Shale Gas

Debate between Peter Grant and David Mowat

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

In my three minutes, I shall make just a couple of quick points.

Although I support fracking, I agree with the three points made by the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Tom Elliott): there can be no issue with public health, we should have done more to bring local benefits to the fore, and the environment cannot, of course, be damaged. In the end, those things will have to be assessed by people who are independent and have the confidence of the local community. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) said, it is clear that, whatever else we take from the debate, we must accept that we have not brought local people with us on fracking. However, every form of energy has issues, whether it is solar, wind or nuclear, which is still by far and away the dominant form of decarbonised energy in the world. Fracking also has issues, and we have to work through that to decide whether fracking is worth it. Members have said that fracking may not be cost-effective, and if it is not, it will not be done, so that problem goes away.

I want to talk a little about the three elements of UK energy policy: low-cost energy, sustainable energy and energy security. Gas has a major role to play in all those, but the fact is that our own gas is running out. Output from the North sea is 70% of what it was 10 years ago. Some 85% of the energy used in this country still comes from fossil fuels, with coal and oil making up by far and away the majority. If we could replace all the coal being used in the world with gas, that would reduce global carbon emissions by the same amount as a fivefold increase in renewables. That is something we should be going after, and parties that believe in a low-carbon future should embrace it. There are, therefore, environmental advantages to fracking.

We have talked about cost, and it has been said that fracking in the UK may not transform the economy, as it has in America. In the United States, there is massively lower fuel poverty—I have not heard those words today. We may well not succeed in reducing our gas bills by a factor of four, with the same transformative impact that has been seen in American manufacturing. Manufacturing is relocating from parts of the UK.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the reduction in gas prices in the United States of America simply will not happen in the United Kingdom, so it is not appropriate to talk about fracking being a game changer in terms of reducing fuel poverty?

[David Mowat]

In an intervention I said I thought it unlikely that gas prices would be reduced by a factor of four. I also think it unlikely that if we have more gas in Europe there will not be a reduction in gas prices, with a knock-on impact on fuel poverty and on the competitiveness of our chemicals industry, what is left of our steel industry, and our aluminium industry. Those industries have to a large extent left our country, not only for south-east Asia but for other parts of Europe with lower energy prices than ours where coal continues to be burned.

The issue before us is the fact that we produce roughly 80 GW of electricity in this country, and 24 of them will be turned off by the end of the decade. We already have a 2% capacity margin for 2017. Members in this Chamber—not just those on the Front Benches—must be accountable on the question of the lights going out. Shale gas is not a panacea and I do not argue that it is, but we should explore it responsibly and take into account the environmental issues raised today. However, we should not fail to understand that our country is not infinitely rich. The resources in the North Sea that kept large parts of our country going for a long time are running out. We import more and more of our gas from Qatar and increasingly, potentially, from Russia. Parliamentarians all have a role, and a responsibility for the UK as a whole to take those issues seriously.