Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Debate between Andrew Percy and Christopher Pincher

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

I will not, because other Members are still to speak.

There is clearly the potential for fracking. I do not pretend to be a scientist—I stopped studying science when I finished my double-award GCSE at the age of 16—so I will not get into the arguments, but clearly there is the potential for an industry that a large number of my constituents would support, subject to those safeguards. That is why I voted the way I did in previous stages of the Bill’s consideration. I do not think that the way the Lords amendment has been drafted, or indeed this evening’s debate, has done a great deal to increase the confidence of residents. I make a plea to the Government that we have to take people along with us on a journey, particularly when there is a new technology that is very controversial—[Interruption.] Hon. Members say that it is not a new technology, but it is new to this country, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), so people’s concerns about it should be heard, just as concerns about wind farms should rightly be heard.

I urge the Government to think very carefully about this. I reiterate my view that the residents of Brigg and Goole and of the Isle of Asholme are not closed-minded about this technology; they simply want to know that the evidence is there to support it and that their homes, communities and local environment will be sufficiently well protected. That is what I thought we had agreed to with the amendment a couple of weeks ago.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

I am reassured by the words of my hon. Friend the Minister, particularly with regard to groundwater protection. I think that she and the ministerial team have gone out of their way to be as consensual as possibly in order to bring the Opposition with them in support of hydraulic fracturing. Having heard the shadow Minister, who is a decent and knowledgeable man, say that he believes in a bipartisan approach, I think it is a great pity that he has chosen not to adopt such an approach tonight. He and I served on the Energy and Climate Change Committee, and it is worthy of note that the Committee has produced in this Parliament not one but two reports on fracking and shale gas.

It is also worthy of note that except for the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), not one Opposition member of the Select Committee is here tonight. That seems to suggest that the others are not particularly concerned about the proposals put forward by the Government. Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat members of the Committee all supported the importance, with safeguards, of fracturing for shale gas.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), a fellow member of the Committee, made an eloquent speech demolishing many of the myths that surround shale gas extraction. I will not attempt to reheat and rehearse most of what he said. He made a point about aquifers relative to shale layers underground. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) has worries, as have others, about the potential pollution of the water table. I think that that is almost impossible as a result of shale gas fracturing. Fracking, in and of itself, cannot cause pollution of the water table, because the shale layer is hundreds, sometimes thousands, of feet below the earth’s surface, whereas the aquifers are just a few feet below the earth’s surface. In between the aquifers and the shale layer are hundreds, sometimes thousands, of feet of solid rock. Firing sand grains into fractures a hair’s breadth wide is not going to cause pollution of the aquifers. That will happen only if the wells themselves are compromised, and given that we have some of the best environmental protection in the world, that is very unlikely. If one drills down thousands of feet—

Higher Education Fees

Debate between Andrew Percy and Christopher Pincher

Thursday 9th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

I am not going to give way again, as I have only three minutes left and other Members wish to speak in this important debate.

My major concern is that, in the public’s mind, we have not made the case for trebling tuition fees. I also have a huge concern about where our young people are going to end up going to university. Everyone knows that this is not just about tuition fees; we also have to take into account living costs. Speaking from personal experience, I was at university on a full grant and had no tuition fees to pay, but I left with considerable additional debts on my credit cards and so on. It is just the same for students today, and that is going to continue. When we look at students’ debt issues, we need to take into account not only tuition fees but living costs and the other debts that students inevitably rack up while they are at university.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Andrew Percy]

I am not going to give way, because a lot of Members want to contribute to the debate.

I have struggled with this issue, as I hope Members will understand from my speech. I urge the Government to row back a little bit, to think again, to delay this decision today and to give proper, grown-up, sensible consideration to all the possible alternatives. I accept that the Opposition might well have found themselves in exactly the same position, and that they have not offered a credible alternative to this proposal. I am in a strange position, as I have said to my local paper many times over the last couple of days, because I do not have a credible alternative to it either. Perhaps I am therefore making an emotional decision rather than a hard-headed one, but I urge the Government to think again and to come back to the issue next year, in six months’ time, when we have had a proper conversation about it. We get to do this only once, and if we cede the principle of £9,000 tuition fees, I will be deeply concerned about the message it will send to people out there. I need no more proof than the e-mail I received this week from one of my constituents, Cathy from Burton-upon-Stather. I am sure that she and her son will be supported, but the message that has gone out because of the debate on this issue is that she will not be able to afford to send her child to university. I can only wrestle with my conscience and stick to what I believe, and my view is that the Government have not made their case. I will not be supporting the proposal this evening.