Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Debate between Joan Walley and Tim Yeo

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Yeo]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I am glad to have the opportunity to say how welcome he is as a resident in my constituency, where he has recently purchased a house. I assure him that any evidence of subsidence in his property will receive my close personal attention.

That brings me to the subject of earth tremors. When they were experienced in Lancashire, Cuadrilla acted very responsibly by immediately halting its activities while it investigated them. The investigation showed not only that the tremors were so light they could not be felt on the surface, but that they were at a level routinely experienced across the UK every week. The vast majority of such tremors are caused, as my hon. Friend said, by old coal mine works.

On the positive side, in addition to the improvements in energy security there will be a significant improvement in our balance of payments—not that many people seem to worry about the trade balance any more. If, as we hope, UK reserves turn out to be substantial, there will be significant employment opportunities as well. Equally importantly, there is now a real chance for the UK to lead Europe on the issue. If we press ahead now, others will follow but we will have an enormous first mover advantage. It could be UK regulations that set the standard right across the EU and UK businesses that dominate the supply chain.

I urge the Government to ignore today the siren voices calling for delay; to look objectively at the facts, which have been analysed by many learned institutions as well as by my Committee and other bodies; and to recognise the huge potential benefits of fracking, without exaggerating their impact, as I am afraid some of our less well informed supporters have done. Let us oppose amendments that would obstruct the development of a potentially valuable natural resource.

[Joan Walley]

I am conscious of the fact that we have about 20 minutes left for the debate, and that there are about 60 amendments on the amendment paper. It will be impossible for the House to do justice to the concerns of people across the UK about how the Government are going all-out on fracking.

I will respond to the points that the esteemed Chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr Yeo), made. His Committee did produce reports on fracking, but the concerns that the Environmental Audit Committee received related to the haste with which the Government are taking fracking forward and the fact that we have started out with a regulatory regime that has not been thought through from every different perspective. We have the Health and Safety Executive, local planning inspectors, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Environment Agency, and we have petroleum exploration and development licences, which the Department for Energy and Climate Change issues, but we do not have an overarching, integrated way of dealing with applications. From the evidence that my Committee received, we felt that the matter should be looked at from every single perspective. We need an overall strategic assessment, not individual case-by-case assessment of each application. Until that is sorted out, it is difficult to see how the system will be right for the country’s energy security and supply.