Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he has made an assessment with Cabinet colleagues of the potential merits of (a) removing the prohibition on drilling access rights for land between the surface and 300 metres and (b) using such land to produce geothermal energy.

The Infrastructure Act 2015 established that a person has a right to use deep-level land for the purposes of exploiting geothermal energy. These provisions were limited to deep-level land exceeding 300m.

In limiting this unrestricted right to depths below 300m, the Government sought to ensure that the right of use applied only at depths where it would not affect landowners' use of their land, but that would be shallow enough to enable the industries to develop in a responsible way.

Following Royal Assent of the Infrastructure Act 2015, no further assessment has been made of establishing an equivalent right for land between the surface and 300m.