North Sea Oil and Gas Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Watts
Main Page: Lord Watts (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Watts's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(2 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberNo, we are not reviewing our position, is the short answer to my noble friend’s question. Let me explain this issue: there is currently a moratorium on fracking because of the tremendous seismological damage that it caused. We remain open to reviewing this if it can be demonstrated that fracking can go ahead in a safe and responsible manner, but nobody should run away with the idea that this could be a solution to our problems. The quantities produced would be relatively small and they would not impact on the current high prices and it would be many years, perhaps even decades, before significant quantities could come on stream, even if we overcame all of the environmental problems and gave the go-ahead tomorrow.
My Lords, a previous question was about why we are exporting something that we desperately need in the UK. People cannot understand why we are still exporting, when there is a shortage and we are having difficulties getting supplies in the UK. Can the Minister explain it?
Yes, I realise that it is counterintuitive but supplies are required in different parts of the country. We are importing and exporting. The corollary to the noble Lord’s question would be to say that we seal the borders, disconnect all our interconnection pipelines and import no further LNG—and we would not have enough supplies to satisfy our domestic demand in such circumstances. We import and we export, but the point remains that we are a net importer of both oil and gas supplies.