Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Jim Fitzpatrick Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Gentleman will have a chance to respond in a minute.

Planning regulations currently require persons submitting planning applications for shale gas to serve notice on individual owners and tenants of land where surface works are required.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Amber Rudd]

I am going to make some progress.

Persons submitting such planning applications must publish a notice in a local newspaper and put up site notices. We believe this is proportionate and fair to residents. In addition, the industry has agreed, as part of a voluntary package, to notify the public when exercising the right of use to access underground land. We have taken a reserve power in the Bill to enforce this if the notice scheme relating to the right of use is not honoured appropriately.

Amendment (c) stipulates that no hydraulic fracturing, as defined in the amendment, can take place until the regulations defining water source protection areas and other protected areas have been approved by Parliament. It is worth noting that, at the moment, no operator in the UK has well consent where hydraulic fracturing for shale gas is intended. I can confirm that the Government will not grant any consent for associated hydraulic fracturing operations until all the conditions are clearly defined.

Amendments (b), (d) and (e) insert wording into the clauses about associated hydraulic fracturing not taking place “within or under” protected areas. Amendment (b) also asks that we insert the environmental regulator’s definition of groundwater protection zones into the clauses. I would like to stress that we are talking here about how to define these things in law. It is absolutely crucial to get these legal definitions right. The Government amendment does not refer to “within or under” protected areas because the meaning of this term needs to be flexible to allow proper provisions to be made in secondary legislation.

There is a strong case that sites such as World Heritage sites and the Norfolk Broads should be protected from fracking taking place under them. In other cases, that would not be so sensible. For example, in the case of areas of outstanding natural beauty and national parks, given their size and dispersion, it might not be practical to guarantee that fracking will not take place under them in all cases without unduly constraining the industry. However, that is something we need to consider in more detail, and we will do that in due course.

We will look at the evidence to ensure we get this right when setting out the details in secondary legislation. The regulations will be subject to the approval of both Houses, so now is not the time for this. Our clauses put a duty on the Secretary of State to lay draft regulations containing a definition of “protected areas” by 31 July 2015. We must not rush this now, because we would risk putting in place restrictions in areas in a way that does not achieve the intended aim of the condition, or that goes beyond it and needlessly damages the potential development of the shale industry.

We have been working tirelessly over the past week to come up with a set of clauses specific to the shale industry that, in keeping with the spirit of each of the points in amendment 21, will provide the public with confidence that it is being taken forward in a balanced way. Officials and Ministers have worked hard on this, and I would like to thank the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams), for working so hard with us in Committee, together with our excellent cross-departmental team of officials.

I hope the points I have made address hon. Members’ concerns. Shale gas is an exciting new energy resource for the UK, with huge potential that we can deliver safely. Now is the time to seize, not squander, the opportunity to develop the United Kingdom’s shale industry.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lilley]

I am sorry but my hon. Friend misheard me. I said that we have drilled 2,000 onshore wells—I was not talking about fracking wells. As for the risks of escape of gas, it does not matter whether it is fracked or not. We have drilled 2,000 such wells, only 200 of which have been fracked, and they tend to be shallow and small pressure. I will move on to the issue of fracking, but if people are worried about methane or liquids permeating to the surface, that is an issue about well casing. We have very adequate and strong controls on that, and, as far as I know, there is not a single case among those 2,000 wells where a problem has resulted.

The second issue is whether fracking—the use of high pressures, at depth, as my hon. Friend says—will lead to those fractures reaching up to the water table. The useful report produced by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, which is studiously ignored by those who wish to raise fears and concerns, makes it absolutely clear that that is extremely unlikely. For fractures to permeate requires immense energy and for them to remain open proppants have to be put in; sand is injected to try to keep them open. The idea that they will be able to be kept open for several hundred if not thousands of feet, extending up to the aquifer, is almost laughable. Even this well-measured report states:

“Sufficiently high upward pressures would be required during the fracturing process and then sustained afterwards over the long term once the fracturing process had ceased. It is very difficult to conceive of how this might occur given the UK’s shale gas hydrogeological environments.”

Even if that did occur, an upward flow of fluids would not result unless

“the permeability of the fractures”

was

“similar to that of the overlying aquifer for any significant quantity of fluid to flow. In reality, the permeability of the aquifer is likely to be several orders of magnitude greater than the permeability of the fractures. Upward flow of fluids from the zone of shale gas extraction to overlying aquifers via fractures in the intervening strata is highly unlikely.”

That is an understatement.

Concerns have also been raised about the process resulting in excessive abstraction of water—too much water being used—putting our water supplies under threat. The report states that the amount of water

“needed to operate a hydraulically fractured shale gas well for a decade may be equivalent to the amount needed to water a golf course for a month”.

It states that

“the amount lost to leaks in United Utilities’ region in north west England every hour”

exceeds the water required by one shale gas well for a decade, so there is no danger of excessive water abstraction and use as a result of this process.

Then we hear the frequent assertion, “We just can’t take the risk. This is a new, untried, untested process. We don’t know what dangers could result.” In fact, 2.5 million wells have been fracked worldwide and not a single person has been injured or harmed as a result of contaminated water. Not a single building has been damaged by the resultant seismic events that are so small that they would probably be less than if we dropped one of the Dispatch Boxes on the floor.

We are dealing with a well-tried and tested procedure worldwide. In this country, we have drilled 2,000 wells well below the aquifer and had no problems of contamination. We know from very respected bodies such as the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society that the risks are negligible, certainly if we continue with the sort of processes and environmental protection that they say already exist, although they do recommend that they could be strengthened in certain ways.

I urge the House not to be frightened by those who are trying to scare us into failing to exploit a resource that is potentially of immense value to this country and, not least, to those areas where shale is most prolific.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I am very pleased to follow the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), and I agree with much of what he said. I too support the recovery of shale gas within the UK. I also agree with the comments of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) who gives the Government the benefit of the doubt, but says that some questions might have to be asked in due course. However, as a former deputy Chief Whip, he would give the Government the benefit of the doubt. I cannot say that I am quite so generous, because I am disappointed that the Government risk jeopardising the support across the Chamber from those of us who believe in shale, shale recovery, fracking and the energy resource that we have underneath our shores.

I say with no disrespect to the Minister that this is disappointing. The Government accepted the Labour amendment when we debated the matter two weeks ago, partly because they felt that they might lose the vote because of rebellions and other things and partly because they thought the approach was correct. I do not think that fracking is dangerous. I think that with the appropriate regulatory regime, it will be safe. I much prefer the idea of sourcing our energy from within the United Kingdom than importing it from Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Russia, with all the associated problems. We should also consider the jobs, the manufacturing, the side products and the rest of it.

I am disappointed that the Government are not accepting the amendments that we put down originally and are rejecting those refined by the Lords. I am equally disappointed that the Minister was not prepared to engage in a debate with my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex), who sits on the Labour Front Bench, and accept his intervention. We should exploit shale and use it as a national resource, but to do that, and to be able to defeat those who are scaremongering, as the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden put it, we need the strongest consensus possible, and the Government’s approach tonight jeopardises that.

[Dr Huppert]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) even when I do not quite agree with everything he said, although I do agree with much of it.

The frustration here is that we are discussing the small details, the minor issues. It is a shame that we do not have the chance to discuss and vote on the principles. We were denied that chance last time. There was not an opportunity to vote on the duty to maximise extraction or on trespass. There was a chance to vote on a moratorium, but, unfortunately, the Opposition abstained in large numbers. It is frustrating that we do not get the chance again this time. The two amendments on trespass which I co-sponsored with the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) were not selected, and it looks as though we will not get a chance to vote on very much today.

Let me be positive to the Government and start with Commons amendment 20. I am pleased that the Minister has delivered on the promise she made when she intervened on me in our last debate, which was to give a key role to the Committee on Climate Change. I am pleased that the Committee on Climate Change will have to make reports. I hope the Minister can assure me that “from time to time” means every few years rather than every few generations. I am pleased that the Minister has gone further and given what I think will be a crucial power, which is that if the Committee on Climate Change does say that fracking is increasing UK emissions, this new Lords amendment gives the power to a Secretary of State in the future to stop fracking. That will become quite an important measure, particularly when the balance changes as we become much better at energy efficiency—the issue that the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden did not want to think about. As we change that balance, where we get our fuel from will change substantially.

The proposal goes slightly further in that any Secretary of State who gets a report saying that fracking is increasing emissions and does not take steps to stop it will be required at least to report formally to Parliament to say why they are flying in the face of expert advice. I welcome that.