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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what Environmental Impact Assessment his Department has made of Shell's proposed plans for the (a) steel jackets and (b) concrete bases underneath decommissioned Brent oilfield platforms (i) Bravo, (ii) Charlie and (iii) Delta east of Shetland.

BEIS officials at the Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissioning (OPRED) who are responsible for ensuring that all decommissioning in the UK Continental Shelf is carried out in line with current UK regulations and international obligations have considered the Brent decommissioning proposals and reviewed the associated environmental impact assessment including supporting technical documents. The review also took account of the technical, safety, societal and economic aspects and determined that the environmental impact assessment presented by Shell demonstrates that the decommissioning proposals would not have a significant adverse effect on human health, the environment or other users of the sea, and that leaving the footings of the Brent Alpha steel jacket and the concrete gravity based installations Brent Bravo, Brent Charlie and Brent Delta including the cell contents in-situ is the best management solution.