My Lords, I would like to add a few words to what my noble friend Lord Howell has said. I congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, on his imagination which allowed him to stray into paths that upset even so stalwart a Labour supporter as his noble friend. The privatisation programme was hugely successful. I was responsible for launching the first one—the privatisation of British Telecom. If you talk to the people who use that company and work for it, they will tell you that the whole picture has been utterly transformed. There have been a number of others, so I do not agree with his general strictures on privatisation.
The other important thing that it is necessary to bear in mind is that a great many industries and bodies have been transferred from the public to the private sector. I cannot think of a single transfer that was at the time supported by the Labour Party or a single one that has been reversed by the Labour Party when in government—not one. Having opposed those transfers, Labour accepted every single one. I suspect that this will not be any different.
There is an interesting note in the House of Lords briefing pack. Incidentally, it is interesting that it still uses the previous numbers of the clauses and has not caught up with the Bill as published in this House. Its report on reactions to the proposed sale, which may well have influenced the wider remarks of the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, noted that Scotland on Sunday,
“did not perceive this to be especially controversial”.
The pack describes, as the noble Viscount did, what the GPSS originally was; it continues:
“The GPSS has been expanded and restructured over several decades and today includes some 2,500km of cross-country pipelines, storage depots, pumping stations and other facilities”.
It then quotes an energy specialist, Murdo MacLean at Pinsent Masons:
“These measures will be of particular interest to utilities or other investors”.
I agree very strongly with the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill. Of course, it would have to be properly regulated. I have no doubt that Ofgem would be the appropriate regulator, but we are not at that stage yet. If we accept this clause, we simply give the Government the power to go down that path.
In another report—and this may be what stimulated the noble Viscount—the RMT union opposed the sale, saying:
“Bob Crow of the RMT said that plans to increase the capacity of oil storage at Portishead were a ‘classic fattening up exercise’ in advance”.
I do not accuse the noble Viscount of having had a brief from Bob Crow but he certainly reflected what Bob Crow might have said about this clause. We need to take that all with a considerable pinch of salt.
My view is that this is a sensible clause. There is no particular reason why the Government should own this network if it can be sold, if the capital can be raised, and if it is properly regulated. I repeat that I totally agree with the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, on that. It seems an entirely proper and appropriate thing for the Government to do, and I hope that the clause will stand part of the Bill.