Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Debate between Lord Lilley and Jim Fitzpatrick

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[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.

Palestine and Israel

Debate between Lord Lilley and Jim Fitzpatrick

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

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

I will not discuss the rights and wrongs of the Palestinian and Israeli causes, about which hon. Members have spoken with such passion and eloquence, because I want to focus on the narrow issue of recognition: when it is appropriate and what its consequences are.

Some countries grant recognition as a mark of approval of a regime and withhold it as a mark of disapproval. Others grant recognition only on condition of receiving reciprocal favours from the country concerned. Neither approach has traditionally been that of the British Government. We have always granted recognition to a regime, however abhorrent, once it has established effective control of the state apparatus on the bulk of its territory. Likewise, we withhold or withdraw recognition from any regime, however congenial, if it lacks, or loses, control over the bulk of the state apparatus in its territory. Thus, whereas the United States refused to recognise the communist regime in China for many years and continued to recognise Taiwan as the legitimate Government, Britain speedily recognised the People’s Republic of China once its power was clearly established. I believe that we should stick to that pragmatic approach, subject to qualifications. We should recognise the Palestinian state, not as a mark of approval of its policies or disapproval of Israeli policies, but simply as a recognition of the reality, just as we would do anywhere else in the world.

There are two possible objections to our doing this. The first is that this is a question of recognising a state as well as a regime. Normally, we recognise a state as any duly constituted territory established as a state with a long history or more recently by agreement with the previous authorities exercising sovereignty in that territory. We did not recognise Katanga or Biafra even though the breakaway regime had established control, but Palestine is not a breakaway regime. It was recognised as a separate entity by the inheritor of the previous sovereign authority, the League of Nations and then the General Assembly of the United Nations.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I am interested that the right hon. Gentleman is drawing a conclusion in favour of recognition. Does he think it significant that he and the right hon. Members for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan) and for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway)—distinguished senior Conservative Back Benchers and former Ministers—have arrived at the conclusion that recognition is the way forward? Is not this a significant step?

[Mr Lilley]

I am sure that it is extremely significant, as is any contribution that I make. [Laughter.]

The second objection is the one that has been raised by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind)—namely, that the Palestinian state is not in de facto control of its territory because of Israeli occupation. However, Britain has never accepted that military occupation extinguishes a country’s statehood. We did not do so during the second world war, when we continued to recognise the occupied countries in western Europe. For that reason, we should go ahead with recognition.

What effect would recognition have? Here, I fear that I must disappoint Members on both sides of the debate: it would have very little impact indeed. The proponents and opponents of recognition exaggerate the impact that it would have. Already, 134 countries have recognised Palestine and it has had no discernible effect on either advancing or hindering the peace process. Sadly, we in this House cling to the delusion that the world hangs on our every word, but it is absurd to imagine that the people who are prepared to fire rockets at civilian areas from Palestine, or the people in Israel who are prepared to incur international odium by the brutal way in which they respond, will be moved one way or the other by what we in this House say today. It is time we as a Parliament grew up and recognised that we have very little control over what happens there. Ultimately, it will be the people on both sides who will recognise the need to reach an accommodation. In that important programme the other night, we saw six former heads of Shin Bet—Israel’s state security apparatus—acknowledging the need to reach such an accommodation.

In line with our traditional policy, we should recognise the Palestinian state as a reality. We would not be granting it anything; we would simply be recognising a fact. We should make it clear that, in doing so, we were not expressing support for its policies or repudiating the right of Israel to exist. We must also accept that change will come about only as a result of those on the ground in Israel and Palestine realising that they need—