Shale Gas Development

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mark Menzies]

Mr Hollobone, your words are echoing in my ears. I will condense my remarks to allow other hon. Members in, but I have been very generous in taking interventions, as I hope you recognise. I will take one last intervention, and then make some progress.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate, and on the powerful representations he is making on behalf of his community. Is he aware of the wider concern? The latest polling shows that just 18% of the public supports fracking. Many people are watching this debate, such as my constituent Etienne Stott—who is anything but ordinary—who asked me to attend the debate. He has said, “Can you tell the Minister that fracking is a terrible idea?” He does not want the Government to be able to bulldoze their misguided policy over local and global concerns. Does the hon. Gentleman understand why Mr Stott believes that?

[Mark Menzies]

I do indeed.

Mr Hollobone, let me plough on and bring my contribution to a conclusion. I ask the Minister to look at how consistency can be brought into the planning process. It is important that communities do not face years and years of uncertainty, and that we have consistency. It is also important that the industry knows where it stands. When that planning process is developed, it might well take lots of potential sites off the table altogether, so that the industry can stop wasting its time pursuing sites that, quite frankly, are not suitable.

Central Government’s involvement in recent years has brought some benefits. We have seen much more regulation and understanding of the industry, and I commend the Government on the creation of the Oil and Gas Authority. Indeed, that was something that I called for, campaigned for and pushed on right from the outset. We need an organisation that recognises that shale gas is very different, and that can pull together the work of the Health and Safety Executive, the Environment Agency, mineral rights authorities, BEIS, and other organisations. We need to create a level of expertise within Government that can help ensure that, if this industry develops, it does so in a safe way.

One of the changes that came in was a traffic light system—red, amber and green—and we have seen seismic events triggered at Preston New Road in recent days. Four of those events have been classed as red events, and have led to a cessation in activity. I put it to the Minister that for six years, the industry was not approaching me or anyone else to say that the threshold was far too low, but we now hear calls that a seismic event should need to be a 1.5 or a 2 to trigger a red event. I am sorry, but that ship has sailed. The industry had six years to make the case for that, and no case was made.

Bearing in mind your advice to allow other Members in, Mr Hollobone, I will conclude, because I know that many other people wish to speak in this important debate.