Fracking

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

The noble Lord will be aware that the Wales Bill will be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny this autumn. The Bill should become law at the end of next year or early in 2017.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, in February, correspondence from the Committee on Climate Change to the Environmental Audit Committee in another place said that,

“UK shale gas production can be consistent with meeting UK carbon budgets but only if … it is accompanied by a strong commitment to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions (and therefore gas consumption), for example by setting a power sector decarbonisation target”.

Will the Minister be clear about the Government’s decarbonisation target for the UK power-generation sector and what proportion they see shale gas being of that overall target?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord will be aware that most renewables are intermittent and we need a back-up. MacKay and Stone have said that the gas carbon footprint of shale gas is comparable to that of imported gas, lower than that of LNG and much lower than that of coal. We need it in our transition to our zero-carbon economy. That is why it is so important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I am not quite sure—perhaps I am—what the noble Baroness is suggesting. Let me reassure her that the process is quite independent. She will be aware that most of the area for fracking gas is in Lancashire, Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire and, of course, the Prime Minister’s constituency is well south of that.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

My Lords, what is the Government’s decarbonisation target and over what timeframe?

[Noble Lords]

Order!