Asked by: Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (Ulster Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he plans to establish a contingency bond to cover the costs of environmental clean up in the event of a shale oil or gas company going into administration.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Government has been clear that shale development must be safe and environmentally sound. In the UK, we have been regulating for gas and oil drilling, both onshore and offshore, for over 50 years and have tough regulations in place to ensure on-site safety, prevent water contamination, and mitigate seismic activity and air pollution.
Projects must be approved by the environmental regulator (in Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency) and the Health and Safety Executive. Approval must also be sought from the relevant Mineral Planning Authority (MPA) through the planning system. MPAs are able to set the planning conditions they consider necessary, and some have already chosen to do so for site restoration.
In England, as part of the petroleum licensing process, and prior to awarding a licence, the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) assesses whether a company has adequate financial capacity for its planned operations. The OGA also checks at the drilling and, where relevant, production stage that the company has sufficient funding and appropriate insurance. The licensing of oil and gas development is devolved to Northern Ireland.
BEIS officials are working with the industry’s trade body UK Onshore Oil and Gas to ensure that liabilities for shale wells are addressed in the rare circumstance where all of the companies on a licence became insolvent, and where no rescue mechanism for those companies could be found.
Asked by: Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (Ulster Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what his most recent estimate is of UK gas reserves; and what independent sources his Department uses to validate those estimates.
Answered by Jesse Norman
BEIS is guided by the Oil and Gas Authority’s (OGA) estimate of UK gas reserves. The 2016 range of estimates of UK gas reserves is from 207 billion cubic metres (bcm) to 446 bcm with a central estimate of 333 bcm. In addition, there are contingent resources in significant discoveries where development plans are under discussion. These are estimated to range between 26 bcm and 89 bcm. The OGA collects data directly from operators and also has access to proprietary estimates of remaining commercial reserves from specialist energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.
Asked by: Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (Ulster Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the potential importance of a North/South Interconnector on the island of Ireland to the UK electricity supply.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The North-South interconnector is focused on increasing the integration of renewable energy between Ireland and Northern Ireland, and as such is a matter primarily devolved to Northern Ireland. Regarding the electricity supply between the island of Ireland and UK, imports into Scotland are constrained by wider constraints on the Scottish grid and on the border between Scotland and England. A number of measures are being taken to strengthen the Scottish grid and grid connections to England. These include the Western HVDC link, which is due for completion in mid-2017 and will provide an additional 2.2GW of capacity. The UK government welcomes interconnection where it is in the interests of UK consumers.
Asked by: Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (Ulster Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he is taking to ensure Northern Ireland benefits from the Catapult programme.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
The Government is continuing to develop the Catapult network and has prioritised core funding support for the Catapult network in the 2015 Spending Review.
Northern Ireland (NI) is already benefitting from the Catapult Programme. The Digital Catapult has established local centres in Northern Ireland. It has just appointed a lead for its NI centres and is expecting the projects and activity to take shape and start in the coming months. The Precision Medicine Catapult will also be supported by a Centre of Excellence in Belfast.
A number of other Catapults also have strong links with business and academia in Northern Ireland. The Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult worked with a team at Queens University Belfast to define the path to commercialisation for a therapy to help treat retinal vein occlusion, a common cause of visual impairment and blindness affecting around 16.4 million people across the US, Europe, Asia and Australia.
The Northern Ireland Advanced Composites and Engineering Centre (NIACE) is a partner in the composites network with the National Composites Centre (NCC) of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult.
The High Value Manufacturing Catapult is also working with four industrial partners, including Bombardier Aerospace in Northern Ireland, on the VIEWS (Validation and Integration of Manufacturing Enablers for Future Wing Structures) Programme to bring promising wing design, manufacture and assembly technologies near to market readiness.
The Future Cities Catapult has been working closely with the City of Belfast to harness new technologies and help to fulfil their smart city ambitions and provide better services to its citizens by inviting SMEs to meet the challenge of increasing revenue from business rates across the city.
The Satellite Applications Catapult has a Knowledge Exchange Fellow based in Northern Ireland. This Fellowship, alongside funding from Invest Northern Ireland, is assisting an agricultural solutions business based in Northern Ireland to enhance its services through the utilisation of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) technology.
Asked by: Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (Ulster Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what assessment she has made of the potential effect on energy security of the UK leaving the EU.
Answered by Amber Rudd
When it comes to ensuring our families and businesses have secure, affordable and clean energy supplies they can rely on, the UK is better off being in Europe. The UK is leading the way in shaping EU energy and climate policies that strengthen our energy security, benefit consumers and help us tackle global climate change.
Being a leading member of the EU helps improve UK energy security by attracting foreign investment, promoting competition and facilitating efficient and reliable cross-border energy trade.
Unless the UK is prepared to be an EU rule-taker, keeping in lock-step with evolving EU energy and low carbon rules without any say on them, being outside the EU would create real and growing risks to energy security, consumer bills, and competitiveness.
Asked by: Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (Ulster Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what research her Department has conducted or commissioned on the effect of the early closure of the Northern Ireland Renewables Obligation to new onshore wind projects in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
With certain limited exceptions, Energy Policy is devolved to Northern Ireland. Closure of the Northern Ireland Renewables Obligation is therefore a matter for the Northern Ireland Executive.