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4.50 am

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Douglas Hogg) : My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) deserves congratulations on bringing to the attention of the House a subject to which so many right hon. and hon. Members and their constituents have devoted some time. It is particularly apt that he should have done so this week, almost exactly one year after the dictator Ceausescu was overthrown by an explosion of outrage from the Romanian people, for Ceausescu was in large part to blame for the plight of Romanian children.

Numbers have been discussed. We believe that between 125,000 and 140,000 children aged up to 18 are in children's homes, residential schools, hospitals and other institutions throughout Romania. They are in most cases the innocent victims of Ceausescu's inhuman policies, the effects of which were described by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I shall not repeat what has been said, but it is important to remind oneself of the disastrous results of Ceausescu's attempt at wholesale social engineering. Had he not tried to force all married Romanian women of childbearing age to have five children, regardless of their wishes or circumstances, today there would not perhaps be thousands of children abandoned, or at least temporarily lost, by parents who could not afford to look after them. When conditions in the Romanian institutions were revealed earlier this year, we were all profoundly shocked by what we

saw--undernourished and neglected boys and girls living in filthy, overcrowded buildings, lacking even the basic necessities of heating, sanitation, proper food and decent clothing. I shall describe shortly what has been done to help them.

As my hon. Friend takes a particularly close interest in adoption, I shall first outline what we are doing in that respect. It is understandable that many couples in Britain, where the number of babies available for adoption has fallen sharply in recent years, want to adopt a child from overseas. Their wishes can only have been intensified by knowledge of conditions in Romania. I want to make quite clear at the outset that all British Government Departments concerned--notably the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Home Office, and Department of Health--are committed to helping all suitably qualified couples, provided that they follow the essential requirements of both Romania and the United Kingdom, to adopt from Romania without unnecessary bureaucracy and as quickly as possible, consistent with the overriding obligations upon us to make sure that the best interests of the child are always uppermost.

My hon. Friend will appreciate that the procedures that prospective adopters need to follow exist to protect the children's welfare. Children adopted overseas should be afforded no less protection than children adopted in Britain. It would be entirely wrong if a child could be brought here from abroad for adoption without proper inquiries being made both into the child's circumstances abroad and the background of the prospective adopters in this country. Otherwise, there would clearly be scope for serious abuse. I am sure that the House is with me when I say that we must remain vigilant for the sake of the children's welfare.

The checks that I have spoken of take time. With the best will in the world, they cannot be completed in a few

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days. But we know that conditions can be poor in Romania and we sympathise with couples who wish to adopt. That is why all the Government Departments concerned do their best to operate the process as quickly as possible. Most entry clearance applications in respect of Romanian children have been decided within four to seven weeks-- which is far quicker than it usually takes to adopt a child in Britain.

Since last December, the British embassy in Bucharest has been inundated with applications, not just for entry clearance for children for adoption, but for visa work of all sorts. Our staff there have done their best to cope in difficult circumstances. Inevitably, there have been some whose cases have not been dealt with quite as quickly as one would have liked. However, we have sent out more British staff to handle the extra work and we are monitoring progress constantly to check whether more needs to be done. A team of officials from the Home Office and the Department of Health visited Bucharest in November to discuss with the Romanian authorities how to mesh our two countries' adoption procedures together. The Romanian side confirmed their willingness to approve adoptions by British couples, if it is in the best interests of the children, and where couples are prepared to observe the requirements of both countries. The Ministry of Justice and senior Romanian judges made it clear that they regard our procedures as the best among the countries with which they deal. If a British couple secure entry clearance, the Romanian authorities can be confident that they can be trusted to look after a Romanian child properly, because there will have been a thorough investigation.

As a result of the visit, a revised leaflet will be produced early in the new year setting out up-to-date and comprehensive details of the procedure which needs to be followed. I hope that it will help to clear up some of the difficulties that prospective adopters have had.

We should not confuse adoption with the rather different problem--although they are related--of how conditions for abandoned Romanian children can be improved.

Mr. Thurnham : Before we leave the subject of adoption, I think it right to say that couples who wish to adopt should be given the maximum amount of counselling, advice and help in the early stages, while they are considering whether it is the right course. If time is required, that is when it is most important that the procedures are used as fully as possible. Having got through that stage, the process should move more rapidly, and when the couple have identified a child, delays should be kept to a minimum. It is important that the maximum amount of counselling and advice should be given in the early stages so that the number of people who change their mind--as in the example quoted by the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes)--is kept to a minimum and people know their mind at an early stage. They need as much help as possible at the beginning of the process, so that when they get to Romania, things can go smoothly and they will not be tempted to bypass procedures. We want children to come to this country by following the procedures and we do not want to offer any temptation for people to bypass them.

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Mr. Hogg : I am sure that my hon. Friend is right, but I do not think that it is for the Foreign Office to provide any such counselling-- whatever else we may be, we are not an adoption agency. The other problem is how conditions for abandoned children can be improved. As soon as we became aware of Romania's pressing needs a year ago, the British Government acted quickly to send humanitarian aid. We sent emergency medical supplies at once and contributed to two European Community packages of medical aid and food. We funded a family planning programme, helped British charities to aid children's homes and donated £500,000 to the World Health Organisation, which at our request spent most of it on care for newborn babies and children. We donated contraceptives and HIV diagnostic equipment, and in total sent humanitarian aid worth about £6.5 million. However, the needs of children's homes and other institutions caring for abandoned children are particularly pressing, so we are especially pleased to be associated with the major programme that the European Community now has under way to alleviate conditions in Romania.

This programme has been running for several weeks already. The first moves were to send milk and enriched flour for infants and provide food, blankets, medicines, medical equipment and training for the care of handicapped children. The Community then agreed with the Prime Minister of Romania to help fund a crash programme to repair, run and improve heating equipment in the institutions before the onset of winter. The programme is helping to pay for the work of the Save the Children Fund and several other European charities active in Romania.

In the slightly longer term the institutions will be

comprehensively repaired and improved and Romanian staff will be trained in how to look after the children in their care. Apart from the funds raised by the sale of EC food aid to Romania earlier this year, which the Community has agreed may be used for this programme, the Community has already committed over £9 million of new money, with the promise of more to come. We strongly support this excellent programme, which will help greatly to improve the quality of life for the children concerned.

The international effort is not restricted to the EC. I understand, for example, that UNICEF will open an office in Bucharest in January to run a special two-year emergency programme for institutionalised children. There will be wide range of activities, starting with essentials such as the supply of vaccines and the meeting of other needs.

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The Romanian Government themselves have pledged to do what they can with the limited resources available to them. The Prime Minister, Mr. Roman, has ordered the Romanian army to help with the urgent task of repairing and improving heating equipment. A state secretariat has been set up--headed by the equivalent of a Minister--to work with the Community, UNICEF and others tolook after abandoned children, orphans, the mentally handicapped and others who, for one reason or another, cannot look after themselves.

I must also pay tribute to the host of unofficial efforts to respond to Romania's needs. The response of the British public alone has been magnificent. Scores of charities, large and small, have been created to help Romania or have turned existing efforts in that direction--the Romanian Orphanage Trust and Bristol Mencap are just two of such charities. Scores of British men and women are now in Romania, giving freely of their time and energy to improve conditions there. Thousands of people in Britain are involved in raising money for food, medical care, clothing and other essentials. The Romania information centre at the university of Southampton is playing a valuable role in co-ordinating the activities of aid groups all over Britain.

A development at last week's European Council in Rome, while not aimed exclusively at helping children in Romania, will certainly be of great benefit to them. The council decided on emergency food and medical aid for Romania and Bulgaria totalling about £70 million, and some of that will undoubtedly make its way to institutionalised children.

I am under no illusion that the measures that I have outlined will suffice to solve the problems that Romania has inherited in their entirety. In the long term--as the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) said--Romania needs to create, through economic reform and reconstruction, the wealth to improve the quality of life for her children, and indeed all her citizens. The Romanian Government, under Mr. Roman, have made encouraging progress in that direction, although there is a long way to go.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this subject. I have set out briefly some of the ways in which Britain and the international community are moving to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Romania ; I have also explained what the Government are doing to assist British couples seeking to adopt children from Romania. I hope that, in so doing, I have gone some way towards answering my hon. Friend's concerns.

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Electricity Supply (East Midlands)

5.2 am

Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East) : I find myself caught in rather a cleft stick in these Consolidated Fund debates. I really wanted to speak in the previous debate, about Romanian orphans, but, because of our procedures, I could not do so, and had to be content with intervening, as I have done in similar debates. When I managed to make a speech earlier in the Christmas Adjournment debate, I was "squeezed out" for reasons of time. Perhaps I shall be able to knit the bits and pieces together on some future occasion.

In the current debate, however, I am concerned about the consequences of the severe weather suffered recently by the east midlands and about what is to be done if similar circumstances arise in the future. The severe weather started on the evening of Friday 7 December and there was adequate warning. That did not apply to the gale warnings issued in the south of England in 1987, to which I may refer later. Conditions deteriorated rapidly in my area between 10 o'clock on Friday evening and 3 o'clock on Saturday morning. The results were devastating. Electricity supplies in the east midlands area were disrupted from 3 am onwards. Councillor Betty Long, who lives in the Killamarsh area, informed me about the conditions there. The electricity supplies from the Westhorpe substation were disrupted. Three 33,000 kV cables came down. If one of them had remained intact, electricity supplies could have been maintained. Supplies were disrupted throughout the entire east midlands area. The results were devastating in north Derbyshire and north Nottinghamshire. Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire and Leicestershire also suffered badly. Water supplies were cut off in many areas because of the failure of electricity supplies at the pumping stations. There were no emergency generators. Action was taken to obtain generators. Eventually help was obtained from the Army. It was difficult at first to reach remote areas where electricity cables had come down.

I first became aware of the extent of the problem when I rose early that morning. I had hoped to hold a constituency surgery in Chesterfield at 10 am, but it had to be cancelled because electricity supplies had failed in the area. Moreover, because of the bad weather conditions, I could not have reached the surgery in time. I switched on the radio and tuned in to Radio Sheffield, as everybody else in the area did. Its community service came very much into its own at that time. That must also be true of the local radio stations elsewhere in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.

I received a letter from Chris van Schaick, the programme organiser for Radio Sheffield. He explained what conditions were like four days into the crisis. He said :

"Over the weekend and yesterday Radio Sheffield abandoned its normal schedule to provide a special weather service. Our phone-in lines have not stopped ringing since the crisis began. The utilities have been asking people to report their problems on air because their own staff have been listening to us to find out where the worst problems are. The station has broadcast a total of nearly 80 hours of programmes on the crisis since Saturday morning."

People would have been in desperate trouble if that information had not been made available to them. However, it was only available to those who were lucky

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enough to have battery-operated radios. However, information was relayed to communities and people were kept informed of developments.

I was one of those who ventured out that Saturday, although, quite correctly, people were being advised not to do so unless their journeys were absolutely necessary. The opportunity for politicians to appear on television probably makes their journey absolutely necessary. I went to Leeds television studio. I make that point because on my journey I was able to observe the difference in conditions in north Derbyshire and Leeds.

Mr. Andrew Mitchell (Gedling) : May I associate myself and agree with the hon. Gentleman's remarks about the magnificent service that was provided by the local broadcasting networks? He mentioned Radio Sheffield. It should be placed on record that Radio Nottingham and Radio Trent, which cover the area represented by the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) and myself, did a first-class job providing the community service that he mentioned.

Mr. Barnes : Given the resources that are available, BBC local radio offers a great service to communities, especially in such emergencies, when people automatically rely on public service provision.

Travelling between north Derbyshire and Leeds, I discovered that north Derbyshire was affected far more than other areas. Sheffield was bad, but was a slight improvement on north Derbyshire. Some areas between Sheffield and Leeds were quite mild. Leeds and the areas surrounding it were in trouble, but they were not as bad as those in Sheffield, and neither of those places experienced conditions as bad those in as north Derbyshire.

The area covered by Yorkshire Electricity was less seriously affected than that covered by East Midlands Electricity. That is not to say that Yorkshire was not badly affected ; cables were down and it experienced faults with low voltage provision, but the position was considerably worse in north Derbyshire, north Nottinghamshire and large areas of the midlands. That is borne out by the fact that, as late as 12 December, the Leader of the House, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), pointed out that 43,000 customers were waiting for their service to be reconnected, 39,500 of them in the east midlands area. That shows the scale of the problem. It took longer to deal with, because conditions were often far worse.

Snow and ice were adhering to washing lines, to fences round farms and to cables. Falling trees were bringing down cables and pylons were collapsing. Conditions were so bad that linesmen in the Chatsworth area were unable to get out. Appeals were being made on the radio to notify the electricity authorities of where cables were down. East Midlands Electricity received a bad press because its reconnection times compared unfavourably with those in the Yorkshire area. In some areas, reconnection was made impossible by the conditions.

When I returned from Leeds, I was aware of the scale of the problem and was in regular touch with the electricity board. Over that weeekend, I contacted the Department of Energy about emergency action and Labour energy spokesmen about the devastating situation. What was required all along was a statement from the Government, issued through the Department of Energy,

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recognising the extent of the emergency and demonstrating to people that they were using all their resources to assist in handling it. That statement was never made.

I also issued a press release that illustrated the strength of my feelings. It appeared in the Yorkshire Post and stated : "I am very concerned about the delay, particularly by the Department of Energy, in co-ordinating a repair and rescue programme.

It has been largely left to the individual electricity boards to sort out and it should have been a nationally organised operation. Up to 50 per cent, of North-East Derbyshire is still without electricity and many people will have had supplies cut off for a longer period.

The East Midlands Electricity Authority seems to have a longer backlog than Yorkshire Electricity which is probably because Derbyshire has been worst hit--but this is a good reason for a nationally co-ordinated scheme.

I have got the feeling that if this had been the south of England it would have been regarded as a national disaster, just as it was during the gales.

I appreciate that a lot of people have been working very hard over the weekend, but I find the lack of action by the Department of Energy quite worrying."

The Government's response to the gales in the south demonstrated that they were organised and concerned. Money was made available to local authorities under the Bellwin scheme. That decision was announced as soon as Parliament reassembled--the House will recall that the gales occurred during the recess--five days after the emergency. No such decision was made about the crisis that hit the water and electricity supplies of the east midlands. Many of my constituents were aghast at the Government's lack of action. The House had an opportunity briefly to consider the problem on 10 December-- the Monday after the blizzards--during Energy Question Time. Three of those questions related to electricity and that enabled hon. Members who represent the east midlands to refer to the crisis. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) was lucky enough to ask a supplementary question and he pointed out to the Minister that

"60,000 people were cut off in the Chesterfield district over the weekend due to the storms, 1,000 faults occurred, and 20,000 emergency calls were made." [ Official Report, 10 December 1990 ; Vol. 182, c. 643.]

He also said that people would have been happy to have been able to plug in to what they were buying.

The peculiar thing was that the flotation of electricity shares was taking place that Monday. The flotation influenced the Government's failure to announce a crisis and the failure of East Midlands Electricity to ask the Government to do so. If national headlines had described the extent of the crisis in that company' area, shares in it would have fallen through the floor rather than gone through the roof. There was a conspiracy of silence about the problems faced by East Midlands Electricity.

Following Energy questions, a private notice question on the severe weather was put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) and was answered by the Home Secretary. It is an illustration of the lack of priority that the Government gave to the matter that they did not make a statement on it. A private notice question had to be tabled by the Opposition. Furthermore, the Home Secretary's answer to the PNQ concentrated on transport problems. Little mention was made of electricity supplies However, he said :

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"At present some 380,000 customers are without an electricity supply. Most reconnections should be achieved today or tomorrow, but it will take longer in some isolated areas. Some 500,000 people are still without piped water."

The myth that the disaster occurred in isolated rural areas needs to be laid to rest. It did not. It occurred in conurbations and, if not in the centres of towns, in areas associated with them. Next to Chesterfield there is a fairly large town called Staveley, which was devastated in the severe weather. Residents of whole areas, not just small parts of the town, had to wait until the weekend for supplies to begin to be permanently re- established. At Woodthorpe the supply went off about seven times after it was reconnected. The Home Office seemed to have no understanding of the problems in the area. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook asked about the Bellwin scheme. The answer of the Home Secretary was :

"The right hon. Gentleman asked about what is known as the Bellwin scheme, under which the Government provide financial assistance towards emergency costs under arrangements that were agreed in 1982. The scheme is activated at Ministers' discretion when weather conditions are clearly exceptional and when, as a result, local authorities are likely to incure expenditure. When the scheme is activated, grant is paid to cover 85 per cent. of expenditure over a threshold that is currently £2 per charge payer."

Those are new arrangements with respect to the poll tax. The Bellwin scheme originally operated with respect to ratepayers. The scheme was fully brought into operation when the gales hit the south of England.

The Home Secretary continued :

"As the House knows, the scheme was activated in 1987 following the hurricane and again earlier this year following the severe winter storms. It is too early to know whether it will be activated this time."--[ Official Report, 10 December 1990 ; Vol. 182, c. 663.] It was not too early to give an idea of whether the scheme would be activated. The Home Secretary said that activation was at Ministers' discretion when weather conditions are clearly exceptional. Any information collated by the Department of Energy would have shown that we faced severe weather conditions. Perhaps it takes a little time to sort out these things. But surely it should have taken no longer than it took to make a decision in the case of the gales in the south of England in 1987. That was within five days.

Several east midlands Members received a letter from the Secretary of State for Energy. I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) has a copy with him. The letter says : "Where local authorities are concerned, the Bellwin scheme could be invoked although there are at present no plans to do so as no claims from local authorities have been received."

What claims from local authorities were received in connection with the gales? The letter was written five days after the events--the time that it took Ministers, on earlier occasions, to rush to the House with a statement and say that the Bellwin provisions would be available. That letter was disgraceful.

By now, we should have had a statement to the effect that the Bellwin scheme will operate. A vast number of emergency services had to be provided. People whose electricity supply was cut off moved into community centres. All sorts of provision had to be made for the aged, young children and others at risk. District, parish and county council provision was needed, as well as a massive amount of voluntary provision. Councils such as Derbyshire, which is poll tax-capped, have limited

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resources on which to draw. The provision of extra services is likely to have an impact on their ability to provide services in future and may destroy their social services programme. It put a brake on the provision of other services that were needed at the time. A statement should have been made at the time--we should still have one--to the effect that the Bellwin scheme provisions will operate.

In my frustration at the fact that there was no statement about Bellwin or about the Government's intention to involve themselves in co-ordinating activity, I managed, at the last minute, to obtain a Standing Order No. 20 application on the Monday. I wanted to get the business of the House changed so that we could discuss the crisis. For example, it was being said that my constituents in Barrow Hill, who were trying to use the miners' welfare, would have to wait another four days before their electricity could be reconnected. In some respects, what happened in the east midlands was worse than what happened in the gales in the south of England in 1987 because of the winter conditions. It is true that a thaw came later, but it is a difficult time of year and people can be at much greater risk, although I grant that there were massive difficulties in the south of England, which certainly deserved the assistance that it received. Things that happen in the south of England tend to elicit a rapid response and much media coverage, whereas areas such as the east midlands and Scotland-- which also had problems and which had to wait a long time for Bellwin moneys--sometimes feel that they have almost been forgotten.

I tabled three early-day motions--208, 223 and 246--listing the problems and pointing out that, by 10 December, half a million people were without electricity. The figures given by East Midlands Electricity are customer figures. To establish the number of individuals concerned, we need to multiply those figures. I am talking not just about people's homes ; shops were closed, nursing homes and homes for the mentally ill were affected, as were factories and pits such as Markham, Bolsover and Cresswell. High Moor pit in my constituency was able to operate only because it is linked to Kiveton park pit in Yorkshire. The electricity supply was driven in a cable from Kiveton park through to High Moor pit. Early-day motion 246 relates to the problems in retrospect because from last Monday only the rural districts remained cut off.

There has been an appeal to the Minister for a meeting to take place and I have already spoken of some of the problems about that. We have persistently been given underestimates about the size of the problem and there has been a lack of publicity. The Government have failed to make statements to the House to alert the media to the size of the problem that existed, which has been caught up with electricity privatisation.

We can draw lessons from the experience. One such lesson seems to be that when emergencies occur, people expect their Government to announce the problems and assure them that they are using what resources they can to attempt to handle them. There may be a case for setting up national emergency legislation in this country on the same basis as it exists in Canada, Australia and France.

Never again should such problems be faced by people in any region, certainly not in the east midlands, where

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people have already suffered. If there is the prospect of more bad weather this winter, with ice and snow such as we had recently and another collapse of electricity services, will people have to go through again what they have been through, unable to believe that everything possible is being done to assist them ?

There are problems associated with East Midlands Electricity. I grant that after the first day it drafted in a host of people and much valuable work was done in an attempt to restore electricity supplies. But there were some problems related to the fabric of the services.

I received a letter from one of my constitutents in Woodthorpe in the Chesterfield district. Mr. Bennett wrote to the electricity board on 8 February 1990 about the problems of electricity supply in that district. He said :

"I know you are experiencing difficult times at the present but I would like you to investigate the reason why the Woodthorpe area of Staveley seems to be prone to regular power cuts or poor power. Since late last year to date we have had 5 power cuts and reduced power on other occasions. For the last 30 years we have always had problems and as we look out of our windows to Staveley town centre we see the lights burning whilst we are on candle power. This happened again last night--7 February 1990 between 7.20 and 10 pm. My sister-in-law lives in Stavely town centre and never seems to experience any of our misfortunes. A year or so ago you re-routed the overhead power cables and we were assured that our troubles were over. NOT SO. I write as a committee member of the Woodthorpe Residents Association and the local neighbourhood watch scheme."

The reply was interesting. It came from Mr. Hitchcock, operations engineer at the Chatsworth district of East Midlands Electricity. He outlines the work being done and the difficulties of the past. He admits the problem and states :

"next year I intend to monitor the situation to determine whether any further work is required on the electricity network." He certainly learnt something about that after the recent bad weather.

The main lesson to be learnt is that the privatisation of electricity has not helped with handling such crises. The Daily Express headline from that Monday was "Killer Craze Chaos" ; by the Tuesday, the headline had become "Share Power for Millions", the article giving details of the sale of electricity shares. The following day the headline ran :

"Electricity surges to £76 profit"--that is, for each 100 shares sold. Huge sums of money were being made.

The only person to get it right and detect humour in all this was Jak, in the Evening Standard. His cartoon showed two old people going up to the attendant outside Nottinghamshire power station--part of East Midlands Electricity--and saying :

"As soon as we bought shares in it we were cut off."

Due to the massive problems caused by the privatisation of electricity, the Government have ducked some of their

responsibilities. This was a most unfortunate conjunction of events. We must see to it that these problems never occur again.

5.36 pm

Mr. Frank Haynes (Ashfield) : I am here to support my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) because Ashfield, like the whole of north Nottinghamshire and north-east Derbyshire, suffered greatly. The electricity companies and the Government

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were caught with their trousers down by the appalling weather. There was no excuse, as they were tipped off five days before. We should have made progress since 1947 ; we are in the 1990s. Yet despite all the technology that we have, the Energy Department could not overcome the severe weather in parts of the country, especially in Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and the whole of Derbyshire. The Government must pull their socks up. If this happens again, God help us. When they feel that they are losing the argument, the Government and the electricity authorities say that the weather was an act of God. That is the defence that they put up. But it will not wash. The people in my constituency are not pleased with the Department of Energy. I do not blame the Under- Secretary of State, who has only just moved into the Department, but the Secretary of State has been there for quite some time--

Mr. Harry Barnes : It is on his head.

Mr. Haynes : He should have anticipated the problems, given that he was warned.

Perhaps I could relate to the Minister some of the happenings in north Nottinghamshire and in my constituency. I echo the praise of my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East and the hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Mitchell) for the local radio stations for their marvellous work. Obviously, the television people could not send messages because there was no power, but people with battery radios were able to receive messages from Radio Nottingham and Radio Trent. In our county there are elderly people's homes that are all electric, no gas. The local radio stations appealed to people to provide Calor gas equipment to keep elderly people warm, never mind the provision of hot meals. My constituency, like that of my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East, is semi-rural. In the rural part of the constituency, it was really rough. On Sunday morning my hon. Friend was interviewed for television in a field in Derbyshire. The programme was relayed to Birmingham and there was snow all around as deep as hell. That clearly showed the serious problems in that area.

The Department must pull up its socks and do something in case this happens again. In my constituency people appealed to the local authority for water. The pumping stations could not operate because there was no electricity, and the local authority did its best with water tankers and sent them to as many of its properties as possible to flush toilets with buckets of water. How can such things happen in 1990 when we can send rockets to the moon? It takes some understanding. I am sure that my hon. Friend is right when he says that the Government were more concerned about flogging the electricity industry than about the poor beggars in the rural areas who were really suffering.

Radio Nottingham told people about a shop that was loaded with all kinds of batteries and said that if people could get to it they would be provided. What effort did the Department of Energy make? It was no flipping help at all. Many of my constituents said that all that the Government were worried about was flogging off the electricity industry. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East, I could not get out on the

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Saturday morning to go to my surgery. If I remember rightly what the hon. Member of Gedling whispered in my ear a short time ago, he could not get to his surgery either.

The situation was serious, but fortunately my telephone was still operational. At least people with problems were able to ring and ask for help, but it is difficult to help when a Member of Parliament is not responsible for the distribution of this, that and the other. He is responsible for distribution of information if it is available to him, to help people in such need.

Kids could not go to school, but even if they could everything was electric, so schools were closed. I have heard Ministers in the Department of Energy--not this Minister because he has not been there very long-- bragging about the electricity industry and how marvellous nuclear power is. Yet we have one drop of snow, and they are beaten. Many parts of Europe have every year worse winters then we have, but they still get the power through. I do not understand why we have such problems. There must have been a slip-up. The Government have had getting on for 12 years to overcome problems like a lot of snow on the ground, leading to everything damn well stopping. I remember hon. Members talking about being stuck on motorways because the snow could not be moved, about lorries jack-knifing and all the rest. There was a problem, and it took a long while for power to come back to these areas.

Like my hon. Friend and other hon. Members, I congratulate the work force on the way in which it set about its job. Some of them worked right through the night, day after day, to make sure that power got through to those who most needed it. Those turning up to work on public transport found that the towel had been thrown in, and the vehicles had had to go back in the garages because they could not get around. There was no transport system. It was appalling.

I hope that the Department will pull out all the stops if anything similar happens again. Let this be a lesson. It is not 1947 now ; it is 1990, and I hope that we shall not have the same problems in 1991. The hon. Member for Gedling seems to have moved on to the Back Benches so that he can make a contribution. If that is the case, I shall sit down and give him the opportunity to do so, as there is not all that much time left.

5.47 am

Mr. Andrew Mitchell (Gedling) : I am grateful for the opportunity to make a short contribution to the debate. It is always a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes). I always want to call him my hon. Friend. He has expressed well the frustrations and difficulties that were felt, particularly in Nottinghamshire, which was so adversely affected by the severe weather conditions that he described.

I shall not touch on the role of the Department of Energy, which had only a peripheral role in what happened in the period that we are discussing. The severe weather conditions did not affect my constituency so badly as they affected that of the hon. Gentleman. Practically all my constituents had power restored relatively quickly. On the Saturday, I managed to get across my constituency, to fulfil an engagement that I had agreed to do some time before. It was at Ernhale court in Arnold, an old people's complex, which the hon. Gentleman may know quite well, where I had the pleasure of joining the residents for sherry

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and mince pies to toast the Christmas season. During that visit, having made my way with great difficulty across Carlton and over into Arnold, I was able to see at first hand the grave difficulties from which my constituents were suffering.

The concern that I felt most strongly was for the difficulties and anxieties caused to elderly people, who were dependent on electricity to provide them with the basic services in life, such as heating. In view of the fact that they might be cut off for a long time, a danger which in too many cases became a reality, that point must be taken on board by the House. Whatever we think about the way in which the electricity boards responded to the severe weather, it is important that there should be perhaps mature reflection on what happened. We should await the reports of the utilities to see what they have to say about their plans for the future and the way in which the difficulties that they faced were handled.

Thousands of men and women employed or brought in by the East Midlands electricity board, which is based in my constituency and is now East Midlands Electricity, worked round the clock to restore power supplies in my constituency and elsewhere in the east midlands. Some came from as far away as southern Ireland, and they worked extremely hard in conditions that I am reliably informed had not been seen in the east midlands for 20 years. They experienced weather damage which many of them had not encountered before. It was the first occasion I can recall when I found English weather threatening and frightening.

As I have said, it is important to wait until we are able to give these matters wider and more mature consideration. We need to reflect on the events that took place and the lessons that need to be learnt. With the privilege of having East Midlands Electricity based in my constituency, I have every confidence that the management there will examine any lessons that are to be learnt, learn them and implement the results in the future in the style and with the vigour that is required and that we have come to expect of them.

5.51 am

Mr. Rhodri Morgan (Cardiff, West) : I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) for securing and initiating the debate. Back-Bench Members and Front-Bench spokesmen have had the opportunity to place on record their reflections on the events that took place a comparatively short time ago in the east midlands.

It is not exactly with unalloyed pleasure that we are in the Chamber at this unearthly hour, but it was at about the same unearthly hour that electricity linesmen were being dragged out of bed on 8 December, eventually in their thousands when East Midlands Electricity realised the magnitude of the disaster. It is not a region that I know especially well. I understand, however, that snow had been falling pretty well throughout Saturday, and that in the early hours of Sunday the temperature had dropped sufficiently for ice accretion to occur. That accretion occurs only when the temperature is within 1 deg. C, plus or minus, of 0 deg. C. Large lumps of ice become attached

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