Energy Security: Gas Production

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, my noble friend makes the very point I would have made if I had been able to develop even further my Answer to the three recommendations from the noble Baroness on the Liberal Benches. He is quite right: other countries are overdependent on imports from Russia, and it is not surprising that Russia opposes our attempts to look at the opportunities available through domestic shale gas.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Can the Minister therefore explain why the Government reduced our storage capacity by closing storage in the North Sea? There was three weeks’ capacity of storage there. Given the vagaries of gas supply, notwithstanding the interconnectors, to lose that much storage and reduce us to, I think, less than a week’s capacity for storage is, frankly, irresponsible.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I do not accept that. Levels of gas storage in the United Kingdom are often compared unfavourably with those on the continent. Direct comparison between countries does not reflect the amount of our indigenous gas production or the other storage that we have available. If all that is taken into account, our storage is broadly in line with that of the rest of Europe.