Ban on Fracking for Shale Gas Bill

James Grundy Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Grundy (Leigh) (Con)]

I was very grateful that the Secretary of State today gave confirmation at the Dispatch Box about a local veto. As other colleagues have said, that local veto on fracking must be paramount. There can be no local authority overturning what has been decided by local people in a referendum or other similar independent method of decision making. Although some colleagues have spoken about local authorities being bastions of listening, that is not always the case. Unfortunately, some would be cynical enough to pass fracking applications in just a couple of opposition-held wards and then claim that the planning committee was the democratic representative. We would then find that those wards, which were never going to vote for the administration, would be unable to hold the council to account. It is important that local authorities are not able to hornswoggle smaller communities within the local authority in that way and that, by the mechanism that the Secretary of State has rightly set out—I look forward to further detail on it—we enable local residents to prevent local authorities from trampling local rights.

I am incredibly pleased that that has been confirmed, because I fear that Wigan Council, which is in a huge dispute with local residents and is fighting tooth and nail over a number of incredibly unpopular planning applications in just a handful of areas in my constituency despite thousands of objections, is fundamentally unwilling to listen to objectors. I am delighted that that would not be the case with fracking and that the veto would remain at the community level. With that, I shall sit down. I have made my point very clearly that the local voice must be paramount, and if people do not want fracking, they should not have it.