Mark Menzies

In order to avoid hydraulically fracturing near faults, operators are required to review information on faults in the area of the proposed well, and to monitor background seismicity before operations commence. In addition, real time seismic monitoring will also continue during operations, informing a “traffic-light” regime, so that operations can be quickly halted and data reviewed if unusual levels of seismic activity are observed. The level of seismicity at which operations are halted has been set at a precautionary low level on the basis of a report by independent experts and will only be detected at the ground's surface by sensitive equipment.

Flaring of gas at onshore sites in England requires a permit from the Environment Agency and the consent of my rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State under the Energy Act 1976. Our policy is that any flaring should be reduced to the economic minimum.

In the Strategic Environmental Assessment carried out for the 14^th onshore licensing round, the level of flaring for unconventional oil and gas was assessed to be 500,000 cubic meters of methane per fractured exploration well.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer to Question 225861 given to him by my predecessor on 5^th March 2015:

http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2015-03-02/225861/.

The government believes that every community hosting shale projects should share in the benefits.

The shale gas industry has made a voluntary commitment to its Community Engagement Charter, co-ordinated by its representative body UK Onshore Oil and Gas, which includes a commitment to provide benefits to local communities of £100,000 per well at the exploration/appraisal stage where hydraulic fracturing takes place and a further 1% of revenues if shale gas is discovered.

At a local level, the particular package of community benefits will be designed in conjunction with local residents. Industry have committed to keep their Charter and interaction with local communities under review, including consulting communities about it over time, in the light of operating experience.

We have also committed to setting up a Sovereign Wealth Fund for the North of England, so that the shale gas resources of the North are used to invest in the future of the North.

Since this Government was elected 1.9 million more people are in employment, with jobs created in every region of the country – 60% outside London and the South East.

The 28 City Deals, and 39 Local Growth Deals are helping drive local growth by transferring powers and resources from Whitehall to local economies.

All of the major suppliers have announced reductions to their standard variable gas tariffs in recent weeks in response to reductions in the wholesale gas price. The price of fixed term deals has continued to fall with the cheapest deal on the market £100 cheaper than the cheapest deal a year ago.

The Competition and Markets Authority has made clear that it will be looking further at the relationship between wholesale costs and retail prices as part of its investigation.

The number of women starting engineering and manufacturing technologies apprenticeships has increased threefold from 1,600 in the 2009/10 academic year to 4,800 in the 2013/14 academic year.

We are committed to ensure that the STEM workforce is diverse, reflects wider society and makes use of all the talents available to it. We need to articulate to young people, especially women, the career opportunities in STEM based occupation via STEM apprenticeships.

National Apprenticeship Week, 9 – 13 March, will see a number of events across the country celebrating and promoting the benefits and opportunities offered by apprenticeships in STEM. This will complement our recent `Get in. Go far` Campaign that featured dynamic young women in apprenticeships, including engineering.

The Government has committed nearly £2 billion since 2010 to maintain, modernise and protect a network of at least 11,500 branches, securing its long-term sustainable future. The Post Office is continuing to meet strict access criteria that see, for example, 99% of the rural population living within three miles of a Post Office outlet.

The Post Office is modernising and improving its national network, with thousands of branches benefiting from investment under the Government funded Network Transformation programme. This programme has already seen over a third of the network’s branches modernised, delivering benefits to customers such as much longer opening hours and improved branch environments. It has also seen over 3,000 branches designated as Community Branches. These branches are typically the last shop in the community where we are safeguarding service provision, many of which are in rural and remote communities. Community Branches are benefitting from access to the £20 million Government funded Community Branch Fund, which is providing investment into these socially important branches.

Before any oil or gas operation can begin in the UK, operators must gain a permit from the relevant environmental regulator (such as the Environment Agency in England). Exactly which permits they need depends on the activities proposed and site specific circumstances such as location, and is determined by the Environmental Agency (EA). The EA will require operators to have a groundwater permit unless they can demonstrate that there will be no, or a trivial, impact on groundwater (this is known as the “de minimis” exclusion). In all other cases, they will require a permit to regulate any actual impact on groundwater or the risk of an impact.

The EA also requires operators to disclose the chemicals they propose to use and the maximum concentration of each one before granting environmental permits. The EA assesses the hazards presented by fracking fluid additives on a case-by-case basis and will not allow substances hazardous to groundwater to be used where they may enter groundwater and cause pollution. Information on chemical substances and their maximum concentrations is included within the environmental permit, along with any other monitoring requirements. The permit is placed on the public register.

In addition, the Infrastructure Act 2015 makes it clear that hydraulic fracturing activity associated with onshore oil and gas exploitation cannot take place within protected groundwater source areas. Protected groundwater source areas will be defined in regulations by the end of July.

The UK already has a strong regulatory system which provides a comprehensive regime for exploratory activities. To reinforce this system, the Infrastructure Act 2015 introduced a range of further requirements that must be met before an operator can carry out hydraulic fracturing. These include environmental impact assessments, groundwater monitoring, community benefits and the exclusion of protected areas.

Our Long Term Economic Plan is giving manufacturers the confidence to invest - creating more opportunities, skilled jobs and making the UK more competitive so that British businesses can thrive.

The Department recognises the potential for tidal energy in the UK and remains committed to explore the options of harnessing this resource.

Tidal energy developments are currently supported by Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) until 2017. Thereafter they will be supported by Contract for Difference (CfD) under the Electricity Market Reform.

We have welcomed a package of community benefits that was put forward by industry. It is encouraging that industry will offer £100,000 per fractured well site during exploration, so communities can benefit early, as well as 1% of revenues at production.

The UK Onshore Operators Group has provided more information about the community benefits scheme and will be partnering with the UK Communities Foundation for two pilot schemes during the exploration stage. The UK Communities Foundation will work with local residents to use the funding according to their needs and priorities. UKOOG also announced further consultation on payments at production stage.

Any development (including a shale gas site) that is planned near a main river or a flood defence (including a sea defence) will require a flood defence consent from the Environment Agency. The Environment Agency is a statutory consultee in the planning process and can object to any development that they consider to be at high risk of flooding. The Environment Agency will continue to assess each site on a case by case basis and work with operators and local planning to ensure sites are protected from flood risk.

We are currently running a twelve week consultation on proposals for underground drilling access for shale gas, oil and geothermal energy. Homeowners are invited to take part in this consultation, and can respond by post, email or by using our online portal. The Government will not make a decision on this issue until we have analysed the consultation responses. This feedback may help to refine the existing proposal, develop an alternative proposal, or convince the Government that the existing system is fit for purpose.

In addition to the consultation, we have engaged with groups or organisations that represent homeowners. We held workshops in February and March this year, which were attended by representative groups such as the Country Landowner's Association, the National Farmers Union and a number of local authorities and elected representatives.

Higher apprenticeship starts in Lancashire Local Education Authority have increased from 40 in the 2009/10 academic year to 370 in 2012/13.

The Budget announced £20 million over 2014-15 and 2015-16 for new support for employer investment in apprenticeships in England up to postgraduate level, which will provide apprentices with the technical skills that employers need. This will complement the £80 million funding over 2014-15 and 2015-16 for 20,000 more higher apprenticeships announced in the autumn statement – more than doubling current volumes.

It has not proved possible to respond to my hon. Friend in the time available before Prorogation.

By March 2015, 25 major government services will be redesigned and rebuilt as digital-by-default making them simpler, clearer and faster to use. Full details are listed on gov.uk/transformation

This Government's approach is digital-by-default but not compulsion. We want to help get more people online, through our Digital Inclusion programme, but for those who cannot or will not we will always provide assistance, whenever they need it.

My Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution included a commitment of up to £385 million for an Advanced Nuclear Fund to develop a domestic Small Modular Reactor (SMR) design and to demonstrate innovative Advanced Modular Reactors (AMR) by the early 2030s. Both of these reactor technologies have the potential to produce low carbon hydrogen using electricity and/or heat via increasingly efficient electrolysis, or in the case of AMRs via higher temperature additional production routes.

In the Hydrogen Strategy, the Government noted that both existing and future nuclear technologies have the potential to provide low-carbon hydrogen. The Government consulted in 2021 on a range of policies to support low-carbon hydrogen production and will publish relevant responses in 2022.

The UK is a world leader in the nuclear fuel cycle, and this is testament to the highly skilled workforce currently employed at the Springfields and Capenhurst sites, and the wider UK supply chain. Earlier this month, I visited Springfields to see first-hand the important work taking place, including at the Oxide Fuels Complex.

The Government recognises the importance of continued commercial operation of such facilities to deliver low carbon energy. In the recent Spending Review we confirmed up to £75 million, to be used alongside sector co-investment, to preserve and develop the UK’s nuclear fuel production capability. With this funding we will move a programme forward to address all our fuel-related priorities, helping to develop the UK fuel supply chain to power the reactors of today and advanced nuclear in the future.

Analysis published by BEIS with the Energy White Paper (EWP) [1] in 2020 shows that, alongside significant amounts of wind and solar, a stable, low-cost electricity system to meet net zero will also require other forms of low-carbon power, including nuclear, to complement the intermittency of those technologies.

As outlined in the Net Zero Strategy[2] published in October 2021, we need to continue to deploy all known low-carbon technologies at scale over the next decade to ensure optionality is maintained, whilst developing new options to mitigate delivery risk and reduce costs. The Government has confirmed that it aims to reach a Final Investment Decision on at least one large-scale nuclear project this Parliament and recently announced £210m for Rolls-Royce’s Small Modular Reactor design. We will also publish a roadmap for new nuclear in 2022. It will focus on what is needed to support the deployment of further new nuclear in the UK. I was proud to host an event about nuclear energy in the UK Pavilion at COP26 and my officials are working with industry to build on that momentum.

[1] https://www.govuk/government/publications/energy-white-paper-powering-our-net-zero-future.

[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/net-zero-strategy.

Great Britain has one of the most reliable electricity systems in the world. It benefits from a diverse electricity mix, which contributes to security of supply by ensuring no dependence on any single market participant for the power consumed.

Interconnection with overseas markets forms an important part of Great Britain’s electricity mix. However, the majority of power consumed in this country is still domestically produced.

Around half of Great Britain’s annual gas demand is met through domestic production and most imports come from close proximity suppliers such as Norway.

The Government is working closely with industry and the education sector to ensure that high-quality training is available for heat pump installers. This includes training for new heating engineers, and for existing heating engineers who do not yet have heat pump training.

As part of the Green Homes Grant Skills Competition, the Government awarded more than £6 million to support training for tradespeople delivering green home energy improvements, including heat pump installations.

We are also supporting the industry-led development of new heat pump upskilling courses for existing heating engineers. By the end of 2021, we expect industry to have the capacity to upskill thousands of heating installers per year to work on heat pumps.

Furthermore, BEIS together with the Department for Education is also working with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) to ensure that apprenticeships and T-Levels contain high quality heat pump training. Additionally, we are working with the Association of Colleges to ensure that further education providers are aware of future needs for heat pump installer skills, and to understand barriers to providing relevant training so that they can be better addressed.

BEIS is a member of the industry-led Nuclear Skills Strategic Group (NSSG), which brings together employers, government, regulators, and trades unions to address the skills challenge and drives major skills developments in the nuclear sector. The NSSG has developed a long-term Nuclear Skills Strategic Plan which incorporates a variety of activities, including those to recruit more young people in the nuclear sector. As part of the Strategic Plan, the following are expected to be delivered.

• Offer work experience placements for students in schools, further education, and higher education through industry collaboration.
• Recruit 2,000 new starts every year through local apprenticeships.
• Increase diversity, with expectation that female workforce should increase from 22%, to 40% by 2030.

We continue to engage and support as the plan is delivered.

We are determined to seize the once-in-a-generation economic opportunities of the net zero transition, delivering a green industrial revolution, by creating new business opportunities and supporting up to 2 million green jobs by 2030 across all regions of the UK. In order to ensure we have the skilled workforce to deliver net zero and our Ten Point Plan, we have launched the Green Jobs Taskforce, working in partnership with business, skills providers, and unions to advise on how we can deliver the green jobs of the future.

The Government is aware that a range of building materials are in short supply nationally. This is driven by demand and increased global competition to secure supplies.

In light of this, and in view of more local disruptions in the supply of some products, the Construction Leadership Council’s Coronavirus Task Force has established a Product Availability Working Group, comprised of product manufacturers, builders’ merchants and suppliers, contractors of all sizes, and housebuilders. The Task Force continues to monitor the supply and demand of products, and identify those in short supply.

The UK is a world leader in the nuclear fuel cycle. As we transition from the needs of the current nuclear fleet, we are carefully considering with operators, fuel producers and the R&D community how best to meet the needs of future nuclear power stations, including opportunities provided by small and advanced modular reactors.

This Department and our colleagues at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport are in regular contact with HM Treasury colleagues to discuss the impact of support measures on the tourism and hospitality sectors.

We recognise the difficulties faced by businesses in these sectors and will continue to engage with stakeholders and across Government to assess how we can most effectively support them.

This Government is committed to both protecting existing jobs as well as supporting job creation to ensure we build back better after this crisis. At the heart of these plans is a £30 billion investment in jobs. In his Summer Economic Update, the Chancellor – as part of his Plan for Jobs - announced a £3 billion investment in green infrastructure to create thousands of green jobs, a cut to Stamp Duty to support an industry that employs almost 750,000 people, a £2 billion investment in the Kickstart scheme to get our youth into work, as well as doubling the number of work coaches and tripling the number of traineeships.

Our investment includes:

• Construction Talent Retention Scheme – Supports the redeployment of workers at risk of redundancy to opportunities across the UK.

• Green Jobs Challenge Fund – The Government will invest up to £40 million in a Green Jobs Challenge Fund for environmental charities and public authorities to create and protect 5,000 jobs in England.
• Kickstart Scheme - Provides funding to create new job placements for those aged 16-24 on Universal Credit who are at risk of long-term unemployment. Employers of all sizes can apply for funding which covers National Minimum Wage, NICs and employer minimum automatic enrolment contributions.