Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Caithness and Lord Young of Norwood Green

Monday 10th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, I share the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, as to where the heart of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, lies on fracking. Her heart on this subject is a little closer to that of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, but she is putting on a very brave front, because she has to, and says she supports fracking. We have been at hydraulic fracking in this country for more than 50 years. As so many of your Lordships have said, this is a highly regulated industry and Britain is a world leader in it. It is totally inappropriate to compare our standards and form of regulation with some of the scare stories from America. However, it is about presentation and, at the moment, the industry and the Government are losing the presentation battle, although that might be beginning to change. As my noble friend Lord Deben will remember only too well, it is fine to say, “I wish the Government would improve their PR”. It is difficult to do that in practice because if it is a good news story our press do not want to know about it. All they want to know about are the bad news stories.

I made my comment about the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, because these amendments will make the whole process much more difficult and time-consuming. For example, new subsection (1)(a) in Amendment 113G requires all sites to,

“carry out an Environmental Impact Assessment”.

We know that environmental impact assessments are hugely important. They cover a range of other industries. However, European standards have been agreed on for fracking. Within those standards are certain exemptions for the small fields and for some experimental wells, but there are also restrictions. It is not a total blanket; it is a limited exemption. Why does the Labour Party want to gold plate what is already in existence and covers the whole of Europe?

When I was on Sub-Committee B and we inquired into energy, what came over abundantly clearly was that the rest of Europe—which has quite a lot of shale gas, too, particularly Poland—is looking to Britain for a lead. When Britain does it, the rest of Europe will get on and do it. We in Europe can all benefit from that. If we do not take the lead, the others will not do it by themselves. That is why I support all those who have said that we must get on with it, regulate it and make transparent who is regulating what and why, so that we can give the maximum amount of reassurance to the public.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, in taking part in the debate, my only interest is that we should make a judgment based on supported evidence, rather than on allegations. If nothing else, the amendment is important because there is a battle of ideas on fracking that we need to win. Noble Lords have said that we are not currently doing so well on public opinion. Unfortunately, the scare stories are believed. There has been an important event since we debated this in Committee: the publication of The Economic Impact on UK Energy Policy of Shale Gas and Oil. It is a very important report. No one has questioned its integrity or the evidence it contains. I stress that point again and again.

Like many others, I looked at Amendment 113G. I was pleased to hear my noble friend Lady Worthington say that she was not opposed to fracking. I suppose the amendment is a bit like the curate’s egg: it is good in parts. It is probably better than the average curate’s egg because most of the parts are good. I support an environmental impact assessment—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, that that is something that needs to be done. I support independent inspections of the integrity of wells used; I am pretty sure the fracking companies would as well. They are also prepared publicly to disclose the chemicals used for the extraction process. Again, read the report: they are in there. For the most part they are used in tiny amounts, and for the most part there is no problem with them whatever.

It is true that some practices that went on in the States were not helpful to the process of fracking. That is not to say that everything that happened in the States was bad, because it was not—there are plenty of good examples from there. We should not forget that fracking substantially reduced emissions in the States. It did and has created jobs and it has brought industry back to the States. We should not forget that important aspect.