Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will publish any reports received by his Department from the (a) Oil and Gas Authority, (b) Environment Agency and (c) Health and Safety Executive on the four seismic events of greater than the red light 0.5ML threshold that occurred at the Preston New Road shale gas site between 26 October 2018 and 4 November 2018.

If a seismic event of 0.5ML, or greater, on the ‘Richter Local Scale’ is detected and causally linked to the operations, hydraulic fracturing is suspended for a minimum of 18 hours. An event report must be submitted to and independently reviewed by each of the regulatory bodies who will only allow operations to recommence once they have fully assessed the information and are satisfied the event conforms to the pre-agreed Hydraulic Fracture Plan.

Within 30 days of completion of all hydraulic fracturing operations at a well, a Hydraulic Fracturing Operations Report must be submitted to the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) by the operator. The OGA will publish these reports six months after receipt.