Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Debate between John Hayes and Mark Menzies

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

I am delighted to amplify the remarks that I made in an earlier intervention and say that we do take very seriously the remarks made by my right hon. Friend and the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert). We will take the necessary steps to ensure that the spirit that underpinned those amendments is realised in respect of Government policy. I must say that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield has been a doughty champion of the interests of the people in his constituency in this regard. He is right that development needs to enjoy community support, to be proportionate and, in my judgment, to inspire and to elevate. Is that too much to ask for in our age? I say that it is not.

The introduction of mayoral development orders will allow the Mayor of London to assist local authorities to regenerate London. Across the nation, these planning reforms will help kick-start a new era of construction that is fit for purpose.

Tonight, we have also debated energy. Some of the measures that we have introduced are designed to assist our current and future energy needs. We will take a lead in improving global transparency in the extractive sector by participating in the extractive industries transparency initiative. Our country has an enviable record on the regulation of extractive industries. We have listened carefully to concerns about new forms of extraction and have put in place additional measures to reassure Members across the House. The House will have seen tonight that, because we are sensitive to those concerns, because we are responsive to arguments, and because we listen and learn, we will take on board the perfectly proper considerations of those who are as determined as we are to ensure that these things are done safely and securely and in tune with local interests.

[Mark Menzies]

As a Minister, my right hon. Friend has genuinely listened to the concerns of Members on both sides of the House. I wish to put on the record my thanks to the Government for taking on board some of the issues that I have raised, particularly in allowing the British Geological Survey to play a role, thereby ensuring closer, independent monitoring, which is very important for me in Fylde. Will he give me an assurance that this is not the end but a continuum of the process and that we will continue to see calls for rigorous on-the-ground inspections delivered by this Government?

Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Debate between John Hayes and Mark Menzies

Monday 8th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

The House has had no greater advocate of the interests of communities in respect of shale gas exploration than my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies), who has brought their concerns to the notice of the House on at least two occasions. When I was Energy Minister, I debated those issues with him twice from the Dispatch Box. I made it clear then, and I repeat now, that I am absolutely determined that these things should be done safely and properly, and in tune with the interests of the communities that are affected. That commitment lies at the heart of the Government’s approach, as the hon. Lady should know. I do not want to fall out with her, but she can, I hope, see that my determination—to do the right thing and the safe thing—at least matches hers

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Hayes]

Having named my hon. Friend, I feel obliged to give way to him.

[Mark Menzies]

The Minister is right to point out that I have been campaigning on shale gas regulation for the last four and a half years. I urge him to take this opportunity to reflect on the need for an independent panel of experts. We need to ensure, above all, that all the regulations are viewed impartially and independently, and that, if this goes ahead, we have the safest shale gas regime in the world.

[Mr Hayes]

I think that my hon. Friend and I should share a secret with the House. Not only did I debate this matter with him in the House, but I visited his constituency, looked at the sites involved, met some of the people who—like the constituents of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley)—were concerned, listened to and learned from them, and determined to do this thing right, on the basis of the empiricism that my hon. Friend has once again recommended.

With—I hope—your permission, Mr Speaker, I shall now proceed with my speech rather more rapidly, because I know that a number of other Members want to contribute to the debate. I do not want to eat up too much of their time, nor do I want to shorten the exciting conclusion of my speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to be called to finish the Back-Bench contributions to the debate. I wish to touch upon a number of items in the Bill, but I will focus primarily on one specific area. Right hon. and hon. Members on both sides have used various terms to describe the Bill, including a rag-tag Bill. I prefer to call it a Christmas tree Bill, given that we are in the festive season, because many things appear to have been hung on it.

I will first mention one point the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) made on the design of new homes. She touched on something that is incredibly important for my constituency, which has an older population and where a considerable number of new houses are being built. The overwhelming majority of those new houses have bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs and living accommodation downstairs, but not living accommodation that could easily be reconfigured to cater for the needs of someone who is disabled or could become disabled, or who would not wish to have a chair lift fitted when they grow older or to move home. I urge the Government to give some serious thought to what measures could be introduced to encourage developers to build some future-proofing into new houses as they are being designed and as they go through the planning stage, because at the moment one size certainly does not fit all.

My purpose in rising tonight is to talk about an issue that concerns my constituency and that many other right hon. and hon. Member have touched upon: shale gas and fracking. It was back in 2011 that I secured my first Adjournment debate on the matter, and I have had subsequent Westminster Hall debates, in which my hon. Friends the Members for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) and for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) participated.

One of the things I called for in 2011 was the establishment of an independent body to oversee shale gas regulation. The purpose was not to supersede the regulators, but to ensure that the regulations that were in place and were likely to be in place were fit for purpose. It was partly as a result of that call that the Office of Unconventional Gas and Oil was born. I know that it was the Minister here tonight, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), who was responsible for establishing that body, but I think that since he left the Department that body has not continued to flourish in the way he had originally intended. I ask the Government to ensure that that body is fit for purpose and adequately resourced and that it looks at issues such as community engagement and involvement, because that is one of the things that has fallen by the wayside.

It is not sufficient to say that the regulations are robust and adequate; we must demonstrate that they are robust and adequate. We must also have enforcement on the ground. For the Health and Safety Executive, which is based in Aberdeen, to say that it can do all that from Aberdeen without any presence on the ground in Lancashire is completely unacceptable to me, to my constituents and to people in Lancashire. If it wants to have a serious role—it is the only body that can have a serious role in this—I think that it has to have a permanent presence in Lancashire, and not just at the development stage, but from the earliest point of the exploration phase.

That brings me to the Environment Agency, which should have responsibility, above all agencies, for ensuring the safe and thorough regulation of environmental aspects. It really concerned me when a colleague who is a Lancashire county councillor highlighted to me that Lancashire county council had been in discussion with both Cuadrilla and the Environment Agency over the site at Preese Hall, which is located in my constituency. The council requested that the Environment Agency monitor the site for a period of up to five years. It then discovered that it had no powers to compel the Environment Agency to conduct that monitoring. The agency expressed reluctance, or even refused, to conduct environmental monitoring at the site and said that that obligation should fall on Cuadrilla.

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. Friend knows, as you do, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I eat reluctant bureaucrats for breakfast. If there is any such reluctance on the part of the Environment Agency, Ministers must ensure that it is aware of its responsibilities in this regard. I pledged to have a meeting with concerned colleagues, and I am more than happy to explore at that meeting what extra measures we need to put in place to ensure that the Environment Agency does its job. I am not aware that it is not doing it, but if there is a problem, let us for heaven’s sake deal with it.

[Mark Menzies]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that assurance.

As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) said, when the Bill gets into Committee we will have to be rigorous and specific in considering certain amendments as to how we can improve regulation and its enforcement, and make sure that that regulation is absolutely robust. If I had had the opportunity to intervene on him, I would have welcomed his sentiments on that point, which, to be fair, the Minister also made in his opening speech. Based on those two assurances, I will support the Bill’s Second Reading. However, I will be unable to support its further progress if, in Committee, we are unable to improve regulation and I do not get assurances on how it will be enforced. That would cause me great sadness, because the Bill contains many good things that are unrelated to shale gas.

It is important that Labour Members do not fall into the trap of seeking to turn this into a party political football. The licence round in my constituency was awarded under the previous Labour Government; indeed, the Leader of the Opposition may even have been Energy Secretary at the time. It is therefore beholden on them to make sure that regulation is in place. It is no good their now saying that they do not support shale gas fracking, because if that was their sentiment when the Leader of the Opposition was Secretary of State, they should not have ventured down that path to start with. We must work together on behalf of our communities to ensure that regulation is robust. If it is not, and we get to a point where this cannot be done safely, then the only way to proceed is to say, “Thank you very much, but it’s not right for us.”

I want to make a point to those on both Front Benches about planning processes. Two planning applications are before Lancashire county council. I have deliberately avoided getting involved in trying to influence its decision one way or the other, because I firmly believe that it is the role first and foremost of a planning committee— in this case, the council’s mineral rights authority—to consider the merits and the negatives of a planning application. If it feels, as a result of due deliberation, that rejecting one or both sites is the right thing to do, we must accept its will. It would be wrong to trigger a process of judicial reviews and central Government seeking to overturn that decision. I believe, above all, in the importance of localism and of taking local people with us on these matters. If local councillors feel that they have taken the right decision, we must stand by them on that. There can be no easy way out and no expectation that someone further up the food chain will take a difficult decision for us. If the answer is no, then that is where we have to be.

If shale gas fracking does proceed and inspections start to take place, they must include a large number of unannounced inspections. It is no good letting the operator know when the inspectors are coming, although there will be times when that is necessary. Unannounced, and rigorous, inspections have to be the core of what we are seeking to do.

I say to Government Front Benchers that for the past four years I have worked to highlight the concerns of my local residents. I have also worked with various Ministers to make sure that we can improve the process under discussion. The caveat of my support has always been to make sure that the regulation is robust and that it can be done safely, but if it cannot be done safely it should not be done at all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Hayes and Mark Menzies

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

The right hon. Lady is a champion of Lewisham college, which I have visited twice—I have laid bricks at Lewisham college, by the way, although not with any great skill. I can assure her that the places of college students, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made clear, will not be put at risk by changes we make, and we will certainly take full account of representations from her and others on that point.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

T10. When will the Minister announce further details of the learner support fund, including the amounts and time scales of such support to colleges across the country?

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. Friend makes a strong case for colleges. Perhaps it is time that I put on record the fact that this Government believe that further education colleges are the unheralded triumph of the English education system. Furthermore, we will continue to give them greater discretion, greater opportunity and greater freedoms in order to allow those with the tastes and talents to pursue vocational and other kinds of learning to fulfil their potential.