Lord Berkeley
Main Page: Lord Berkeley (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness Verma
My noble friend is absolutely right. Of course, we will not know what the potential is until we do further exploration. I imagine that all those who want to see greater economic growth and job growth will welcome any matters that allow that to happen.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, in between the attractive packages that these applicants may offer the community, can the Minister assure the House that whoever issues the licences—in fact, we do not yet know—will have to do a full and comprehensive environmental impact assessment first, monitor methane in groundwater and keep the monitoring going for at least 12 months after production has started?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I think that many of these issues were raised during consideration of the Infrastructure Bill, and many of the commitments that the noble Lord was asking for were agreed to. I think that he should be reassured that monitoring and reporting of the processes will be there and available, because the companies know that to generate confidence they have to be open and transparent.