Ban on Fracking for Shale Gas Bill

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Not at the moment.

The Government remain committed to net zero by 2050. It is how we reach that without putting our energy security at risk.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Secretary of State give way on that point?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman always wants to intervene on every point. He always says, “On this point” so it is hard to believe it really is on this point.

It makes no sense to become more reliant on shale gas produced overseas. Indeed, the Committee on Climate Change’s analysis notes that while current evidence on the emissions footprint of UK shale gas and liquefied gas imports is not yet definitive, available estimates indicate that emissions from those imports could be higher than those that would arise from commercial UK shale gas production by between 2 and 63 grams of carbon dioxide per kWh of gas consumed. Using our own resources is therefore more environmentally friendly and will help us to get to net zero.

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[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.

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[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

We are here because the previous Chancellor lifted the moratorium on fracking, and his previous boss, Crispin Odey of the hedge fund Odey Asset Management, has put millions of pounds of investment into fracking. He is the same one who made hundreds of millions of pounds when the pound went down following Brexit, having supported leave. He is the same one who made a lot of money out of sterling going down after the mini-Budget. Strange, isn’t it?

The Government have lifted the moratorium and said, “You can go ahead with fracking, so long as you have safety and local consent.” That may be bribed—we do not know what will happen there—but I do not think that it is sufficient, because we need to think about the environment. I was rapporteur on fracking for the Council of Europe. We found from satellite data that 5% of the methane being pulled out was leaked through fugitive emissions, which means that fracking is worse than coal for global warming, because methane is 80 times worse than carbon dioxide. We recommended —46 countries—that no one went ahead with fracking. As a result, when Macron was first elected and did not have many policies, he took that policy off the table and banned fracking, as we have in Wales.

Fracking consists of sending millions of tonnes and cubic metres of chemically impregnated water—often hundreds of chemicals, which are carcinogenic—into the ground. Half of them come back. Half of them stay underneath so that they can contaminate the water table; the rest have to be processed. In the United States, they are dumped in Arizona. Well, we are not the United States and we do not have the space.

We have lorries running around the countryside, smashing up our environment. We have mini-earthquakes causing disturbances. We have air quality data from the United States showing that local people have runny eyes and all sorts of problems. That is why we have banned it in Wales. We are focusing on tidal lagoons, wind farms, solar energy and spatial planning. There is a way forward for a sustainable green energy future. The answer is not fracking; it is environmentally unsound. We should dismiss it even if there was consent and the safety concerns were alleviated, which they will not be. This is absolutely appalling. It is Tory fracking, and people should vote Labour because of this appalling decision to lift the moratorium.