Permitted Development and Shale Gas Exploration

Matt Western Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse]

My home is heated through a community energy centre. That said, I am talking about how the gas is produced. I am saying that fracked gas is a fossil fuel but that there are renewable gas alternatives that we need to explore and invest in, and which the Government should be prioritising.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this debate to the House. I appreciate the point the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) is trying to make, but we have been building an unprecedented number of houses in the last few years, and the 15,000 to 18,000 in my constituency will all have gas boilers. They did not have to. They could have been heated by air source heat pumps, for example.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I completely agree. Getting to carbon zero is a massive challenge and we must start today. We must think about how our new houses should be built, because the retrofitting of these properties will cost even more. All Departments need to put their minds to it.

These problems are not unique to Bath or the UK. We know from the United States that fracking operations can result in the contamination of the water table. The effect is wide-ranging. Sometimes people cannot even drink their own tap water because of the health risk. A report in 2016 by the United States Environmental Protection Agency demonstrated exactly how the hydraulic fracturing fluid used to split the bedrock can contaminate groundwater and release gases displaced by it. Communities across the USA have been forced to try to mitigate these problems. We should not even go there. Why should we risk water contamination?

Added to all this is the amount of industrial infrastructure that will scar our countryside if these proposals are pushed through. Giving permitted development rights to shale gas exploration would in effect remove the control that local authorities usually have over the planning process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies). For me, the context of this debate is quite simply the deeply worrying issue of climate change. We face a stark choice if we are to avoid extreme and potentially unstoppable change to the climate: do we continue to develop and exploit fossil fuels, or do we leave them in the ground? It will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to stop dangerous climate change if we do not leave fossil fuels, including gas, in the ground. We can and must take a more responsible and sustainable approach, and that is why we need to stop the exploitation of shale gas.

I also want to talk about the issue of local planning, which other Members have spoken about today. There have been test wells in eastern Berkshire and other parts of the south-east, as was mentioned earlier. Many residents in Reading, Woodley and the Thames valley have deep concerns about our local environment. In our area, there is a long history of concern about the effects of noise and pollution from major infrastructure projects such as the expansion of Heathrow and large-scale gravel extraction. The very last thing that residents in our part of England need is a major new environmental threat.

I am conscious of the time, but I just want to add my support for a range of other points that have been made today. In particular, I would like to support and endorse the concerns that have been expressed about the relative weakness of the planning system and about the Government’s policy on energy—particularly renewable energy—and their deeply mistaken policy of cutting the feed-in tariff and not investing in wind power, solar energy and other renewables such as the tidal power project in Swansea bay. These mistaken energy policies stand in stark contrast to the policies of many other Governments, including the last Labour Government.

[Matt Western]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Matt Rodda]

I am afraid I am running out of time.

We have just 12 years left to reduce carbon emissions dramatically. Local communities around the country have serious and substantial concerns about fracking. Given the climate crisis and the need for radical change in energy provision, and given the indisputable local concerns, shale gas exploitation has to stop, and it has to stop now.