Grangemouth Oil Refinery

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, the closure of Grangemouth will make us more dependent on imports, as will the Government’s policy of not giving licences to extract shale gas or new licences for oil in the North Sea. The Government think that we can cope with being less dependent in normal times—I do not agree—but surely the Government must accept that there may come a time, in an emergency, when we will need to exploit our own resources. So why are the Government, on Saturday, cementing in the only successful shale wells on land in Lancashire, meaning that we will not be able to take advantage of them in future? Is that not an act of vindictive vandalism?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

So why then did the party opposite, when in government, not allow fracking to take place? It is pure hypocrisy to attack us for a decision that we have made firmly that we will not allow fracking to take place. I take the point about energy security and reliance on imports, but I say to the noble Lord that the UK Government are required to hold stocks of oil as a member of the International Energy Agency. At the end of January 2025, we had the equivalent of 130 days of net imports, substantially higher than the required 90 days set by the IEA. There is no complacency here at all: we of course keep that under very close review and energy security is always going to be our number one priority.