Fracking: Policing

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I agree with my noble friend. I said that it was a great shame about Scotland, but we must recognise that Scotland has a 50-year history and heritage of oil and gas exploration and drilling. It is a great shame that it will not be participating in this and a great shame that Grangemouth will potentially suffer.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, the Lancashire PCC sought help from the Home Office to pay for the extra costs of policing fracking protests following a government decision overruling Lancashire County Council. This request has so far been declined, and the Minister for Policing has stated that,

“there is no central government funding stream available”.

Can the Government say whether the Lancashire PCC, who is responsible for the county’s police force’s budget, has the statutory power, if he so chooses to use it, to instruct his chief constable not to provide policing in connection with the fracking protests until such time as the Government agree to help with the additional expenditure incurred on the grounds that there is no provision within his police force’s budget for such expenditure and that money is not available from other parts of his budget? Is the answer yes, he has those statutory powers, or no?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I will have to revert to the noble Lord on whether he has those statutory powers. However, special grant funding has been used to support fracking protests before. In 2014, Sussex got £905,000. Greater Manchester applied for funding but it was refused because it was not a significant amount of its budget. However, in the case of Lancashire, the application for £3.1 million is still under consideration and no decision has yet been made.