Government intervention in the British gas industry, 1948 to 1970

Abstract

This article analyses government–industry relations in the nationalised British gas industry in the 1950s and 1960s. New archival research suggests that the government exercised a relatively benign influence on the gas industry in this period. The gas industry was provided with adequate funds for investment, its pricing strategies were not seriously affected by macroeconomic policy interventions, and it was allowed an unconstrained choice in its use of raw materials, even though its switch to oil feedstocks exacerbated the decline of the indigenous British coal industry. This relatively favourable assessment of the impact of government policy on the gas industry contrasts rather sharply with evidence from some of the other nationalised industries which have been investigated by historians. The implication is that we need to consider government intervention in the nationalised industries on a case-by-case basis rather than reaching for simple generalisations about the sector as a whole.