Shale Gas Development

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) on securing the debate, which is obviously important and timely given the number of people in the Chamber.

Labour is totally opposed to fracking, and it will be interesting to see how the Minister, when he gets to his feet, defends the indefensible. The Government are becoming increasingly isolated on the topic. The following organisations have come out against fracking: Friends of the Earth, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the World Wide Fund for Nature, Greenpeace, the Woodland Trust and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Senior scientists have also come out against fracking, and there is increasing medical evidence, particularly from the US, about the negative impact that it has on people’s health.

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

As a Lancashire MP I was horrified by the Government’s decision to overturn Lancashire County Council’s decision to refuse permission for fracking. It flies in the face of the Government’s pretend localism agenda, and current attempts to meddle with the process do not pass the sniff test. My constituents oppose it. Perhaps the Tories should pinch another Labour policy and ban fracking.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I totally agree.

Despite the huge wealth of environmental, medical, geomorphological and other scientific evidence, the Government are ploughing ahead. Even the research of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy shows that just 16% of people support fracking—the lowest figure since it started collecting data five years ago. Greenpeace has commented that public opinion on fracking is in free-fall.

[Gordon Marsden]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government cannot have it both ways? They say that they want a national regime, but when it comes to policing the drilling of fracking in Blackpool and the Fylde, they are refusing to pay the cost fully from Home Office resources, and are leaving it to Lancashire ratepayers.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes an important point.

BEIS concludes that all the scientific evidence pertaining to possible risks of damage to the natural environment, the risk of contamination to the water supply, and safety concerns about earthquakes are to be dismissed. Try telling that to the people of Lancashire. They have had 18 earthquakes recently, each one increasing in seismic magnitude. Interestingly, the Government are telling local people who oppose fracking that they just need help to understand the process. It is exactly because they do understand it that they are concerned. The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth has said that she pities

“any local councillor who gets an application on their desk, because they will shortly have a travelling circus of protestors to deal with”.—[Official Report, 12 September 2018; Vol. 646, c. 333WH.]

Is that really how a Minister should respond to concerns of local people? I hope that the Minister today will distance himself from those comments.

I am not sure that the planning system should allow fracking at all, but I know that the permitted development system is not appropriate for dealing with the complexities of fracking, and neither is the nationally significant infrastructure project process. Both those aspects of the planning system totally ignore the voice of local people. Greenpeace has said that the fracking industry is pulling UK energy policy in entirely the wrong direction and that the public are right to be concerned, and I agree.

Many people in the Chamber might not know that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government today issued a further consultation document on talking to people earlier in the planning process for fracking, as if that will stop them opposing it. I say to the Minister that that is just not going to cut it. The Government have to start listening to local people, change track and get planning policies that support renewables, not fracking.