Oral Answers to Questions

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

1. If he will make it his policy that responsibility for licensing shale gas extraction should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

[The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alistair Carmichael)]

That is already Government policy. As the hon. Lady will be aware, the Smith commission heads of agreement stated that the licensing of onshore oil and gas extraction should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. The Government are committed to publishing draft clauses in that respect by 25 January.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to that part of the Smith agreement, to which my party is also committed, not least because it will put an end to the attempts by some people to suggest that without the devolution of licensing, the Scottish Government are powerless to stop fracking if they want to. They already have powers over planning and regulation, but I hope that this change will close that argument down, to everybody’s benefit.

[Mr Carmichael]

The hon. Lady is right to say that the Scottish Government have planning and environmental regulation powers that would enable them to block any fracking project they wanted to block. It is sensible, in the circumstances, that they should be given responsibility for the licensing of such activities as well. That will be done as part of the Smith process.