Shale Gas Production

Alan Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson, Alan Brown.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

It is a rare thing in the Chamber but I completely agree with the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) and the Minister’s opening remarks: now is not the time for knee-jerk reactions. Given that we have this energy crisis, now is the time to stay strategic and not make daft decisions. Clearly, doing fracking would not do anything to change the west’s reliance on gas, even if, as the Minister’s says, the UK does not rely on Russian gas. He can reconfirm that fracking would not release enough gas to change the international market price, so we would still be paying the same wholesale prices. Is it not the case that there is not enough geological and scientific coring information, to the right depths, to understand the viability of extraction, let alone the risks of seismic tremors, which, as we have already heard, occurred at Preston New Road? Therefore, fracking should be ruled out, in the way the Scottish Government have done. Do we not need to invest heavily in renewables? We keep hearing about nuclear from those on the two Front Benches, but committing £63 billion of capital and financing costs to Sizewell C is madness. Our approach should be straightforward renewable energy. I keep going on about pumped storage hydro. Last week, the Secretary of State said that I had been going on about it for 18 months and that it is a good solution but he needs to assess value for money. When are we going to get that value for money? When are we going to get a change to the transmission grid charging system, which is blocking the deployment of Scottish renewables? We need to invest more in tidal stream, to increase the floating offshore target and to set an onshore wind target as well. Let us maximise investment in renewable energy.

[Greg Hands]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that response. He is right in the first part of what he says: fracking is unlikely to change gas prices—or UK fracking is unlikely to do so. It is certainly unlikely to change it quickly, which is what I said in my opening statement. He is also right to point to the importance of following the science, and geological information is really important. However, I have to say to him that on nuclear he continues to be wrong. The SNP’s ideological hardcore opposition to nuclear is against Scotland’s interests. We have just seen the closure of the Hunterston nuclear power station, which provided enough nuclear energy to supply every home in Scotland for 31 years. It was a great Scottish, as well as UK, solution. Our other great source of gas is the North sea, where I would like to see the SNP approach becoming more constructive and supportive of the North sea transmission deal that the UK Government did a year ago.