Hydraulic Fracturing: North East Derbyshire

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Lee Rowley]

My hon. Friend highlights a point that I will come to in a moment: we have a variety of potential opportunities here, including some we have not necessarily thought about previously, such as tidal lagoons.

Proponents of fracking would argue that the United Kingdom, blessed by large-scale energy resources, should take the opportunities to harvest the energy beneath its sea and soil, to improve our energy security and ensure we are diversifying our energy mix. “Rejoice!” they will say, “The United Kingdom has a long and rich history of mining in this part of the world and across the United Kingdom as a whole, and fracking is just another innovation in a long seam of innovation that helps to heat our homes and allow us to drive our cars.”

The alternative argument is equally clear and concise, if not more so. “Fracking,” say its opponents, “is an energy activity which we do not need and should not support.” For some, that is down to environmental concerns. The continuation of hydrocarbon development in our country is not something we should support, in understanding the challenges we have in the coming decades. For others, such as me, it is the sheer imposition and impact of this kind of activity on areas that have been rural for hundreds of years and never seen anything like the kind of development that is proposed if fracking happens.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the problem with the application in his constituency is not just the impact it will have there, but that it could be the tip of the iceberg for applications in surrounding constituencies, such as my own, that are in urban areas? This is not just an issue for rural areas. All the surrounding areas are considered to be high risk by the Coal Authority.

[Lee Rowley]

The hon. Lady brings up an important point—one that I will come to later in my speech, because it is vital to understand that specific point before we conclude.

Some will argue from an environmental perspective, some from a perspective on the sheer imposition of activity, and others will be concerned about the uncertainty that fracking brings, for a multitude of reasons, which I cannot hope to go into in this short debate. Others would simply point to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy opinion tracker on fracking, which shows that only 16% of people were in favour of fracking in the latest survey in August this year.

I acknowledge that the Government take a different view from me and many of my residents. I accept the place the Government start from—I have no criticism of that—which is that we need to improve our energy security, diversify our energy mix and ensure we can bridge to the future when renewables can take on a greater share of the energy generation that we need in this country, but I do not agree with the Government’s conclusion on this particular issue.

I accept that energy production has fallen by over a half since 2000, that we are back to pre-North sea oil levels of imports and that we are obtaining an increasing volume of gas from Qatar to heat our homes. I accept that renewable energy remains at a smaller level of energy generation than we would all hope, although it has grown massively from negligible levels just a few decades ago. Even as a fracking sceptic, I accept that there is a debate to be had on how we continue to keep our homes warm, our cars moving and our factories working.