Draft Onshore Hydraulic Fracturing (Protected Areas) Regulations 2015

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 General Committees

[Callum McCaig]

At no stage did I say that there would be deliberate poisoning of water. If the Minister took some more time to listen and reflect, it might be more helpful. What we are dealing with here is the potential for drilled wells—fracked wells—under protected groundwater source areas.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Far from talking about scaremongering, the Government would do well to look at the impact assessment by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on rural economy impacts. Of course, the Government tried to prevent it being in the public domain, but it states:

“There is a risk that even if contaminated surface water does not directly impact drinking water supplies, it can affect human health indirectly through consumption of contaminated wildlife, livestock or agricultural products.”

That is from the document that the Government tried to hide. We now have it in the public domain, and what the hon. Gentleman is saying is far from scaremongering.

[Callum McCaig]

I thank the hon. Lady for that. To dwell for a second on the terminology here, we are talking about protected groundwater source areas. Why are we talking about that? The agencies have suggested that the areas are in need of protection. Someone drilling a well is going through the aquifers to pump chemicals down into the ground to cause a chemical reaction that causes mini-fractures. That is the process. If people think that what happens 1,200 metres below the ground has no relevance to what happens at the surface, they are deluding themselves. Even were it not for the large hole that is required to get the chemicals down there in the first place, there is the chance of seepage to the surface and the aquifers, causing damage.

I understand that the Government have a different approach to fracking than my party’s Government in Holyrood, and I am entirely thankful that the matter is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. I have great sympathy for Members whose constituencies may be adversely affected by the regulations. If the Government are to proceed with fracking, would it not be sensible to demonstrate its safety before they consider allowing it in protected groundwater source areas? To me, that seems a logical way of dealing with the race for gas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

Thank you, Mr Hanson, for allowing those not on the Committee to make short interventions. To be brief, I simply say that I very much agree with the analysis put forward by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test. The Government have made a spectacular U-turn and are undermining public trust even further by so doing.

Overall, the regulations fall far short of protecting our most precious wildlife sites and also our national parks and water resources. They also run contrary to the recommendations of the Environmental Audit Committee, of which I was a member in the previous Parliament.

The Minister will recall that that Committee carried out an in-depth inquiry into fracking and the unanimous view in that cross-party report was that there should be a moratorium on fracking. If there were not to be a moratorium, at the very least we made recommendations for the regulatory framework, including outright prohibition in protected and nationally important areas such as SSSIs, and in all watersource protection zones. The Minister is now, sadly, running against those recommendations.

I want to pick up on a point the Minister made in her concluding remarks. She said something that frankly beggars belief. She said that going ahead with fracking would help to meet carbon targets. Fracking represents a whole new fossil fuel industry, which will not displace coal because, by the time fracking comes on to our grid, coal will be off the grid. What it will displace are renewables.

There is real lack of understanding that fracking poses a risk to the shift that everybody says they want to a low carbon economy. Even if we had a perfect, generously resourced system of standards, regulation and monitoring—which we do not—fracking is not compatible with securing a safe and habitable climate for current and future generations.

[Graham Jones]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Caroline Lucas]

I will not because I have only two minutes. It is clear that globally we already have around five times more fossil fuel reserves than we can safely burn. The bottom line is that building this whole new fossil fuel industry is the very last thing the UK should be doing, especially if we are serious about securing a deal at the Paris climate talks.

The argument that shale gas is lower carbon than coal stacks up only if minimum methane emissions can be guaranteed. Recent studies suggest worrying rates of methane leakage from US shale operations. The inventor of the monitoring device routinely used by the industry warns that a fault in his invention means that historical estimates of leakage are severely underestimated. That means that fracked gas may not be better than coal in greenhouse gas emissions after all.

I can see that you want me to wind up, Mr Hanson, so let me simply repeat what John Ashton, the climate diplomat under the previous Labour Government, said:

“You can be in favour of fixing the climate, or you can be in favour of exploiting shale gas, but you cannot be in favour of both at the same time.”