Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Lord Brougham and Vaux Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. The noble Lord, Lord Smith, who was then chair of the Environment Agency, reported to that Economic Affairs Committee that,

“groundwater contamination is the biggest environmental risk in the Act”.

The Labour spokesperson in the other place said that it was all or nothing: if the Government did not accept the amendment, including banning fracking near aquifers, the Labour Party would oppose fracking altogether. I look forward to that party reaffirming its opposition today. People might assume that as this is an unelected House, nobody watches what goes on here, but people do watch and they care out there. Fracking is a very controversial issue; people have already voiced their concerns and will continue to do so. A government U-turn on this is unforgiveable.

The second issue is that of trespass. I think there is a later amendment that deals with this, but it does not go far enough.

Groundwater contamination is one of the key environmental public health risks from fracking and is a huge risk to the well-being of the population. In some parts of the UK, more than 70% of public drinking water comes from groundwater. As for the Government promising to redefine groundwater source areas, that is a secondary legislation issue. The original idea from the Labour amendment was, however, that this should be in the Bill; it should be primary legislation, not secondary.

A leaked letter from the Chancellor had instructions to pull out all the stops to make for an easier life for fracking companies. This is probably not surprising when our Prime Minister has said that we are going “all out for shale”. I can accept that that side of the House is very gung-ho on fracking but I hope for something better on this side. The original Amendment 21 would also give us an opportunity to vote against the issue of trespass within this Bill.

Despite assertions that shale gas is a fantastic new source of energy, it is time for us to consider whether and by how much it would have a lower carbon footprint. It probably would not, if CO₂ and methane are included.

Fracking is one of those things that we can go for very hard when we do not know all the risks, but we have to understand that those risks exist. This House has a duty to people outside who know that there are risks. Some 360,000 people voiced their concerns about issues such as trespass. Many people also responded to a consultation on the risks of fracking. There is concern out there that I feel is not well represented in this House and I urge the Government to think again about this amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords that if Amendment 21E is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 21G by reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Turnbull]

My Lords, I confess that I am somewhat mystified why we are discussing a fracking moratorium. It was not in the Bill as it left the Lords and the Commons declined to insert an amendment. What is there left for the Lords to consider?

There are two approaches for analysing this issue. The first we might call the appeal to reason. That was the title of the book by the noble Lord, Lord Lawson. What is the logic of the moratorium? It seems to me to be completely incoherent. It is argued, first, that we do not know enough to permit this technique to be deployed in the UK, but the moratorium would prevent drilling under careful restraints of the kind that the Minister has pointed out and it would prevent us advancing our knowledge. In my view, it is the logic of the GM-crop tramplers.

The next argument is that we cannot allow our shale reserves to be exploited as this would be inconsistent with the decarbonisation targets of the Climate Change Act. Setting aside the fact that our exploitation of shale is pretty immaterial in a world where China has said that its CO₂ emissions will continue to rise until 2030 and India refuses to set any such objective, this proposal ignores the fact that the largest part of gas usage is for heat in our homes and the feedstock for chemicals. That is not going to change for a long time given the slow turnover in our housing stock for several decades.

This morning, I looked at where the various sources of energy came from. At 11 am on a very cold and still day, we were using 46 gigawatts of energy. Of that, 6% came from wind and 43% from gas. This proposal ignores the fact that we need access to gas to provide the back-up when the wind does not blow in precisely these climatic conditions, which are repeated quite often each winter.