Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Huppert]

I will try to be brief, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), and I pay tribute to her for her work on this issue and her call for the moratorium, with which I agree. We have the problem of using too many fossil fuels; despite knowing the harm that climate change is causing and is going to continue to cause, we still see a thirst to have more and more of them. The solution has to look different. Perhaps in the future it will be nuclear fusion—who knows? We are 25 years away from that, as we have been for about 50 years. We have to reach a situation where we have renewables and other low-carbon energy sources, and energy efficiency, so that we use less energy, be it for heating, transport or anything else.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

rose—

[Dr Huppert]

I will give way only the once.

[Mrs Main]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that there is no obligation to make sure that renewables are considered as part of large major infrastructure projects?

[Dr Huppert]

Indeed; we should be seeing a quest for more renewables. One of my concerns about the dash for fracking and for gas is that it can be seen as a substitute for a dash for renewables and other low-carbon technologies, which is where we have to get to. That is what worries me about all this. When we know from study after study of the huge amounts of fossil fuels that we have to leave in the earth because we simply cannot afford the harm that would come from burning them, why go to a mass effort to legislate to say that we have to take as much as possible out of the ground? That is not the right way to go. Carbon emissions, be they carbon dioxide or methane, are the biggest problems with shale gas and fracking.

It is very interesting to look at the scientific evidence on the comparison with liquefied natural gas. A comment was made about my constituent Dave MacKay and the range of carbon emissions. What he found was that the range of carbon emissions from shale gas overlaps with that from liquefied natural gas. There is no guarantee that we will see a reduction as a result.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

No—I am sorry, but I am short of time.

Labour’s new clause 19 does not offer the kind of protection it pretends to offer. It certainly does not offer any kind of moratorium, and it will be interesting to see whether Labour supports a moratorium. That is what people are asking for, hence the importance of new clause 9.

In summary, the big point is that it is simply not compatible with our climate change objectives to be exploring for yet more fossil fuels and to start a whole new fossil fuel industry as fracking does. By the time fracking comes on stream in 10 or 15 years, it simply will not be possible to be compatible with our CO₂ objectives. For those reasons, we must have a vote on new clause 9.

[Mrs Main]

I welcome new clause 7 and the Minister’s comments on new clause 19(a), (e) and (m). I have chalk streams in my constituency; they are a valuable water resource. The public need reassurance about contamination or pollution of such special sites, as they are rare resources in our country.

[Dr Whitehead]

I rise to voice my support for new clause 19, which I believe provides a substantial series of baseline starting points for any fracking to take place. If those baselines are not in place, no fracking takes place. That is my understanding of the new clause and it seems to me to provide very substantial protection indeed.

I am also concerned about the cumulation of fracking over a period. I tabled a new clause which addresses that. If we have substantial and extensive fracking to the extent that is envisaged in the Government’s rush for fracking, we may well find that we have 18,000 or 20,000 wells across the country, perhaps more than half of those in two particular parts of the country, with virtually no environmental safeguards on the cumulation of those arrangements, even if there are some environmental safeguards on individual fracking enterprises as they go forward. It is essential that should there be any cumulation of fracking, those safeguards are in place. New clause 19 provides protection both in the individual exploration phase and in the production phase. I would like to see—

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Griffiths]

I shall take a minute to tell hon. Members that we all need to see pubs protected and to see them thrive. What the Minister has done today is to say that if 21 people in a community want to protect their pub, they can do so and they can afford it protection under the planning laws. If a pub cannot get 21 people to support it, it is not financially viable. There is no need to have extra red tape and regulation as proposed in new clause 16. The Minister has, simply and succinctly, put the power back in the hands of pub goers, pub lovers and beer drinkers, and I commend him for doing so.

[Mrs Main]

My plea to the Minister is to consider issuing new guidance that will put an obligation on commercial buildings to have zero-carbon or low-carbon emissions. In my constituency, it is possible to have 3.5 million square feet of rail freight interchange, and not one single green initiative is necessary. We are considering such an obligation for homes, and we should be considering it for commercial premises too. Will the Minister please issue some guidance to be used during the planning process?

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Like many people here this evening—