Sir: In your Notes of 20 October you stated that
Plan for Coal 'even when first con- ceived, was a ludicrously optimistic set of projections.' This is incorrect. Plan for Coal was conceived in 1974, in the wake of the first oil crisis. Work on it was begun under the then Conservative government and completed under the succeeding Labour government. The estimates of coal demand were prepared in close consulta- tion with the main consumer groups and were confirmed by them. Indeed some, notably the steel and electricity industries, considered that the projections of their likely coal demand in 1985 were probably on the low side.
The demand estimates contained in Plan for Coal proved to be right for the first five years, up to 1979, during which period there was a close balance between supply and demand. The estimates went wrong thereafter due to the second oil crisis. The revolution in Iran, which led to this crisis, was impossible to predict in 1974. Of course, difficulties arose for the coal indus- try in Britain after 1979, as they did for most of the rest of the world. But to condemn the Plan for Coal for unforesee- able events which took place five years after it was conceived seems to me to be carrying hindsight a bit far.
Derek Ezra
House of Lords, London SW1
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