Vehicle Emissions Trading Schemes Order 2023

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest, as I sit on the Environment and Climate Change Select Committee, which is currently looking at electric vehicles. However, the views here are my own.

I am very pleased that the Government have brought forward a ZEV mandate, for all the reasons that the Minister has given. Quite a lot of us were fearful that it might not appear after the Government retreated into the herd when they slipped the phase-out target to 2035. The Government appeared to step back and let the manufacturers take the strain, which is a pity because Governments have a clear role in taking this issue forward.

The worry that I had was on the chilling effect of that change of date. There was a particularly poignant moment last week when the Select Committee was undertaking one of its outreach sessions with young people across the country in support of its electric vehicle enquiry. It was great to talk to these young folk. They are incredibly committed to the environment and absolutely get the net-zero thing. We were talking to them about the greater environmental awareness of young people, the pester power that they have with parents, and I asked them whether they were using their pester power to persuade their parents to adopt electric vehicles.

It was a bit shattering to hear them say, “There is no point in us trying to influence our parents on this because the Government have just said to them, by slipping the date, ‘Don’t worry, there is no rush. You don’t need to do it now—you can take all the time you like’”. I would like the Minister to understand just how chilling some of these changes of direction are. Even if they have internal logic of their own, the public see them as less commitment by the Government to these issues.

It would be great to see the Government active in some other measures to encourage uptake of electric vehicles, as well as introducing the mandate. I am a great believer that bans work—if you have an ultimate date for something not being permissible it concentrates the mind wonderfully—but it would great if the Government undertook a major campaign of reliable information to counteract the huge amount of misinformation about electric vehicles that is currently out there. The progress that has been made in both the technology and supporting technologies, such as charging, has been so great over the last few years. Any cries of doom and gloom about electric vehicles not being practicable at this stage are really misinformation. I hope the Minister could be persuaded to do more to have reliable information presented to the public, rather than just have it on the government website.

I note that the mandate is subject to review mid-term. I hope that, as well as the additional credit schemes for accessible vehicles and others that the Minister talked about, he might consider incentivising lighter vehicles, if that is not already being delivered by the scheme. Lighter vehicles create less pollution and road wear, and additional credits for manufacturers that create them would be a welcome step, if that is not already well advanced by the review period.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, I too am a member of the Environment and Climate Change Committee doing a study of this. Unfortunately, I was unable to benefit from the huge wisdom of young people at the school she attended. Had I been there, I would have mentioned that, since we export over 80% of the cars produced in this country, the mandate for sales in this country and the phase-out date has very little effect on British manufacturers. They have to abide by the rules in their export markets. Meanwhile, 85% of the cars we consume are produced abroad.

I want to ask the Minister whether I understand properly how this system will work. Take a year when we are half way through, when the zero-emissions mandate requires any manufacturer’s sales to be at least 50% electric vehicles and no more than 50% combustion engines. Supposing that a manufacturer finds, in the course of a year, that his sales of electric vehicles fall short and the ratio turns out to be 40:60, am I correct that the manufacturer will have to pay a £15,000 fine on all 20 extra vehicles—the difference between 40 and 60—per 100 that are combustion engine? If so, my arithmetic shows that he will effectively have a penalty of £5,000 for every combustion-engine vehicle he has sold. That is a very serious penalty. I do not think people realise quite how serious it is. I am not sure whether the Government have thought through the reaction there would be from motorists if that turns out to be the case, especially as the people who tend to buy combustion-engine vehicles rather than electric vehicles are those who cannot afford expensive vehicles—because electric vehicles tend to be more expensive. They would find themselves paying that fine on usually cheaper, smaller vehicles—to the benefit of the richer purchasers of larger, more expensive, electric vehicles. Am I correct that this is how the system works?

The Minister may say that if manufacturers have excess sales of electric vehicles from previous years they can offset those, and can go out and buy permits from other manufacturers that are, perhaps, only selling electric vehicles. Who will be the manufacturers only selling electric vehicles? They will, by and large, be Chinese manufacturers exporting their vehicles to us. A manufacturer producing only electric vehicles and importing them into this country from China will be able to sell its permits on 50% of the vehicles it sells. It can get £15,000 for each of them and enjoy a subsidy equivalent to £7,500 for every vehicle it sells. Whizzo for the Chinese manufacturers—that far exceeds the effect of the 10% tariff they will have to pay on the vehicles. Am I correct too that we have invented a system that could really subsidise the import of Chinese electric vehicles?

Then I want to ask whether this will all be worth while. If it will reduce emissions, of which I am all in favour, then great. Questions have been raised about the inbuilt emissions of electric vehicles, which are heavier and more expensive than vehicles with internal combustion engines. I do not want to deal with that point. I want to deal with the fact that electric vehicles save emissions only if they use electricity produced from renewables or non-fossil fuel sources. More than 40% of the electricity we produced in this country last year came from fossil fuels. More importantly, 100% of the marginal electricity comes from fossil fuels. If we increase the demand for electricity by switching from fossil fuel powered cars to electric powered cars, the marginal electricity supplied to them will come entirely from fossil fuels, because you can increase the supply of electricity only from fossil fuels. You cannot summon the sun or hail up extra wind but you can increase the supply of electricity from gas-fuelled power plants. We probably will not actually reduce emissions until we have made all our electricity and have spare capacity from renewables or non-fossil fuel power sources. That is not planned to be achieved until 2035, which makes the phase-out date actually have some logic—at least it ties in with something else.

My noble friend the Minister read out a figure about the expected emissions savings. Does that assume that only 40% of the electricity will come from CO₂-producing fossil fuels or that 100% of it will? I suspect it is the former, whereas logically it could be the latter. I do not propose to divide the House on this issue, and I rather suspect I would not win if I did, but we should have honest answers to serious questions and not treat this whole issue as if it is a matter of virtue signalling.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I will leave it to the Minister to respond to those points. I am confident that he will be able to satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, but I cannot resist pointing out that it is a case not of summoning up more sun or wind but of capturing more sun and wind through solar panels and wind energy.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

Sorry, can I explain that to the noble Baroness? I am very grateful to her for giving way. At present, we use 100% of the electricity generated by wind or sun and it still provides less than 60% of the electricity, so if we increased the demand we would have to persuade the sun to shine at night or the wind to blow on calm days to create extra electricity from them now.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

Of course that is not the only option. The other option is to build more solar panels and more wind farms, and I am delighted to see that there is a gradual rolling out of those facilities across the country. The noble Lord is entirely right that as we build more we will use it all, as we should.

I have no doubt about the need for this legislation, because the UK transport sector is responsible for the largest share of domestic greenhouse gas production and has seen relatively little reduction in the amount it produces since 1990, in contrast with other sectors. Cars and vans alone create 18% of the UK’s total domestic greenhouse gas emissions. There are also, of course, strong health reasons to support this legislation, because air pollution in particularly densely trafficked areas is a cause of lung and heart disease, and even has links to dementia.

So the Government’s recent U-turn on their rhetoric about the date for phasing out the combustion engine was at least confusing and at worst reprehensible, because it has slowed down the transition to zero-emission vehicles and has had a negative impact on manufacturers and their investment. They have told me about their concern. The problem is that the media have obediently repeated that change in rhetoric and it has caused confusion.

Airports National Policy Statement

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend that this year is very important in terms of ensuring that we capitalise on our role as president of COP 26 and establish the sixth carbon budget in law, which will be done by June 2021. The role of international aviation within that is being very carefully considered by my department.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, of all the ways of restricting carbon dioxide emissions from air travel, is not restricting the capacity of airports the silliest? Its main consequence would be that more planes would be stacked up above busy airports, using more fuel, and all other flights to those destinations would have to carry more fuel just in case they were stacked up too.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend that there are many ways that we can tackle carbon emissions. He mentions stacking. That is why we are taking forward the airspace modernisation plan, which will have capacity benefits for airports, reduce costs for airlines and reduce delays for passengers—because stacking will become a thing of the past.

Freight Industry: Delays

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I reassure the noble Lord that we are working very closely with the Kent Resilience Forum and, indeed, with all the operators of the various contingency elements within Kent. We are looking at this and making sure that there are sufficient lavatory arrangements, that the sites are Covid secure and that drivers’ welfare is as good as it can be.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

Can my noble friend confirm that delays at Dover are not unusual? On average, Operation Stack has had to be implemented 11 times a year over the last 20 years. In 2015, it was in operation for 23 consecutive days and queues of 7,000 lorries built up, with delays of 35 hours. It did not bring the United Kingdom to a halt, and nor will any teething problems with the new system. It did not attract much attention from those who now weep salt tears, with almost ghoulish delight, in anticipation of any problems that may temporarily occur.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

It is the case that traffic across the short straits is very frequent. There is a large volume of it and when small incidents occur, back-ups can happen. Actually, at this moment we are facing not only post-Covid freight movements but pre-holiday stock building, end of transition period stock building and increased spending on consumer goods. So, while we recognise that these factors will play an important role as we head into January, I believe that, if hauliers and traders are ready, we can minimise any delays.

Airport Expansion

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, this is a bizarre judgment, given that the previous court ruled that the Paris judgment was not legally binding, but is not the real root of the problem the fact that we have made these targets legally binding? When the climate Bill went through Parliament, I voted against it and pointed out that the sole effect of enshrining targets in statute would be that the Government’s policies would be open to judicial review. It is bizarre that judges should decide on policies costing billions of pounds without being accountable to the electorate for the costs that will be incurred. That fills with me foreboding, and that foreboding has proved to be justified by this strange ruling. Should we not cease to have legally binding commitments and make these decisions politically by the Government and Parliament of the day?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank my noble friend. The Government stand by their decision to legislate that this country will be net zero by 2050, and what we have been able to achieve in terms of the decarbonisation of our energy system has been very significant. It is now time to turn to transport, and I believe that we can do it.

Brexit: European Union’s No-deal Continuity Arrangements

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lilley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what announcements the European Union has made regarding continuity arrangements for (1) air travel, (2) haulage, (3) visas, and (4) safety certificates, should the United Kingdom leave the European Union without a deal; and what steps they have taken to give reciprocal assurances.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, the EU has adopted time-limited regulations covering the aviation market access and safety certificates, as well as road haulage and international rail. The EU has also announced visa-free travel for UK nationals travelling to the EU for short stays after exit. The Government have given reciprocal assurances in each of these four areas, which will provide certainty to businesses and citizens should the UK leave the EU without a deal.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her reply. Since Britain may well leave the EU with no withdrawal agreement, is it not reassuring that these reciprocal mini-deals, and many others, mean that planes will fly, hauliers will operate, Airbus wings will be exported and visa-free travel will continue? Will she also confirm that HMRC plans no extra checks at Dover and will prioritise flow over compliance, while France is so determined not to lose trade to Belgian and Dutch ports that it has installed multiple extra lorry lanes at Calais, located inspection points away from the ports and installed equipment to scan moving trains, so that the likelihood of congestion and delays has vastly diminished, to the obvious disappointment of the Liberal Democrat Benches?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Lord is right in that the mini-deals make any potential exit from the EU without a deal less difficult. But they are, as I have said, time-limited and there will need to be further negotiations when they expire. With regard to Dover, the Government are working to enable cross-channel traffic and goods to continue to move as freely as possible. Government departments have designed customs and additional control arrangements at the UK border, in a way which ensures that goods will be able to flow into and out of the country, and will not be delayed by additional controls. It is true that on the other side of the channel, the French customs authorities have pulled their finger out and installed additional control points. These mean that delays on this side of the channel will be less; however, they will not disappear completely and we therefore cannot expect trade to continue precisely as it did before.

Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I shall be brief because I know that others want to speak. I also want to leave as much time as possible in case we get the opportunity to push more of the amendments to a vote.

On the Government amendment on the impact of shale gas on carbon budgets, I hope that the Minister will confirm that, should the advice provided indicate that there is indeed a risk of undermining the UK’s domestic or international climate change commitments, that would categorically result in a halt to exploitation and extraction.

Amendment (b) does not go far enough, particularly on climate change, but I will support it. I am concerned, however, about what I see as collusion between the Front Benches to take away people’s right to say no to fracking under their homes and their land. Asking for people to be notified is very different from asking for their consent. This is a slap in the face for the 99% of the people who responded to the consultation who were absolutely against the removal of the right to object. Given public opposition to changing the rules on trespass, it is regrettable that we shall not have the opportunity to debate and vote on that tonight.

The Government’s attempt to weaken the partial protections in amendment (b) is reprehensible: failing to ban fracking in groundwater source protection zones, failing to require an environmental impact assessment, and failing to rule out fracking underneath as well as in national parks and protected areas. If the wording is somehow insufficient, the Minister should go away and redraft it. The Government should certainly not use that excuse for weakening safeguards. Worse still is the new definition of fracking in Lords amendment 21B, based on a specific volume of fracking fluid. That risks allowing significant fracking with less than the defined volume limit to go ahead, without even the safeguards that are before us today.

What a mockery this is making of legitimate public concerns on fracking, and indeed of the democratic process. The paltry hour scheduled for today’s debate is particularly disgraceful, given the lack of time that we had to debate the issues on Report. These are far-reaching changes that are being discussed here, and our constituents deserve better. Parliament has let them down tonight.

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

The one point on which I agree with the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) is that we have inadequate time to debate this important issue tonight. We also have inadequate time in which to debunk the many myths that she herself propagates. Indeed, she relies on their not being debunked. We all want our water supplies to be pure in quality and ample in quantity. One of my first successes in the House was to secure the closure of the Friars Wash extraction plant in my constituency following over-abstraction from the aquifer that was damaging the aquifer and threatening the chalk streams in the area. I would therefore support any measures to protect the quality of our water supply if I thought that it was threatened by fracking—but I do not think it is.

A number of those who write to me are genuinely convinced that there is a serious threat and that as a result of fracking their water supplies will be contaminated and their health put at risk. We should be clear, however, that the majority of those who are hyping those fears are not primarily concerned with the quality of the water. Their campaign to prevent the extraction and use of fossil fuels in this country is what motivates them, and that is a perfectly legitimate objective, but it should not be achieved by hiding their real motives behind some grossly overblown, exaggerated fears relating to other matters. They know that they will not succeed on the CO₂ thing, because to abandon the use of fossil fuels in this country would be dramatically to undermine our quality of life. In any case, if we did not extract shale gas and oil in this country, we would simply import it from abroad, so all we would be saying is that we should make other people rich while impoverishing ourselves and not creating jobs and opportunities where they are most needed in this country.

[Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

Is my right hon. Friend struck, as I am, by the fact that the Committee on Climate Change—hardly made up of a rabidly right-wing bunch of cut-throat business people—has expressly stated that a domestic shale gas industry can be entirely consistent with our emission reduction targets, because the lifecycle emissions of domestically produced shale gas are lower than those of imported liquefied natural gas? This is simply about gas substitution. It is not about burning more gas; it is about burning domestic gas.

[Mr Lilley]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. In addition, the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change, where I used to be in a minority of one but I am now joined by the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) in a minority of two, was unanimous on the issue of fracking: it could and should be pursued energetically in this country, with appropriate safeguards, of course.

[Dr Huppert]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Lilley]

I hope the hon. Gentleman will excuse me, but I want to make a little progress.

A number of fears have been raised about water supplies, the first of which is the fear of well failure. We have drilled 2,000 onshore wells in this country and, as far as I know, not one of them has resulted in contaminated water supplies. If that has happened, it has not resulted in any ill health to anybody.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

This is one of the myths that my right hon. Friend has fallen into. We have only fracked at shallow depth for natural gas. The only time we have fracked at depth for shale gas was in Fylde, which is why the question of the independent regulation of this industry hangs in the balance this evening.

[Mr Lilley]

I am sorry but my hon. Friend misheard me. I said that we have drilled 2,000 onshore wells—I was not talking about fracking wells. As for the risks of escape of gas, it does not matter whether it is fracked or not. We have drilled 2,000 such wells, only 200 of which have been fracked, and they tend to be shallow and small pressure. I will move on to the issue of fracking, but if people are worried about methane or liquids permeating to the surface, that is an issue about well casing. We have very adequate and strong controls on that, and, as far as I know, there is not a single case among those 2,000 wells where a problem has resulted.

The second issue is whether fracking—the use of high pressures, at depth, as my hon. Friend says—will lead to those fractures reaching up to the water table. The useful report produced by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, which is studiously ignored by those who wish to raise fears and concerns, makes it absolutely clear that that is extremely unlikely. For fractures to permeate requires immense energy and for them to remain open proppants have to be put in; sand is injected to try to keep them open. The idea that they will be able to be kept open for several hundred if not thousands of feet, extending up to the aquifer, is almost laughable. Even this well-measured report states:

“Sufficiently high upward pressures would be required during the fracturing process and then sustained afterwards over the long term once the fracturing process had ceased. It is very difficult to conceive of how this might occur given the UK’s shale gas hydrogeological environments.”

Even if that did occur, an upward flow of fluids would not result unless

“the permeability of the fractures”

was

“similar to that of the overlying aquifer for any significant quantity of fluid to flow. In reality, the permeability of the aquifer is likely to be several orders of magnitude greater than the permeability of the fractures. Upward flow of fluids from the zone of shale gas extraction to overlying aquifers via fractures in the intervening strata is highly unlikely.”

That is an understatement.

Concerns have also been raised about the process resulting in excessive abstraction of water—too much water being used—putting our water supplies under threat. The report states that the amount of water

“needed to operate a hydraulically fractured shale gas well for a decade may be equivalent to the amount needed to water a golf course for a month”.

It states that

“the amount lost to leaks in United Utilities’ region in north west England every hour”

exceeds the water required by one shale gas well for a decade, so there is no danger of excessive water abstraction and use as a result of this process.

Then we hear the frequent assertion, “We just can’t take the risk. This is a new, untried, untested process. We don’t know what dangers could result.” In fact, 2.5 million wells have been fracked worldwide and not a single person has been injured or harmed as a result of contaminated water. Not a single building has been damaged by the resultant seismic events that are so small that they would probably be less than if we dropped one of the Dispatch Boxes on the floor.

We are dealing with a well-tried and tested procedure worldwide. In this country, we have drilled 2,000 wells well below the aquifer and had no problems of contamination. We know from very respected bodies such as the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society that the risks are negligible, certainly if we continue with the sort of processes and environmental protection that they say already exist, although they do recommend that they could be strengthened in certain ways.

I urge the House not to be frightened by those who are trying to scare us into failing to exploit a resource that is potentially of immense value to this country and, not least, to those areas where shale is most prolific.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I am very pleased to follow the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), and I agree with much of what he said. I too support the recovery of shale gas within the UK. I also agree with the comments of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) who gives the Government the benefit of the doubt, but says that some questions might have to be asked in due course. However, as a former deputy Chief Whip, he would give the Government the benefit of the doubt. I cannot say that I am quite so generous, because I am disappointed that the Government risk jeopardising the support across the Chamber from those of us who believe in shale, shale recovery, fracking and the energy resource that we have underneath our shores.

I say with no disrespect to the Minister that this is disappointing. The Government accepted the Labour amendment when we debated the matter two weeks ago, partly because they felt that they might lose the vote because of rebellions and other things and partly because they thought the approach was correct. I do not think that fracking is dangerous. I think that with the appropriate regulatory regime, it will be safe. I much prefer the idea of sourcing our energy from within the United Kingdom than importing it from Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Russia, with all the associated problems. We should also consider the jobs, the manufacturing, the side products and the rest of it.

I am disappointed that the Government are not accepting the amendments that we put down originally and are rejecting those refined by the Lords. I am equally disappointed that the Minister was not prepared to engage in a debate with my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex), who sits on the Labour Front Bench, and accept his intervention. We should exploit shale and use it as a national resource, but to do that, and to be able to defeat those who are scaremongering, as the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden put it, we need the strongest consensus possible, and the Government’s approach tonight jeopardises that.

Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

This Infrastructure Bill is perhaps best described as infrastructure bits and pieces; it contains little on the infrastructure of the country and what we need for the next 50 or 100 years. It contains nothing on broadband and airports—nothing even on gas access, despite the fact that the very villages that do not have access to gas are the ones nearest the potential shale gas sites. The Bill contains nothing on cycleways. I am not a cyclist, but it is palpable that over the next couple of decades we are going to need bespoke cycleways separate from roads such as the A60, which goes through Bassetlaw, to allow people to cycle. The planning process needs to be skewed to incentivise that and make it happen sooner rather than later.

The Bill contains nothing on green energy, for which there are not only environmental arguments but a fundamental economic argument: we will lose a competitive advantage if other countries have large amounts of green energy and we have little, both in terms of our national accounts and our industry.

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

rose—

[John Mann]

No, I will not give way just now.

The Bill contains nothing on energy efficiency. Again, the current capital level and its efficiency into the future is fundamental to how we define infrastructure. The Bill does contain things on housing, but not all the right things. The local development frameworks, the localism and the neighbourhood development planning ought to be causing such mutiny on the Government Benches. Middle England is revolting over the issue and Bassetlaw is having an uprising, because 95% of local plans have either been aborted or rejected in the past year.

Virtually no local development frameworks are in place, because the Government changed the guidelines last year so all the housing targets, forced on councils previously, have had to be scrapped, with each council now having to consult its neighbouring authorities. Virtually no council has done that, so every council—having prepared for two or three years, with huge amounts of consultation, including a vast amount in Bassetlaw, to determine where the housing the Government are forcing on us needs to go—has to start the entire process again because it has not consulted the neighbouring authorities. That is the case across almost all the country and it is an absolute farce.

Let me deal with the concept that we all need more housing regardless. The Government inspector has been cited, but the Government inspector is the Secretary of State, instructed on the basis of Government policy. It is this coalition Government who are forcing housing on areas that do not want it. When we have developed our neighbourhood development plans in my area, people say, “Well, we will accept a bit of housing here. This bit of land is wasted and we could do with a bit of housing there.” When local people are in control they will rationally allow their areas to develop in ways that they want and which are popular.

Instead, what we get is, as in Retford recently, everybody, including the council, saying that we do not need housing outside the area of the town, but the Government saying, “You’ve got to have it.” If the council does not vote it through, the developer will win on appeal, citing Government policy, and the council has to pay £300,000 a pop in costs. Councils across the country, particularly Tory ones, are dealing with this problem day in, day out. That is total nonsense. Whether by backing amendments from the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) or by framing better ones myself, I will ensure that there are amendments allowing an approach that gives local people control over the planning system on housing.

The approach should allow us to define the kinds of housing. In my area, we could have 500 or 1,000 bungalows —some for rent, perhaps council bungalows, and some for sale, rather than five-bedroom, six-bedroom or seven-bedroom houses that nobody wants locally. That approach might be popular, but it is not popular with the developers. I hope this coalition understand that it is going to lose a lot of votes if it does not listen to me on this.

The second issue I wish to cover in the short time available is fracking and shale gas. I am not an extremist. I have a simple view, which I have put out there to the public: there should be nothing within 2 km of a settlement. There is enough land; those who are speculating for shale gas are saying that pretty much the whole of England can be covered, so it does not need to happen near any of the villages, hamlets or conurbations in my area, thank you very much. The public agree with that, and it would be a nice little amendment to slip in, although it does not satisfy those who say shale gas is bad.

We have another problem with fracking in my area: our water comes from the aquifer. People think, “This is a problem”—even the industry says it is a problem, pointing to the regulations, safety and its competence in dealing with the problem. We do not want the aquifer damaged in any way. So, again, we must let local people decide. By all means throw bribes at people in my area, because the bribes ought to go to the local community, not to landowners. As I have said, if there is a bribe it should be in the form of the green retrofitting of schools, churches and community buildings. If there is a bribe to be thrown in and the community wants to vote for it, that is fine; I do not have a problem with that. But if my communities say that they do not want any fracking—they do not want any shale gas or coalbed methane to be taken from a certain area and that it should be done somewhere else, we should have the right to make that decision.

The Government said they were in favour of localism, but on housing developments the opposite has been the case, as they have stabbed their own MPs and councillors in the back—all of them know it. It is the same with shale gas. We should allow local people to decide, but ensure that they cannot decide something that is going to damage aquifers or any other part of the infrastructure that affects everything else, which is why amendments relating to water will be important in the Bill.

Let us give local people the say rather than have the man from the Ministry—the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government—giving the instruction and saying, “Here’s what will happen.” Then we can deliver infrastructure in a way that is popular. That might save the Government the election, but they will be too stupid to do it. Labour should vote for such a move, because the people would like it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

I get two kinds of letters about infrastructure. The first kind says: “The infrastructure in this country is inadequate. It is the cause of congestion, housing shortage and economic inefficiency. We must invest heavily and speedily in more infrastructure.” The second kind objects to any specific item of infrastructure being built or proposed. Those letters say: “A new road? No. We should be investing in rail,” or “A new rail line? No. We should be relying on short-haul aircraft,” or, “More airport capacity? No. We should be staying at home,” or, “Build more homes? No. We can’t build more homes because we haven’t got the infrastructure to support them.” We suffer from infrastructural schizophrenia in this country. To some extent, that has been exemplified in the debate.

I congratulate the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), who has responsibility for roads, on finding the one piece of infrastructure that does not arouse antagonism: the widening of the A1(M), for which my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) has campaigned so hard with my support. That has won near-unanimous support in our part of Hertfordshire, not least because it is economical, it will be done on an existing hard shoulder, it involves minimal disruption and it can be done rapidly.

I want to focus on the element of the Bill that empowers drilling under other people’s land. When I initially heard those proposals I was worried, although I am sympathetic to promoting and developing the shale oil and gas industries in these countries. The proposals sounded like an unprecedented invasion of people’s property and an act of trespass, but they are far from unprecedented. The London underground runs under the street where I live in London. I can often hear the rumble, even though we live a couple of floors above it. I doubt whether the owners of my property should have had the right to prevent the building of the London underground.

The tube is a maximum of 100 feet beneath the ground. Coal mining involves massive and relatively shallow tunnels, which can cause subsidence. Sewerage, water and other underground networks also run under other people’s property. By contrast, a lateral gas or oil well is usually just a 7-inch bore about 1 mile below ground. It can cause no conceivable disturbance to the surface landowner.

[Dr Whitehead]

The right hon. Gentleman observes that lateral drilling and fracking for gas takes place a mile underground, so why do provisions in the Bill deem deep-level land to be 300 metres underground?

[Mr Lilley]

Well, 300 metres is 10 times as deep as the London underground. The Bill states that deep-level land is at least 300 metres down, but normally drilling will be about a mile down because—as the hon. Gentleman will know from serving on the Energy Committee—about 7,000 feet of rock is needed to compress the shale sufficiently to turn it into gas or oil.

Rightly or wrongly, mineral resources in this country were nationalised before the war and, unlike in the USA, landowners do not have the right to extract them. I do not see why landowners should have the right to prevent the extraction of a national resource that is collectively owned by us all. After all, we do not have the right to prevent aircraft from flying over our property, although frankly the chance of an aircraft falling on our property is rather greater than that of anything welling up through a mile of rock and affecting our homes.

In theory we could revert to the pre-war situation, as in America, and give landowners rights over subsurface minerals and their exploration. If we did so, the general taxpayer, who stands to benefit from a 61% tax on profits from any shale gas, not to mention royalties and fees, would be the loser, while landowners lucky enough to own land above any of that natural resource would become richer—I am not sure whether that is the direction in which the parties of Keir Hardie or the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) are going, but I think we should keep things as they are. The resource is collectively owned; let us open it up for sensible, properly regulated and environmentally sound exploitation.

In the USA, when landowners are given the choice between preventing or allowing the exploitation of land from which they will profit, they overwhelmingly say yes. Despite strong campaigns to discourage the development of the fracking industry in north America, 2.5 million wells have been drilled and not a single person has been poisoned by contaminated water, nor a single building damaged by the minute seismic tremors that fracking can cause.

A lot of letters I receive say, “But this is against the laws of trespass. This is terrible. You’re trespassing under my land, which is as bad as trespassing on it.” Actually there is a great deal of misunderstanding about the law of trespass. My father did not have many political opinions but he was a libertarian. When we went out in the country and saw a sign saying, “Trespassers will be prosecuted”, he would say, “My son, as a free-born Englishman, you have the right to go anywhere as long as you do not cause damage. The landowners are bluffing and cannot stop you.” He was right, of course. Subsequently, Mr Fagan wandered into Buckingham palace and the Queen’s bedroom, but he could not be prosecuted because he had done no damage.

[Ian Lucas]

It’s the right to roam.

[Mr Lilley]

Indeed. Why on earth is it a sin to drill a hole a mile from where we live and separated from us by a mile of rock, when we do not prevent people from walking through woods as long as they cause no damage? I think we can dismiss the trespass argument. Of course, if there is damage on the surface from such activities, it is right and proper that people are compensated for that disturbance.

The organised opposition to shale gas drilling is part of a wider attack on fossil fuels. There is a legitimate case for opposing all drilling for oil and gas if we believe that hydrocarbons should be left in the ground to prevent emissions of carbon dioxide, and the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley)—I do not know whether she is still in her place—honestly and frankly made that case. She does not want the stuff extracted because she does not want it to be burned, the energy used, or the CO₂ emitted. I respect her and those who openly argue for that, but they know that they will not convince the people of Britain to give up using fossil fuels because our whole economy is based on them. If we were to try to transform our economy and move away from fossil fuels—well, we have been for 50 years, but with remarkably little impact—it would impoverish us and would be enormously disruptive. Those who cannot get that argument across therefore make it their duty to deploy unfounded scare stories and exaggerate them. They claim that fracking will harm the water table and trigger earthquakes, that it will use vast amounts of water and be of no advantage to society.

People with those fears should read the report by the Royal Society—our principal scientific body—and the Royal Academy of Engineering, which in its opening words concludes:

“The health, safety and environmental risks associated with hydraulic fracturing…can be managed effectively in the UK as long as operational best practices are implemented and enforced through regulation. Hydraulic fracturing is an established technology that has been used in the oil and gas industries for many decades. The UK has 60 years’ experience of regulating onshore and offshore oil and gas industries.”

Why do eco-alarmists say that we must believe the Royal Society when it tells us that CO₂ may increase the temperature by a degree or two in a century’s time, but ignore it when it says that we can frack safely in this country as long as we adhere to regulations that we have developed over 60 years, with some sensible amendments that have been proposed?

A number of Members have said that fracking is a novel technology, but 2.5 million wells have been drilled and fracked since the process was developed in 1948. As the Royal Society report states,

“more than 2,000 wells have been drilled onshore in the UK”,

of which 200 have been fracked, although relatively modest amounts of water and pressure were used compared with what is now proposed. I am not aware of any objections to those 200 wells. On the use of water the report states:

“Estimates indicate that the amount needed to operate a hydraulically fractured shale gas well for a decade may be equivalent to the amount needed to water a golf course for a month…and the amount lost to leaks in United Utilities’ region in north west England every hour.”

In other words, the idea that we do not have enough water in this country for fracking is an absurd exaggeration.

On seismic threats, the report states that we have “naturally occurring” seismic tremors, which infrequently reach force 5 in this country and force 4 rather more frequently. There is consensus that the maximum seismic tremor that could be caused by fracking would be less than force 3. Forces 3, 4 and 5 sound close together, but for each move from force 2 to force 3, or from force 3 to force 4, power is multiplied 32 times. We have “naturally occurring” tremors in this country, and, as Members will know, 32 times 32 is just over 1,000, so those tremors are 1,000 times larger than the largest seismic tremor likely to be triggered by fracking.

In truth, shale gas represents a tremendous opportunity for this country if it exists in the quantities that we hope it does and it is economic to extract—we do not know that, and will not know until we have tried. Either shale gas will bring down the price of gas in this country, or if the price remains at the same level as on the continent, the profitability and tax revenues to the British taxpayer will be enormous. If successful, we will reduce either households’ energy bills or their tax bills. What is more, it will create jobs in the areas of the country that need them most, and in the areas of our economy—manufacturing and related industries—where that is most important, and it will improve the security of our supply.

I hope that we will continue, using the powers in this Bill and in other legislation, to develop this industry with proper environmental and safety controls, not throw it away because of scare stories spread by people whose ultimate objective is simply to prevent it from ever getting off the ground, even if it would cause no damage in this country, as it has not done anywhere else it has been applied.