Ban on Fracking for Shale Gas Bill

Debate between Alan Brown and Geraint Davies

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alan Brown]

I agree wholeheartedly. As I have said, the Government are trying to present a solution to a problem that does not exist, but which they are using to further their argument.

[Geraint Davies]

The hon. Gentleman is kind to give way; others would not. He may know that satellite data on fugitive emissions of methane in the United States shows that 5% of methane from fracking has leaked. As methane is 80% worse for global warming than carbon dioxide, that makes fracking worse than coal. How can anybody who is serious about net zero support fracking?

[Alan Brown]

The hon. Gentleman has made the point very well, and it is one of which we need to take cognisance. We have to doubt the Government when they say they are committed to net zero by 2030. We have to wonder how serious they are about that. They know that 2030 is a while away—it is future Governments away—so they can do what they want now, and pretend they are still in favour of abiding by that net zero commitment.

Even if we accept some of the Government’s arguments, the exploration and appraisal phases of a fracking site last for, roughly, between two and five years, so it is not possible that fracking can produce any sort of quick-fix solution to the problems that they think they are trying to solve.

If this Tory Government are so worried about people’s energy bills, they must ask themselves why they did a screaming U-turn on the so-called energy price guarantee this week. The Prime Minister had told us previously that she would prevent household energy bills from rising to an astonishing £6,000 a year, but presumably the UK Government now believe that—unfortunately for the majority of households in the UK—bills might rise to that level at some point after April 2023, when they are scrapping the guarantee. They may not think the bills will become that high, but the energy prices paper produced by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy contains an estimate of £4,400, and other papers produced this week speculate that average bills could easily hit £5,000.

Even if the Government introduce measures which they say will protect the most vulnerable, bills as high as that—allied with record inflation—will still cause misery to millions of people. These are, of course, households that have already seen mortgage rates and costs increase as a direct consequence of the Prime Minister’s ideological mini-Budget. Bad decisions made by the Government are already affecting household expenditure, and such measures are obviously not the solution. National Energy Action estimates that even under the current support scheme, with average household bills of £2,500, 6.7 million households will be in fuel poverty, and it is clear that if bills became much higher than that, millions more would be in that position. A year and a half ago, when the price cap set bills at an average of £1,100, constituents of mine were already struggling, and some were in fuel poverty. If the bills go up by much more, there will be misery for many. Fracking does nothing to help them in the here and now, and I urge the Government to start thinking about the support that they will have to provide to bring household energy bills down for people.

Other measures that should be taken include energy efficiency installation. The Government need to increase, massively, their commitment to upgrading homes to the target of EPC band C. Energy efficiency installation clearly reduces energy demand. It reduces reliance on gas, at least for energy generation, it brings down household bills, and it creates jobs.

As for energy security, it is not so long ago that the UK Government blocked the six years of onshore wind development. Given that onshore wind is the cheapest form of energy generation, they have arguably added costs to consumers’ bills. That form of electricity generation could have reduced reliance on gas, and on imports, in the UK, so why was onshore wind development banned? It is because some loud Tory Back Benchers were against wind turbines, and the Government used that—and some voices in the community—to argue that local consent for the turbines was not there. That was using a few people to destroy local democracy. In fact, it was local democracy in reverse: overturning offshore wind development across the UK was imposing the view of a few people in the shires, and elsewhere in the UK, and making energy more expensive for the rest of us.