Shale Gas Development

Debate between Mark Menzies and Simon Hoare

Wednesday 31st October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mark Menzies]

I do want to make some progress; I am three quarters of the way down the first page of my speech and I have been very generous in giving way.

Along with many colleagues here today, I have made submissions to both consultations, making clear my constituents’ opposition to the proposals, which is a position that is echoed whenever I speak to colleagues from across the House.

I have called this debate to discuss the issue further, as well as to raise the general matter of local involvement in major decisions such as the approval of shale gas sites. Under permitted development, proposals for shale gas exploration are subject to the requirements of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which is administered by the mineral rights authority for the area in which the proposed development will be located. The decisions that are taken are based on the national planning policy framework and include consideration of the operational impacts of the site, traffic management concerns, visual impact and the effect on nearby heritage features, among many other factors. If we were to move to a system whereby proposals for non-hydraulic fracturing shale exploration developments were decided under permitted development rights, that would no longer be the case.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I declare myself as a fracking sceptic, if not an opponent. Does he agree that trying to change the planning regime now, with the heritage that we already have on this issue, does not in my book pass what I would describe as “the sniff test”? It does not quite have legitimacy. It seems a sleight of hand and should be resisted.

[Mark Menzies]

I could not improve on what my hon. Friend has just said.

Nuclear Safeguards Bill

Debate between Mark Menzies and Simon Hoare

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 16th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare]

Once again, my hon. Friend makes the point in the most telling way. If we are providing no illumination to the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), we are obviously providing a vast amount of humorous entertainment; I am glad she sees this issue as being so hysterically funny. I do not think setting a regulatory regime to allow all of our constituents to have ready access to a medical treatment is anything particularly to laugh about. People can accuse me of being po-faced and a prig if they so wish, and I could almost hear the Twittersphere doing just that as the words left my mouth, but I do not see this as a particularly funny point. My hon. Friend has made the point tellingly: countries that are not part of Euratom are importing isotopes in due time so that their shelf life does not expire. Unless we have some peculiar, Machiavellian, under-the-counter sort of plan to deny people medical treatment by putting the largest possible tariff barriers on these things and making sure that the inventor carries them across the channel in some sort of purpose-made velvet case that has been hand-sewn by his ancient grandmother, I really do not think this is going to be the situation. Therefore, the concern raised by medics can now be set aside.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that medical isotopes and some associated equipment are also very high value, so it is not in the interests of those who manufacture and seek to export to us to put obstacles in the way of selling high-value, highly profitable pieces of equipment or machinery, be they the isotopes or anything related to them?

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend gets the point, because he takes a Conservative approach to the operation of the economy. People in Britain want to buy something. We do not make it, but some countries overseas do. But we have also heard this, “We make too much for our domestic market and we want to sell it overseas. We have been doing this for years, but, do you know what? Just to bite off our nose to spite our face, we’ll stop doing it.” That is the crux of the argument we have heard from the hon. Members for North Ayrshire and Arran and for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown). I would say it was bizarre if it were not so careless.

Let me conclude my remarks by returning to the point about the value—soft as well as hard—to UK plc of the collaborative opportunities for research that membership of an organisation such as Euratom presents. We have heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) and the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) about the supply chain, the jobs and the offshoots of economic activity that flow from this. If we are talking about background research, I understand that the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran has a nuclear facility in her constituency. One can only presume that she has constituents who work in it, but she said precious little about them in her speech—