Shale Gas Extraction

Peter Grant Excerpts
Thursday 22nd September 2022

(1 year, 11 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House is present, and I think that was very much a business question. I would say that I will make sure it is passed on to her, but I hope that she will feel that it has been passed on in any case.

Peter Grant Portrait Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
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I have been listening to Members on both sides of the House gradually teasing out what the Secretary of State really meant when he said that “compensation and consent” are

“two sides of the same coin.”

Why does he not just come clean and tell it as it is: the Government intend to change the payment of bribes for planning consent from a criminal offence to the official policy of His Majesty’s Government?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Portrait Mr Rees-Mogg
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The hon. Gentleman is a wise and good man, but that point is completely fatuous. Paying people for inconvenience is a perfectly reasonable and commercial thing to do.