allegedly non-political people—and we know what non-political people are when there is a Conservative Government in power.

The North West is an industrial area but it has a rural hinterland. It is a Labour area, although it has some Con- servatives who sneak in here and there when a General Election takes place. It will be necessary in my view that, in considering representatives of the North West, the Secretary of State should consider trade union representation and also lay representation of a kind which would take into account the demographical make-up of the area. Acceptance of Amendment No. 3 would ensure that all these matters would be taken into account, above all our increasingly serious unemployment problem. I therefore have great pleasure in supporting the Amendment.

I support my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) and compliment him on the succinct way in which he moved the Amendment, which would lay down the point of view that

"…in making appointments to the Corporation, the Secretary of State shall have regard…"

to the special requirements and circumstances of particular regions and areas.

I do not think that it will surprise hon. Members when I say that the needs of the area I have in mind are manifold. I am referring, of course, to the northern region in general, in particular to the North-East, and even more specifically to my constituency of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West. I am extremely concerned about the concentration of power at the centre. I speak with some knowledge of the gas industry, having spent 30 years of my working life in it, both under private and public ownership. The nationalised gas industry has been very successful in its diversification. That was done by the establishment of the 12 area boards.

Whatever may be said about the noble Lord, Lord Robens—and plenty has been said about him both here and outside, some of it not very complimentary—he at least deserves the credit for setting the pattern of the very successful nationalised gas industry. I well remember discussing the proposed nationalisation' Bill with AIf Robens. I recall his insistence that we should not have a centralised organisation. He drew on his experience of other nationalised undertakings and said that he wanted a diversified gas industry. I am grateful to him for that if for nothing else.

In Standing Committee on 15th February, the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), then Under-Secretary of State, said:

"That brings me to the main argument which I should like to advance in favour of the Bill. It is that this is not a centralising Bill. By abolishing the area boards and creating the British Gas Corporation the Bill can be superficially alleged to concentrate all power at the centre."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B: 15th February, 1972, c. 68.]

The words which concern me—

"…concentrate all power at the centre…"

suggest to me that at least the hon. Gentleman had in mind headquarters in London or the South-East. I have no reason to suppose that in the short time in which his successor has been in office—and the present Under-Secretary of State is a much more affable person, if I may say so—he has had any cause to change that point of view. The indication was clear that the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury had in mind that, like all the other headquarters of nationalised industries and Civil Service departments, the headquarters of the gas industry should be concentrated in London or the South-East.

We have already had far too much of such concentration in London and the South-East. The Prime Minister has been criticised for his "at a stroke" speech, but the Government deserve credit for doing something at a stroke after 18th June, 1970. For purely doctrinaire political reasons, they abolished the Land Commission, whose headquarters were in my constituency, thereby depriving my constituents of several hundred jobs in one fell swoop. As a result of that diabolical decision, which we are all now paying for in the land speculation going on all over the country, we have a purpose-built building standing idle in Newcastle. It is situated on the trunk road to Scotland and is five minutes from Newcastle Airport and 10 minutes from Newcastle city centre. It would make an ideal centre for the National Gas Corporation.

If we are to have a national organisation, then Newcastle, West, in relation to Northern Scotland, South-West England and Wales, which the new organisation will have to cover, is as central a spot for communications as one could find for a national organisation. If the new organisation follows the familiar pattern of national corporations, clearly we shall have a retrenchment in the regions. Obviously, the area boards will not maintain the same form they have now.

3.0 p.m.

I should have thought that the set up in the future, with this retrenchment I have spoken of, might well be as follows—though, of course, I am only guessing. Wales and Scotland would be autonomous areas, for political purposes if for no other, but also, perhaps, because of the national needs of Scotland and Wales. I do not think this Government would like to face any head on clash with nationalism in either Scotland or Wales, although the Government are not quite so fussy about regions in England. However, it would seem to me that we would have those two, as it were, regional organisations. Then the Southern and South Western Gas Board areas would automatically merge into a regional organisation with headquarters at, say, Bristol.

Hear, hear.

I rather thought I might well have at least two friends in the House straight away on that.

Order. In seeking to have Friends in the House I hope the hon. Member will not neglect the Chair and will tie to the Amendment what he is saying.

I most certainly will, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am going up the coast as I pursue my argument.

I should have thought, equally, that the East and West Midlands would possibly become a region and that the Northern Gas Board area and the area of the North Eastern Gas Board would form a natural unit. If this were to happen then clearly the headquarters of that region would be in Leeds. I am coming to a valid point, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

The hon. Member is dealing with siting, not with appointments to the Corporation.

With respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, we are dealing with appointments by the Secretary of State to the Corporation having regard to

'the special requirements and circumstances of particular regions and areas."

It is the particular requirements and circumstances of my own region that I am now coming to. If what I suspect might happen were to happen we would have the Northern and North Eastern Gas Boards merged and they would have their headquarters in Leeds. We have in the City of Newcastle a very fine building, Norgas House, at present used as the headquarters of the Northern Gas Board, and which will become surplus to requirements, and which has received, as the Minister knows, national and international acclaim for its design. We also have in a purpose-built block wonderful training facilities at Norgas House. If the former headquarters of the Land Commission at Kenton Bar in my constituency were not suitable then Norgas House would be ideally situated—

The hon. Member is dealing with the question of siting, while the Amendment is about appointments to the corporation.

I was only saying that the new board's headquarters could be sited in the North-East and, as I would hope, on Tyneside, but this is linked with the appointments to the Corporation—to the type of people whom the Minister will appoint to the Corporation. I have in mind another board in the hinterland, so to speak, of my constituency, although it is a few miles away. I mean the Lake District Planning Board. I sincerely hope the Minister will give serious thought to this Amendment and to the thought we are trying to get across about the personnel to be appointed. By way of illustration I would point out that on the Lake District Planning Board there are all sorts of odds and sods—though I say that in the kindest fashion; but they are people from London, the South-East and the South-West, and I believe that there is even one from Manchester, and I do not know of anyone from the Lake District on that planning board. I am making a valid point relevant to the Amendment when I suggest that it is most important to appoint to the Corporation people who will have regard to

"the special requirements and circumstances of particular regions and areas".

The main purpose of my intervention will be to try to make a little progress. The Under-Secretary has been complimented by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Bob Brown) on being more affable than his predecessor. I am not sure whether that is so. We know that both of them have good qualities, but both have some negative aspects, however, and I shall try to encourage the Under-Secretary to bring the positive aspects of his qualities to the fore.

I know that his predecessor had positive qualities. The hon. Gentleman's predecessor may or may not have been more affable than he is, but we know that he was an extremely good water colour painter and we do not know anything about the present Under-Secretary, outside his functioning in relation to the Bill so far; he still has to prove himself, either as a water colourist or as a Minister who facilitates the progress of Bills.

Ordinary common sense and little æsthetic appreciation of language should make it entirely unobjectionable, even if the Under-Secretary does not feel passion positively for my hon. Friend's Amendment, and he has been invited to feel that passion by considerable cogent argument. What possible hurt could it do to meet the manifest and unanimous desire of the Opposition to leave out the words:

"the desirability of having members who are familiar with"

and thus throw upon the Minister the obligation to have regard to the special requirements and circumstances of particular regions and areas when making his appointments?

I ask him a simple question: if he accepts the Amendment, what would be offensive in the obligation which my hon. Friend seeks in unmistakable terms to place upon him? Surely he intends to have regard to the special requirements and circumstances of particular regions and areas when he makes appointments to the Corporation. We may assume that in his favour, unless he immediately says that he will make the appointments in disregard of those special requirements. The Amendment would not impose upon him any burden which he should find objectionable.

The wording that he has chosen is not sufficiently convincing to satisfy my hon. Friends that he is obliged to have proper regard to these special requirements, because it is far too fudgily phrased. It refers to the desirability of having members familiar with the special requirements of the regions rather than throwing a direct obligation on the Minister to have regard to those special requirements. Ordinary common sense should show the Minister that he should stop wasting the time of the House by resisting Amendments so plainly desirable.

He has been delaying the passage of the Bill. Whatever its faults and whatever criticisms we may have, we do not want it to be delayed unduly by an obdurate Minister who is prepared to have regard to the desirability of having members familiar with the special circumstances of an area but who is not prepared himself to have regard to those circumstances. I challenge him to tell the Committee what possible objection he can have to the obligation that would be thrown upon him by the Amendment.

Without being too far fetched, I will tell him why the vagueness of the Clause is not to be preferred and why, on the contrary, it is less attractive than the Clause as amended. As the Clause stands, the Minister is not to have regard to the special requirements of an area in making his appointments, but he is to have regard to the need to have people familiar with the special requirements of an area. If there is a difference it can be only that the Clause would entitle the Minister to disregard the requirements and circumstances of a region in making the appointments provided that he appointed someone familiar with those requirements. That means that if he discovers a professor in Hong Kong who is familiar with the requirements, who has shown by his immense erudition in the subject that he is familiar with the requirements of the North-Eastern constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West, for instance, the Minister could appoint him. That is not what is wanted. We want the Minister to appoint people because he has had regard to special requirements. This provision gives him a latitude to appoint anybody as long as the Minister satisfies himself that the man he is appointing knows of our difficulties in Manchester—though, as the provision stands, whether he will do anything about them is beside the point.

So it would be otherwise.

No; the Minister would have a statutory obligation to have regard to the actual requirements of the area. He must follow this point. I take time here in order to save time.

Let us take the present provision and set it against the Amendment. In the present provision the Minister can say, "I will appoint to the board Sir George Jones, an amiable gentleman who spends most of his time visiting local race meetings and hostelries in the South-East, because I know that he is familiar with the needs of Manchester and Newcastle-on-Tyne". As long as he satisfies the Minister that he is familiar with the needs of these areas, the Minister in all conscience can say, "I have complied with the burden imposed on me by the Statute." The fact that Sir George is unlikely to show up very often in the area in question, apart from attendance at board meetings, will not be a breach of the Minister's obligation.

If, however, these words are deleted, the Minister must appoint somebody having regard to the needs of the area. If the Minister says, "When I appoint Sir George Jones, I have in mind the needs of the area", clearly Sir George Jones's familiarity with the needs of the area is not decisive. If Sir George will spend most of his time going to race meetings in the South-East of England and in attending zealously committee meetings of local Conservative Associations and in other similar relaxations in the South-East, this appointment will be no consolation to the unemployed in Newcastle-upon-Tyne or in Cheetham or in the North East generally who will know that Sir George, this notional character, is familiar with their needs but does not intend to do much about them.

We are saying that we want the Minister, in appointing these men, to say, "I appoint Sir George Jones because I, the Minister, have regard to the needs of these areas". He could not say that in the notional case I have advanced today. I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman persists in delaying the work of the House by obdurately refusing to accept this sensible Amendment to which there can be no conceivable objection.

May I, in my inexperience of these matters compared with that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever), try to warn him of the sort of reply we shall be given by the hon. Gentleman? I am pretty sure the Minister will say that what my right hon. Friend is saying is so preeminently sensible that there-is no need to have it in the Bill, that what my right hon. Friend is saying is so inarguably correct that it would be absurd to have it in the Bill.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am afraid that that was the type of argument frequently advanced in Committee.

The right hon. Gentleman was never there.

The Minister says that I was never there. He forgets that for part of the time I led for the Opposition; and, though I was not able to be present physically all the time thereafter, I was spiritually present. My hon. Friends know that I was very much on their side and I followed closely and with great interest the records of the debates.

We expect the Minister to help us by getting a move on with the Bill. He will know that I have been in charge of similar Bills and, unfortunately, I was faced by a fractious party-political type of argument instead of by the constructive, reasoned, moderate Amendment which we have been trying to persuade the hon. Gentleman to accept. Had I been in charge of the Bill, I would have readily accepted the Amendment. I mean that. It is harmless by any standards. It throws a responsibility on the Minister, which he should welcome. We should not have the fudgily designed drafting which appears in the Clause.

3.15 p.m.

I wish to make a few final comments to give the Minister time to reflect before he charges on with his departmental brief. I know that it is tempting to do that, but this is his last chance to earn himself a positive score. It is not enough for my hon. Friends to say that the hon. Gentleman is affable. Affability without any substance or substantive effort will not get him far. I hope that he will show flexibility and the ability to ignore the watchful officials sitting in the box hoping that he will stand firm for the sake of standing firm. He will meet admittedly belated and dissimulated admiration from the officials briefing him if he stands up like a man and says, "I cannot see one good reason why this Amendment, which is sensible, should not be accepted merely because it has been put forward by the Opposition or merely because the parliamentary draftsmen did not think of it first". The hon. Gentleman should earn himself a credit mark by showing responsibility.

Let me tell the hon. Gentleman why he should do that. His predecessor said, in effect, in the quotation which has been read out and which we heard over and over again in Committee, "The Bill looks like a piece of democratic centralism"—as the phrase used to be in another part of the world—"centralising the gas industry. That impression is misleading. Nothing is further from our thoughts. We are abolishing the area boards—all those separate pools of democratic decentralised decision-making constituted by the area boards. There is nothing centralising about the Bill. On the contrary, we are showing tremendous respect for local and regional feelings".

I should have thought that if the Under-Secretary wanted the public and those who work in the industry to take seriously the view which his predecessor adopted and which presumably he adopts that the Government are not centralising the industry but are keeping it within a democratic and decentralised framework where the regional boards, although not in name, retain the concept of regional decision-making, let him show an earnest by responding to the arguments of my hon. Friends who wish, not any harm to the Minister or to the industry, but to retain some of the local feeling of decision and some of the sense of local responsibility which was shown by area boards.

If he does that, the Under-Secretary will gain, because by now he is familiar enough with the industry to know what a tremendous advantage it has been to the gas industry that, by retaining the structure of decentralised decision-making, it was able to retain a higher level of management in the areas than otherwise would have been the case. The hon. Gentleman will be well rewarded if he heeds the general pressure of my hon. Friends and gives weight to the question of local feeling and needs. One of the rewards will be that he will maintain the remarkably high standard among public servants in the area boards. I can tell him that from personal experience.

I am not perhaps as prejudiced a nationaliser as some of my hon. Friends who have a strong bias in favour of nationalisation. But my experience in the Department was that the area board chairmen and deputy chairmen and their leading staff would have been a credit to any industry, private or public, in terms of enterprise and initiative. It was reassuring to meet so many of these local pools of decision-makers—the chairmen, deputy chairmen and senior members.

I beg the Minister to heed the words of my hon. Friends. By doing so, he can come to no harm. I ask him to delete these fudgy words about "desirability" and "familiarity". He must see the logic of my argument. We do not care whether the persons appointed are familiar with our problems. Familiarity with our problems is not what is wanted. We want the Minister to have regard to our problems when making appointments, and that is a different matter.

I am not saying that there is no substance in the Minister's argument that he will achieve our purpose with the present wording. Unless he wants to show haughty, ministerial arrogance and indifference to our wishes, he should accede to our request. We want to get a move on with the Bill and to remove this obstacle to going on to discuss the interesting points of substance which await us. We wish to get on as quickly as possible, although it seems that the Minister's obduracy will not allow us to finish this stage of the Bill today. I express my gratitude to the Minister for his courtesy in giving way to me so that he could have the opportunity of hearing my argument before coming to a final decision.

I expected the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Normanton) to be present. Last week in discussing a Private Member's Bill the hon. Gentleman was verbose in arguing the meaning of "familiarity". On that occasion we were dealing with the simple problem of setting up a safety committee to which could be elected someone interested in saving lives. The hon. Gentleman on the first and second Wednesday sittings could not contain himself in explaining how impossible were the words used. I have not given him notice that I should be referring to him because I expected him to be here.

The hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Redmond), a knowledgeable guide on the meaning of "familiarity" and "desirability", tried to push the Committee into refusing to give workers in industry the opportunity of electing one of their number to act as a safety representative, unpaid, to try to prevent accidents and death in industry. The hon. Gentleman would not have this loose terminology which enabled any group of workers to elect a safety representative.

The hon. Member for Carlton (Mr. Holland)—the wicked man of the piece—is not here today, although he was here last Friday. When we had the one chance of getting through a Bill to reduce the accidents and the lives lost in industry the hon. Member for Carlton was in his place to stop it. This great mouthpiece who knew so much about "familiarity" and "desirability" indulged in nitpicking. We heard about the women in his life, and he was grossly rude to his own Minister. He behaved in an abominable fashion, but he is not here today. He succeeded, according to the Tory diktat, in stopping the workers from electing one of their number as a safety representative. He cottoned on to "familiarity" because that was a phrase which had been inserted by my hon. Friends in an attempt to ensure that a person selected by his colleagues to act as safety representative should be "familiar with" the conditions.

To my astonishment I see all this in the Bill, and the hon. Gentlemen are not here—none of them. The hon. Member for Carlton has made a mistake because, having stopped workers in industry being able to help reduce disablement and deaths in their midst, he was quite clearly warned before the end of that afternoon that if he went ahead and blocked the Bill I would be dedicated to stop every Tory Bill going through this House from now on. I was quite clear about that.

When a man does what he did it is outrageous and scandalous and yet here is a Government Bill with exactly the same phrase, saying exactly the same things, and the hon. Gentleman is not here. He ought to resign his seat. He is a disgrace to the House.

I wanted to intervene because I cannot understand why the Minister or the Government are being so obdurate in refusing to accept the Amendment. It says clearly what we mean. Everything is wrapped up in the phrase without the words:

"the desirability of having members who are familiar with".

If as I understand it, hon. Gentlemen want that spelled out, and that is what I understood they did want, they had better spell it out here. It is no good having "desirability". It should be mandatory not desirable. It is specific that any person appointed by the Secretary of State must have a knowledge of the special requirements of the areas. If the Minister is to be obdurate in sticking to this then there must be some sinister motive. We have seen this happening before over appointments, when the Government's friends have been appointed and we have resented it. If these words are left in, there must be more to it than meets the eye.

The only interpretation is that there are certain chaps floating around the area who presumably could not qualify for appointments because they do not understand and appreciate the "special requirements and circumstances" of a particular region or area. The Secretary of State does not have to appoint anyone with special knowledge and an understanding of the special requirements and circumstances of areas. He could claim that under the Clause all he had to bear in mind was that it was desirable. If this Bill means anything, if we are to give the people working in the gas industry the knowledge that we are attempting to provide them with a structure which has men of calibre at the top, men who are, above all else, dedicated to the problems of the industry, we must accept the Amendment. Otherwise it would indicate that there is a real possibility that the Minister, whoever he may be, could well decide to bring in one of his placemen who qualifies only in the sense that he may live somewhere in the area—although even that does not follow. Certainly the possibility is there in terms of the words

"the desirability of having members who are familiar with".

My hon. Friend is being more than generous to the Minister in supposing that there is any kind of hint that the man has to live in the area. Under the Clause he could appoint the President of the United States, assuming he were willing to go there, once the President had satisfied him in conversation that he was familiar with the special requirements of these areas. If we delete these words he could not appoint the President of the United States. He could not pretend that he was having regard to the special requirements and circumstances of the area in appointing, for example, the President of the United States.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. The Minister has a particular feeling for the United States, which is rather significant. My right hon. Friend was looking for virtues in the Minister and one of his virtues is that he knows perhaps more about the United States than he knows about us here. It may be that if, as rumour suggests, the US Ambassador to Britain Mr.Walter Annenberg, is to be withdrawn, the hon. Gentleman is thinking of appointing him to the Gas Corporation. He has a flair, and certainly he has plenty of money.

3.30 p.m.

However I do not attribute such unworthy thoughts to the Minister. But while I accept that he is satisfied that the words

"the desirability of having members who are familiar with"

are necessary, and while I have no doubt that he will claim to interpret them correctly, I assume that he will tell us that he would not think of appointing anyone who was not familiar with the special requirements and circumstances of an area. But that is not the purpose of our objection. We cannot understand why the Government persist in having words in a Clause which have no real meaning when so little else is there.

It was my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever) who asked why the Bill did not say specifically that people must live in the area or must have lived in the area for a number of years. That is not an unusual requirement. Certainly it is one of the qualities for which one would look when appointing a member in a particular region. For example, one would be hard pushed to justify the appointment of someone from Newcastle as a person competent to judge matters in London. Those of us who have been involved in dealing with social services problems since they were transferred to Newcastle know the difficulties that can arise, first, in understanding what they are saying to us and, second, because they appear not to interpret correctly the problems of our constituents in London.

Under this Bill the Corporation is entitled to have persons serving on it who not only have the knowledge and understanding of the problems, special requirements and circumstances of particular areas. They should be from those areas. Only in that way will it be possible to have people working on the Corporation who know their job.

It will be interesting to hear the Minister's reply, though I fear that I have heard the story before. While we shall listen to him with interest, no argument that he advances is likely to convince us that the meaning of the words that we seek to delete is other than we have suggested. We believe that the words are intended to provide the means for bringing in people who are not fully committed to the special requirements and circumstances of the regions and areas.

I ask the Minister to consider the situation. We feel that the new Gas Corporation is going in the wrong direction. However there are some of my right hon. and hon Friends who would go along with the hon. Gentleman if only he showed a better understanding of the position. If he could assure us that those serving on the Corporation will be dedicated people with an expert knowledge of the regions and areas, we might consider that a grace-saving factor.

This is an extremely modest Amendment. It is not shaking the foundations of the Bill. When I came into the Chamber, I was appalled to discover how little progress had been made. When we dis- cussed the Employed Persons (Safety) Bill, right hon. and hon. Members opposite wanted to change it completely—even its Title. It was a very modest Bill, but that did not stop right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite going on about it hour after hour. This Amendment is nothing like that. It is a very modest Amendment, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have to say that he accepts that it does not defeat the whole object of the Bill and in no way qualifies its provisions. On the contrary, I believe that the hon. Gentleman will have to say that he accepts that persons to be appointed should be familiar with the work in any event and, therefore, that the words "special requirements" supersede the words

"the desirability of having members who are familiar with…"

The hon. Gentleman is showing a great deal of reluctance. One would think that he was a possible candidate for Mr. Speaker's job. He could have indicated hours ago that he was willing to accept the spirit of the Amendment. It may be that he does not like the words being deleted and that he wants to be more specific. Maybe he was asking for this sort of thing. All he has to say to the House is, "If hon. Gentlemen will withdraw their Amendment I will look at the matter specifically to find a form of words which will make it patently obvious to everybody that the persons appointed will not just have the desirability of being familiar but will be bound to be familiar or they will not be appointed."

It seems that we are making terribly heavy weather of this matter. I hope that the Minister in the time he has available will come straight to the important points so that we can make progress. Let us get on with the Bill so that we can discuss it in detail. Let the Minister show his good will. My hon. Friends and I showed good will by giving way on five major Amendments—not minor tiddlers like this—on our Employed Persons (Safety) Bill in order to buy a bit of friendship, and still they destroyed the Bill last Friday. The deaths and injuries in factories will in large part be upon their heads from now on.

I urge the Minister to consider and reflect. Let him show a little goodwill on matters like this, that are important. The Amendment provides for perfectly able people to work in the industry, and ensures that those who will get the top jobs will be competent persons and not placemen of any Government. That is all we are asking.

If the hon. Gentleman will show goodwill in that direction, at least we will know in future, when we have our debates, whether on a Friday or late at night, that we are dealing with a Minister who can show goodwill, who is prepared to tolerate discussion and thought—and to understand what hon. Members are saying to him. If he does that with the first major Bill that he is now piloting to its finale, he will go down as a Minister, unlike some of his hon. Friends, with understanding and perspicacity. He will have got the Gas Bill through because he showed something that so few of his hon. Friends have—tolerance and understanding. If he does that, I shall be impressed and I shall help him to get the rest of his Bill through.

It would probably be to the convenience of the House if the Minister were to tell us that he will accept the Amendment, so one must give him sufficient time in which to choose his words. Therefore I will be mercifully short in making my points. My right hon. and hon. Friends have already, with great eloquence and at times with great wit and entertainment, put their points about the need in making these appointments to take fully into account all the regional considerations.

As the hon. Gentleman knows, in making these points they are only reflecting in a different way the arguments which we had in Committee. The Committee took great exception—we still take exception—to the proposal to abolish the area gas boards. Therefore, we are arguing that some little contribution can be made to put right that grave defect in the Bill by making appointments to the new Gas Corporation which reflect regional understanding and needs.

Our Amendment reflects what at one time was traditional Conservative thinking. In the past, when discussing nationalisation, they have said, "We do not like it, but if it has to be, it should be decentralised to the very maximum." The trouble, of course, is that the cen- tralisers have won and the decentralisers have lost.

Under the present structure, the appointment of area board chairmen is automatically the appointment of members of the Gas Council. Under the new system, appointments to the Corporation will not necessarily reflect the regional interests on which the existing legislation insists. The familiar names of these organisations, known to the citizens of this country and reflecting regional interests, will no longer exist. Consumers will have to be content with the purely technical and professional representatives of this mammoth Corporation with its offices, unfortunately, centralised, probably in London.

Many arguments have been used against this change. Even if one ignores the ever useful Mr. Kelf-Cohen—like Shakespeare, he is always quotable—one can turn to the Electrical Review, which might be thought a little biased but which has a strong point here. It has expressed the hope that this system will not be used for electricity supply. One of its reasons for deploring this change in the sister industry was:

"A loss will be that the Department of Trade and Industry will no longer have official contacts at the 'grass roots' or Board level, and instead of establishing its views on how the industry is being managed and operated from an amalgam of a wide range of opinions it will have to be content with a single industry view…"

We suggest that a little could be done in this way to maintain the local interest.

This new organisation is likely to be too big for effective central management, and it will remove to a great extent local influences on policy and make the work of the consumer councils much more difficult. We suggest that the Amendment goes some way to removing the greatest objection to the legislation's present form—that it over-centralises.

I hope that the Minister will not say that the present words are as good as our Amendment, but if he does, there is no reason why he should not accept it. It certainly strengthens the Clause from the point of view of decentralisation.

The Opposition say that they are keen to make rapid progress. We have seen the evidence of this. Up to the time that the hon. Member for Shore-ditch and Finsbury (Mr. Ronald Brown) sat down, we had had just on four hours of debate, in which there had been eight speeches from the Opposition. That can hardly be described as a record of hon. Members honestly attempting to make fast progress. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]

I shall deal very quickly with the Amendment. There are three things that I would say in reply to the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie). I am as keen as he is to ensure that consumers are properly represented. I reject absolutely his assertion that the Bill makes 13 million consumers more helpless than they are now. As an illustration of that, I refer to the appointments to the national and regional councils. I am always ready to see logic when logic is presented, and I say forthrightly in relation to the Opposition Amendments dealing with the national and regional councils that these councils will have their names changed from "consultative" to "consumers". We shall always give way when we are faced with what we believe to be logic and sense.

It is very misleading to refer to the tyranny of centralisation, as has been done in certain speeches, when the whole structure of the gas industry has altered from regional manufacturing centres into an overall, single marketing operation. If one does not realise that about the Bill, one does not realise anything.

The hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Bob Brown) has been in touch with me in an endeavour to obtain greater regional representation. He equates this with the movement of the headquarters. Not only Newcastle but four different regions have urged the decentralisation of the headquarters of the Gas Council. That cannot possibly be considered until the Corporation has been appointed and is operating, and it will then be a matter of judgment for that Corporation.

The hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) suggested that the Bill was slackly drafted. I reject that suggestion. We have gone to great trouble. I wish—and this is not always what I would wish—to defend the draftsman. The Bill is much more readable than most pieces of legislation. That is what the ordinary citizen wants when dealing with legislation, even if lawyers do not.

I turn to the speech of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever). I have no pride of ownership in the relevant phrase. I want a phrase that will reflect what I believe the hon. Member for Midlothian—perhaps more than any other hon. Member who has spoken today—wants to see in the Bill. The first argument for retaining the words are that they are the exact words that have been used previously for the same sort of factor. They follow exactly the wording of Section 1, subsections (3), (5) and (6), of the Transport Act, 1962.

Let me quote a person whom I regard as a major expert, who has said that it was undesirable to use different words where there was no change in function. In a certain Standing Committee, in a column that I could quote, he said:

"In legislation generally it is right to assume that when words which have been tradionally used are changed there is a change of policy intended; otherwise, why change those words."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B: 28th March, 1972, c. 643.]

Those are very sensible words—and there is one Member now present who will recognise them—the right hon. Member for Cheetham. I absolutely agree with him in this instance; that is why I shall not give way. If we do what is suggested we shall be saying that there is a major alteration, which there is not.

We still want to see regional representation reflected. The advice I am given is that, small as the difference is, the Bill is slightly stronger in giving attention to the regional aspects by using the words

"have regard to the desirability of having members who are familiar with the special requirements and circumstances of particular regions and areas".

Nothing in the argument today has made me believe that we should strengthen the need for people to understand what is happening in the regions by deleting the words

"the desirability of having members who are familiar with".

The question is, does the phrase do anything to strengthen the Bill, and does it make any difference? It does not make any real difference, and therefore I accept immediately what was said by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Cheetham. In other words, I want to illustrate not a change but that which is well understood.

This is not a major point of principle, but just marginally there is greater benefit by sticking to the words in the Bill, and therefore I hope that the hon. Member for Midlothian will seek to withdraw the Amendment.

At least the Minister tried to argue, but his argument was defective. If he had time to examine the Bill he would see that the Secretary of State's authority would not be weakened if he accepted the Amendment. Therefore, we are considering whether the Amendment would strengthen or weaken the Bill.

If the hon. Gentleman had wanted to expedite the progress of the Bill he could