Caroline Lucas
Main Page: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)UK Shale Gas
Caroline Lucas Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate and colleagues from across the House for supporting it. It gives us an opportunity to examine some of the measures that the Government are putting in place to promote shale gas, and to explore the implications of fracking for our constituents, our countryside and our climate. I read with interest the Hansard report of Tuesday’s debate, which focused in particular on the details of community benefit packages but also touched on some issues that I am sure we will return to and explore further in this debate.
Before I discuss those questions, in light of recent lobbying scandals and concerns about inappropriate corporate influence on politics and policy making, I will declare my relevant interests. I am a proud, albeit small, shareholder in Brighton Energy Co-operative, which invests in community-owned solar power in Brighton and Hove and whose vision for community-owned renewables at the heart of our energy system I openly support. I have a similar very small interest in the Westmill Wind Farm co-operative in south Oxfordshire. I hope that other Members speaking today will agree that in the interests of transparency and rebuilding trust in the political process, it would be beneficial if all of us declared fully all interests relating to the energy sector or energy companies.
As part of the spending review, the Government set out their commitment to put in place the conditions to allow the shale industry to “reach its full potential”: new planning guidance, community benefits and tax breaks. The planning document was to be published by 18 July, in the depressingly common pattern of waiting until just before the summer recess to publish unpopular policies, but I was told this morning by the Department for Communities and Local Government that it would, after all, be published not today but “very soon”. That is even worse for the House’s ability to examine the details and hold Ministers to account on behalf of our constituents. I am sure that we would all like to hear from the Minister the reasons for the delay. It is hard to avoid concluding that his colleagues in the DCLG are scared of scrutiny.
It is also pretty appalling that the new planning guidelines are set to come into force without public consultation, denying communities that stand to be affected by fracking any say in the new process. It is clear that Ministers and the fracking firms, which are, sadly, increasingly indistinguishable, are keen to press on rapidly, but it is wrong to refuse to consult on new planning guidance aimed at making it easier for developers to cast aside community concerns.
Even from a perspective of due procedure, I cannot see how the decision to deny communities a say in their new planning rules is remotely in line with the Government’s own definition of circumstances in which consultation is unnecessary. The relevant Cabinet Office principle makes it clear that that is appropriate only in the case of
“minor or technical amendments to regulation or existing policy frameworks, where the measure is necessary to deal with a court judgment or where adequate consultation has taken place at an earlier stage”.
Many of my constituents have e-mailed me over the past few weeks to call for a full public consultation, as well as for new planning rules that are strong on tackling climate change and follow the precautionary principle when it comes to issues such as groundwater contamination.
Another spending review measure is the consultation on tax incentives to encourage companies to press on with shale gas exploration. The Treasury is proposing reducing the tax payable on income from 62% to 30%. One of my concerns is that tax breaks for fracking amount to an additional fossil fuel subsidy, which is exactly what the UK and other G20 nations pledged to phase out three years ago. It looks like a backward step. Fossil fuel subsidies, which amounted to $500 billion worldwide in 2011, are effectively an incentive to pollute. Earlier this year, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, called them
“public enemy No. 1 for sustainable energy development”.
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady make it clear that what she calls a fossil fuel subsidy in the case of the UK is, overwhelmingly, simply a lower rate of VAT on all energy use? Is she calling for a higher rate of VAT on all energy use, or just a higher rate on fossil fuels? To describe it as a subsidy is surely nonsense.
Caroline Lucas
I do not think that it is nonsense. The Environmental Audit Committee, of which I am a member, is in the middle of an inquiry into fossil fuel subsidies, and it is clear from some of the evidence that we have received that many people think that the Government’s definition of subsidy, which is narrow and does not include tax breaks, is wrong. I am happy to say that I do not think that fossil fuels should have tax breaks. Whether or not we want to call that a subsidy, I am clear that I think it is, and I am against it.
Charles Perry said in evidence to the Committee:
“The media in this country…would like us all to believe that we are paying a lot more for renewable energy as consumers, but if you compare what we are paying for renewable energy versus fossil fuels, it is six times more for fossil fuels as a taxpayer than it is for renewables.”
That sums up what I am saying.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
I heard that number with interest: six times as much for fossil fuels as for renewables. Can the hon. Lady take us through the calculation that gave that number? Was it, for example, by comparing solar with gas?
Caroline Lucas
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the Environmental Audit Committee evidence, which goes through that complicated calculation in a lot of detail.
Caroline Lucas
I have answered that point.
Ministers have given us an industry-led community benefit scheme. It was discussed at length on Tuesday and will be consulted on in the autumn. It is expected to yield £100,000 in community benefits per drilling pad, each with several wells, plus 1% of revenues. The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) made a crucial point about the importance of additionality when it comes to such payouts, over and above what localities would normally expect under local government or other funding systems.
I share those concerns, not least in light of recent comments from the chief executive of shale gas explorer IGas, who said that local communities should be won over to shale gas fracking by being rewarded with more teachers in primary schools or more officers on the beat. Given the coalition Government’s cuts to crucial public sector services and local authority budgets, it would be outrageous if communities were faced with a situation in which the only way to secure adequate numbers of teachers or policemen and women was by accepting a giant fracking rig in their back yard.
The other recent development discussed on Tuesday is the creation of a new Office of Unconventional Gas and Oil. The Minister explained its co-ordination role, which aims
“to accelerate the development of shale responsibly.”—[Official Report, 16 July 2013; Vol. 566, c. 215WH.]
The new office has been given the role of cheerleader-in-chief for the shale gas industry, as well as being tasked with ensuring that shale development remains safe and the environment protected. We heard that it would also play a third role, providing information to the public on apparent myths to help people separate fact from fiction. However, the office and the Minister’s whole Department are so rampantly pro-shale gas that I cannot see how the public will have confidence or trust in them either to maintain the highest safety and environmental standards or to provide independent, credible, non-biased information about the risks of shale gas development. How does the Minister intend to manage that perceived conflict of interest?
During the rest of my remarks, I will concentrate on some crucial questions about shale gas development in the UK. First, do we understand fully the local environmental and health risks of shale gas and what our constituents and the general public think about fracking, and can regulation and the OUGO adequately address such risks and concerns? Secondly, does shale gas really have the potential to deliver lower-cost gas power and reduce energy bills, as the Chancellor and other fracking enthusiasts claim? Thirdly, is drilling for shale gas a sensible approach to addressing concerns about future energy security? Finally, is shale gas development compatible with the UK’s climate change commitments? I will set out why, sadly, I believe that the answer to all those questions is no, and why shale gas ultimately cannot and should not have a role in a secure and affordable energy system that is consistent with the UK’s climate change commitments.
On the environmental impacts, I am sure that I am not alone in having been contacted by many constituents concerned about a wide range of environmental and health risks from shale gas. I worry that Ministers and those with financial links to shale gas companies are quick to dismiss people’s concerns, especially about water resources. The International Energy Agency, not known for an overtly environmental perspective or for hyperbole, states:
“The scale of development can have major implications for local communities, land use and water resources.”
It goes on to list serious hazards
“including the potential for air pollution and for contamination of surface and groundwater”.
The number of wells would, of course, depend on how much extractible gas there is and the geological conditions. Huge uncertainties remain, so all estimates are assumptions, but a study by Bloomberg based on average well extraction data from the US, rather than just sweet spots, found that meeting North sea production levels of 1,460 billion cubic feet and sustaining those levels for 10 years would require between 10,000 and 20,000 shale gas wells. Does the Minister think that the visual impact of so many drilling rigs and the associated traffic would be considered preferable to the aesthetics of wind turbines, for example?
On Tuesday, Balcombe residents delivered a petition to the Environment Agency in respect of Cuadrilla’s application for a mining waste permit for its operations in that area. It states:
“We the undersigned residents of Balcombe and its surrounds strongly object to the activities of Cuadrilla and demand that you take all possible measures to ensure the cessation of its activities with immediate effect, on the grounds that it poses an unacceptable threat to our water supply, air purity and overall environment.”
It is wrong for Ministers to dismiss such concerns and to suggest that local opposition stems from a misunderstanding of the impact of shale gas extraction. Local campaigners I have met are not stupid or scaremongering. They are extremely well read and well informed. Last year, a survey by Balcombe parish council found that 82% of residents wanted their local elected representatives to oppose fracking. That gives a good overview of people’s concerns, which include issues such as the increase in road traffic through the village, the pollution of water supplies, the impact on an area of outstanding natural beauty and the effect on property values.
Opposition to fracking goes way beyond organisations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. One example this week is the Quakers, who issued a statement on the EU’s climate and energy package and said of shale gas:
“This is not an option for replacing coal power. The greenhouse gas emissions during the life cycle of a well (including after decommissioning) are too high to enable us to reach our long-term climate targets and stay within the vital 2°C limit, especially given the high risk of methane leakage.”
It continued:
“The fracking process contaminates water and soils causing major concerns for the environment and public health.”
Even the National Farmers Union has raised concern that fracking represents an additional water user, which could increase water stress in times of shortages, and what about the views of farmers in places where fracking is already established? In Alberta, Canada, the Canadian NFU has led calls for a moratorium, with the co-ordinator, who is a dairy farmer, warning last year:
“Many farmers in my area who either have direct experience with the destructive nature of hydro-fracking technology on their water wells or who have neighbours who have been affected have come to me with their concerns…our ability to produce good, wholesome food is at risk of being compromised by the widespread, virtually unregulated use of this dangerous process.”
The Minister has given assurances about robust regulation in the UK, but the implications of fracking for British farmers remains to be seen, not least in the light of increasing water scarcity and food price hikes. The Co-operative Group, which also farms, perhaps not coincidentally, is also calling for an end to the use of unconventional fossil fuels and for a massive upsurge in community renewables instead.
Another local concern is that leaks from well casings that have been inadequately completed or have subsequently failed are one route by which water and air pollution can occur. The first report from the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change said that the risks are
“no different to issues encountered when exploring the hydrocarbons and conventional geological formations”
and recommends that the Health and Safety Executive tests the integrity of wells before allowing drilling activity to be licensed. The Minister has indicated that such a regime will be put in place. I wonder whether those same assurances were given in the US and elsewhere.
New data from the Marcellus shale show that 6.6% of Pennsylvanian wells are leaking. Examination of studies of well leaks by various bodies in the US, Canada and Norway shows that it is likely that world leakage rates come in at between 5% and 20%. Will the Minister confirm whether there is any difference between well design in the US and the UK that makes that less likely here? Will he also say whether there is a register of the performance of existing UK wells? I have not been able to find one. Such a register would allow us to have an overall picture of leakage in the UK and would tell us a lot about the world-class regulation argument that is so easily bandied about.
The need for robust regulation was discussed in our debate on Tuesday, providing a brief respite from the regulation-bashing rhetoric that seems to be fashionable at the moment. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) was present at that debate, and I am delighted that he spoke in favour of high environmental standards, in keeping with the gold standard that already applies to oil and gas regulation in the UK. However, last month alone, Britain’s offshore rigs and platforms leaked oil or other chemicals into the North sea on 55 occasions. I am not convinced that communities facing the prospect of shale gas drilling, albeit onshore for the time being, will find that reassuring.
The Minister says that robust regulation is now in place and that there is nothing to prevent licensees from bringing forward new drilling plans and seeking the necessary permissions. I worry that his Department is becoming increasingly indistinguishable from the fracking companies that are rubbing their hands at the prospect of tax breaks and drilling permits, particularly in his treatment of legitimate public concerns as myths.
It was heartening to hear the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) speak of the need to put in place the highest environmental safeguards, as opposed to what is simply convenient for the industry. He also made the point that in addition to strong regulation, there must be sufficient resources to ensure that they are applied. The shadow Energy Secretary emphasised the importance of comprehensive monitoring. I would add that the remits and duties of the regulator also matter.
The proposed growth duty to be imposed on non-economic regulators such as the Environment Agency through the draft Deregulation Bill is of great concern in that respect. The Government claim that it will support growth without weakening environmental protection, but lawyers from the UK Environmental Law Association warn in their consultation response that
“A growth duty, as currently proposed, would make it harder for non-economic regulators to refuse environmentally damaging development, including those that threaten nationally important wildlife sites—even if the overall societal benefits of such a refusal are greater than the development.”
They continue:
“This arises because the proposed duty does not adequately reflect evidence about the economic value of the natural environment and the need to value it accordingly in decision making.”
Ministers have a lot of explaining to do before anyone will be persuaded that this growth duty is not simply the latest attempt to weaken crucial environmental and public health safeguards, capitulating to corporate lobbyists who want short-term profit-making to trump public interest.
An additional concern, which is almost entirely ignored in the UK but is at the centre of debates in the US, is the radon risk from fracked gas pumped directly into householders’ kitchen stoves and hobs. Two month ago, the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) was told in a written answer from the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), that
“Public Health England…is preparing a report identifying potential public health issues and concerns, including radon…that might be associated with aspects of hydraulic fracturing…The report is due out for public consultation in the summer. Once released for public consultation, the report will be freely available from the PHE website.”—[Official Report, 20 May 2013; Vol. 563, c. 570W.]
Subsequent follow-up by telephone with Public Health England this week established that the “summer” has become “later this year”. That seems to be a trend. Will the Minister explain the delay in publishing this research report when the public debate over fracking is moving ahead apace?
In brief, the concern raised in the US has been led by Dr Marvin Resnikoff, now of Radioactive Waste Management Associates, who has more than 50 years’ research experience in radiation hazards. My purpose in raising this matter is not to scaremonger, but simply to ensure that the risks are not ignored. I look forward to hearing from the Minister on that aspect as well.
As chair of the all-party group on fuel poverty and energy efficiency, I believe that the cost of energy policy decisions to householders, particularly those on low incomes, is an absolute priority. Current estimates suggest that fuel poverty now affects more than 6.5 million households throughout the UK. The Government’s figures show that rising wholesale gas prices are the overwhelming cause of higher energy prices, which raises questions about the economic merits of the gas strategy in which gas plays a big role long into the future, never mind that a gas-powered future would bust carbon budgets.
The Chancellor and the Prime Minister both seem to think that shale gas could have a positive impact on gas prices and household fuel bills. Yesterday, the Department of Energy and Climate Change published a new report in what looks like a desperate attempt to create some evidence to back up those dubious claims. The Daily Telegraph thunders:
“Gas prices could fall by a quarter with shale drilling”.
But on closer examination, the document is all about ifs and buts.
Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
We all want evidence-based decision making, and it seems odd to say first that there is no evidence that shale gas will reduce prices, and when the Government investigate and commission a report, to say that they have done so in a desperate attempt to find something that looks like evidence. Surely we should welcome the Government’s commissioning of independent research so that we can have an evidence-based debate.
Caroline Lucas
I would certain welcome that if it were reflected in the sort of statements that we hear from the Government about shale gas, but it is not. Time and again I have had debates with Ministers when they have easily and quickly leapt to the defence of shale gas by saying that it will incontrovertibly lead to lower gas prices. That is the problem. There is a gap between the rhetoric and the reality. If we all agree that the jury is out on that issue, I am pleased about that. The DECC report states that there is
“a high degree of uncertainty surrounding any price forecast.”
Let us look at what some of the energy market experts are saying about the cost question. Jamie Spiers, researcher at Imperial college, said that
“figures suggest that the cost of extracting UK shale gas reserves will exceed the price. This is a big issue that not been addressed very much.”
David Mowat
The hon. Lady makes the point that the cost of extracting the gas will be higher than the cost of selling it. If so, why would the private sector go ahead with such projects? Surely the problem will be solved. Why does she think the price of shale gas in the US has reduced the price of wholesale gas by 75%?
Caroline Lucas
I think it will be made commercially viable through the sort of tax breaks that the Government are already beginning to give. I will return to the situation in the US later, but it is vastly different. The regulatory regime is different, as are the geology and the issue of exports. Time and again, people from the International Energy Agency downwards have been saying that it is irresponsible to think that we can simply read across the impacts in the US and assume that we will see those here in the UK.
I was giving examples of reputable organisations that are warning that UK shale gas will not bring prices down. Those warnings come from Deutsche Bank, Chatham House, Ofgem, and the International Energy Agency. Even the CBI has warned that there is only one direction for gas prices, and that is upwards. The highly respected former Energy Minister, the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), has warned that the reverse is true, saying that
“betting the farm on shale brings serious risks of future price rises”.
The Government’s independent advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, have confirmed that relying on gas would be expensive, adding up to £600 extra on household electricity bills compared with low carbon power, which would add only £100 and would be a good insurance policy against high prices in the future.
Exploitation of the UK’s significant shale resources is unlikely to result in low natural gas prices as well, according to Bloomberg:
“The cost of shale gas extraction in the UK is likely to be significantly higher than in the US, and the rate of exploitation insufficient to offset the decline in conventional gas production, meaning market prices will continue to be set by imported gas.”
Professor Paul Stevens, Chatham House analyst and a recent winner of the prestigious OPEC award for outstanding oil and energy research, has said that the Chancellor’s view that gas will be cheap in the future, based on the views that that will be driven by a shale gas revolution as happened in the US, is “misleading and dangerous.” Here he comes to exactly the point that the hon. Member for Warrington South just mentioned, saying:
“It is misleading because it ignores the very real barriers to shale gas development in the UK and Europe more generally. The US revolution was triggered by favourable factors such as geology, tax breaks and a vibrant service industry amongst many others. However, in Western Europe the geology is less favourable notably with the shale containing a higher clay content making it more difficult to use hydraulic fracturing.”
At a meeting for concerned residents at a potential fracking site in West Sussex, a Cuadrilla representative was asked to comment on whether shale gas could drive down customers’ energy bills. Mark Linder, who is responsible for Cuadrilla’s corporate development, said:
“We’ve done an analysis and it’s a very small…at the most it’s a very small percentage…basically insignificant”.
In the article to which I am referring, a company spokesperson is reported to have said:
“Cuadrilla’s never said it…will bring down prices…We don’t think it will bring down prices, although it does have the potential to.”
The spokesman went on to stress that shale gas exploitation was about security of supply, rather than price, so now I will turn to that.
There is a broad consensus among gas analysts that little, if any shale gas will be produced commercially in the UK before 2020, so we should not expect domestic shale gas to have any impact on gas prices in the short to medium term. That time scale is very important, because so much of the energy debate focuses on the rest of this decade, for which shale gas is basically irrelevant. If we are talking about energy security perhaps in the 2020s, what that looks like obviously depends on how much gas is extractable. The British Geological Survey recently reported that the Bowland shale in Lancashire and Yorkshire may contain 1,300 trillion cubic feet of gas. It stresses that it is a highly uncertain estimate and that it is not an indicator of the volume of gas likely to be extracted, which will depend on economic, technological and environmental considerations. However, if 10% of that gas were extracted, it would equate to approximately 41 years of UK gas consumption, but defining energy security as security of supply, DECC believes that it is still too early to come to a firm conclusion on whether shale gas in the UK or elsewhere in Europe is likely to have a significant effect on security of supply.
The House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee recommended that the
“Government should not rely on shale gas contributing to the UK's energy system when making strategic plans for energy security”,
which seems extremely sensible given all the uncertainties. Indeed, given those uncertainties, a much less risky way to reduce the energy security risks associated with the UK’s growing gas import dependence is massively to increase investments in renewable energy generation—we know what the costs of fuel for solar and wind generation are, for example—and dramatically improve energy efficiency and reduce overall demand.
Much of the discussion on the climate change impact of shale gas centres on its relative emissions intensity compared with coal. That matter is of interest, but it must not distract from the most climatically relevant issue of the absolute quantities of emissions from the global energy system. When people get very excited that shale gas in the US is cutting emissions by displacing coal, they need to remember that that coal is simply being exported and the emissions created elsewhere, so that does not help very much with the overall reduction of emissions required in order to tackle climate change. Regardless of the precise life cycle in terms of the greenhouse gas impact of shale compared with other gas, the direct carbon content of shale gas means that its widespread use is incompatible with the UK’s international climate change commitments.
We hear a lot that the Committee on Climate Change says that we need to cut emissions from power generations to 50 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour by 2030, but we hear less often that that needs to be a step on the way to a zero carbon grid very soon afterwards. Yes, shale gas is lower carbon than coal, although the methane leakage question is still to be resolved, but it is still a high-carbon fuel. Arguing otherwise is not dissimilar to an alcoholic justifying a barrel of 7% cider on the grounds that it is less harmful than a crate of 13% wine.
What about carbon capture and storage, which is usually raised at this point as the get-out-of-jail-free card? At commercial scale, CCS will be significantly less than 100% effective at capturing carbon dioxide, but more importantly, CCS is unlikely to be commercially viable for at least another 10 years and probably more. The Opposition Front-Bench team have been very outspoken about the need for a 2030 decarbonisation target in the Energy Bill. I welcome their strong stance, and indeed, that of Members on both sides of the House on that crucial issue. The Opposition Front-Bench team are clearly trying to create an impression that they understand, more than the coalition, the pace and scale of carbon emission reductions needed. I hope that they would agree that rebuilding cross-party consensus in favour of urgent action on climate change is crucial, too.
However, from all the evidence that I have seen, if we take a scientific, evidence-based approach to tackling climate change, it simply does not make any sense to exploit the UK’s shale gas reserves, however much may be economically or technically recoverable. That is not only a green or environmental argument. As John Ashton, who was the UK’s former head climate diplomat for 10 years, including under Labour, told the Energy and Climate Change Committee,
“the issue here is not emissions, it is the security and prosperity of 60 million British citizens.”
I want to take issue with the view of the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) that those who oppose shale gas are taking an absolutist position. He said on Tuesday that people who are against shale exploration have a principled position, but their views are “ideological objections” that must be separated “from legitimate environmental concerns”, and that regulation is the way to do that. However, is he really suggesting that opposing shale gas extraction on climate grounds is not a legitimate environmental concern? Will he still be saying that when the next set of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports come out and we are all reminded of what is at stake and the consequences of a rise of more than 2°?
I say to the hon. Gentleman that such a position is neither ideological nor absolutist; rather it is a position that is honest about the science of climate change and the massive risks of our current emissions trajectory. The lack of realism and integrity is to be found not among shale gas opponents, but on the Opposition Benches for as long as they remain in thrall to the fossil fuel lobby and in favour of adding a new source of carbon-emitting fossil fuel to our energy mix.
In Tuesday’s debates, not once did the words “carbon” or “climate” pass the lips of an Opposition Member. It is clear that the shadow DECC team have seen the analysis by Carbon Tracker, which found that between 60% and 80% of existing fossil fuels cannot be burned if we are to have any hope of staying below 2°. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) has asked questions about those unburnable high-carbon assets, and the International Energy Agency conclusions on burnable carbon are broadly the same. Perhaps today we will hear from the Opposition, as well as the Minister, exactly how they think that the exploitation of new sources of fossil fuels, including shale gas, is remotely compatible with the action needed to avoid catastrophic climate change and with the UK’s international commitment to keeping global warming below 2°, which was reiterated just last month at the G8.
In conclusion, I want to return briefly to the issue of the inappropriate corporate influence in Government. I believe that that is doing huge harm to our democracy and is at the core of the coalition’s irrational enthusiasm for shale gas and fossil fuels more widely. This fossil fuel obsession, or addiction, is preventing us from making the most of the UK’s indigenous renewable resources. Worse still, it means that we are seeing policies designed to maintain the status quo, where power is literally and metaphorically concentrated in the board rooms of big energy companies such as the owner of British Gas, Centrica, which recently bought shares in Cuadrilla.
Before the cold snap last winter, Centrica raised prices by 6%. Its full-year profits before tax were reported in May to be £602 million, with the group’s full-year earnings after tax expected to be 2% higher than last year at £1.4 billion. Therefore, I think it is reasonable to ask why it is remotely acceptable, for example, that Lord Browne, a former BP boss, is now holding a key cross-departmental role as the head non-executive director at the very same time as he holds significant shares in Cuadrilla. Lord Browne reports to the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, the right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr Maude), in whose constituency Cuadrilla wants to drill. The right hon. Gentleman explains that Browne
“has a cross Government role convening Non-Executives from the best of business and the third sector...The code of practice on good governance in government departments requires the board to record and manage conflicts and potential conflicts of interest appropriately. There is no conflict of interest in this case.”
However, a recent freedom-of-information response from DECC seems to undermine such assurances. It states:
“After a trawl of our Ministers’ private offices and very senior civil servants at DECC we can confirm that there have been four meetings with Lord Browne during the period specified”—
in other words, the past three years. Those all took place in DECC’s offices, and I am told that although DECC does not have minutes for the first two meetings, Cuadrilla’s activity plans and shale gas were discussed. The minutes that do exist are heavily redacted on the grounds that attendees were in a private discussion with the Minister. The response states:
“It would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Cuadrilla and inhibit communications with this organisation on an ongoing basis if we were to release details”.
Another non-executive director is old Etonian Sam Laidlaw, who has also had a long career in the oil and energy industry, including top roles at Enterprise Oil and Chevron. He is currently in charge of—guess what?—Centrica. I am therefore genuinely concerned that policy making on shale is skewed in favour of the companies, such as Centrica and Cuadrilla, and that the interests of our constituents are not being put first, as they should be, when it comes to the risks of fracking, keeping energy costs down or tackling climate change. I would like to know whether the Minister shares my concerns about the access and influence that these companies have in relation to policy making across the Government.
I want to highlight some questions that my constituents and other members of the public have asked me to put to the Minister during this debate. Will the Government confirm that they will mandate that fracking companies must name the chemicals that they use and their toxicity? Can he explain how fracking is compatible with the sustainability and emission reduction aims of what is meant to be the greenest Government ever? Where is the assessment of the risks of fracking, and how will those risks be properly managed? I would be grateful for answers to those questions as well.
I want to end my speech by saying a few words about the positive energy future that we could decide to pursue, instead of this headlong rush to exploit every last drop of oil and gas. It is a future in which we are free from our fossil fuel reliance and on a path towards climate security, not catastrophe. It is an energy system in which the big six energy companies are replaced by independent generators and a blossoming of community and co-operatively owned renewable schemes—local, sustainable and democratically controlled.
The Centre for Alternative Technology launched just this week “Zero Carbon Britain”, showing how Britain could eliminate emissions by 2030, and not just from our energy system. It is the latest of many reports that show, from a technological perspective, that fossil fuels are fast becoming redundant. I recommend it to anyone who thinks that the only way to keep the lights on is to fry our planet and condemn young people and future generations to unmanageable climate impacts, not least on water and food security. As many have said, what we are lacking is not technological solutions to end our fossil fuel addiction and tackle climate change; it is political will. I hope that this debate will be one step further in generating that will.
Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)
I should like to tell right hon. and hon. Members that I will call the first Front Bencher no later than 10 minutes past 4. The Chairman of Ways and Means has given the Chairman of this debate permission to impose a time limit. I will not do that at the moment. Nine Back Benchers want to speak, so Members can do the arithmetic.
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
It is a pleasure to be at this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, and I am delighted that you are a chairman of so many things. I congratulate the hon.—and old Malvernian—Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on obtaining the debate. I mention her school since she seems to be obsessed with other people’s schools. It is important to have the opportunity to debate the issues.
The hon. Lady asked Members to draw attention to their interests. I invite everyone to look at my interests, as declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. They will find that I have no interest in fracking or in any oil and gas companies in this country. Over my lifetime, I have been—indeed, I still am—involved in an oil company in central Asia and I was involved in analysing oil companies and predicting energy prices for 20 years, when I had a proper job before coming to this place, so she may try to insinuate that that somehow makes me too well disposed to the oil and gas industry. She may therefore be surprised that, as the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) will confirm, I was the only member of the Energy and Climate Change Committee who criticised, as she does, the suggested special tax breaks for fracking. On the basis of my knowledge of the oil and gas industry, I think that they are probably unnecessary, and we should not give away unnecessary tax breaks; although if they are necessary, that would be fair enough.
I want to draw Members, attention to one interest that is not declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I probably share this interest with all other Members, although too many ignore it. It is my interest in my 70,000 constituents who want their heating bills kept as low as possible, my interest in the people in this country getting jobs and my interest in reviving the manufacturing industry in this country and providing it with fuel that is as plentiful and cheap as possible.
I have great respect for the hon. Lady and those who, like her, simply want to keep fossil fuels in the ground, although if that was my objective, I would start by keeping coal in the ground rather than gas, which produces only half or less of the carbon dioxide emissions of coal. I do not support such a policy because, probably like her, I take as given the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change summary of the science, I also, unlike her, accept its summary of the economics of taking action to prevent global warming. It has concluded that, in relation to the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, it could not identify
“an emissions pathway or stabilisation level where benefits exceed costs.”
Unless and until we can find a pathway or a stabilisation level for CO2 that will produce greater benefits than its costs, we should not set about impoverishing this generation in the vague hope that we may make some generation in the future richer.
Caroline Lucas
I think I said that the driver for increasing fuel bills for most people today is rising prices of gas rather than renewables or anything else. Those interests that the right hon. Gentleman declared at the beginning of his contribution around jobs and keeping fuel bills low are better met through green energy sources than through gas, the prices of which are pushing up bills right now.
Mr Lilley
The current cost of electricity produced from gas or coal is £50 per megawatt-hour. The current cost of producing it from windmills is £100 per megawatt-hour. For offshore windmills, it is £150 per megawatt-hour and for solar it is off the scale. If we think that we will get cheaper, lower energy bills by going to energy sources that are two, three or four times as expensive, we are living in la-la land.
Caroline Lucas
Far from my being in la-la land, the right hon. Gentleman has very effectively not answered my question. I said that if we were to look at a fuel bill to try to ascertain which elements made it high, we would find that it was gas rather than renewables. Yes, renewables have a greater degree of subsidy now, but that is because they are new. They have a rate that will enable them to come to grid parity very soon. Gas, by contrast, is an old technology and hardly needs those kinds of subsidies.
Mr Lilley
Even that is not true. The most recent generation of gas turbines are so much more efficient than the previous ones that the savings from replacing all our gas turbines with the most recent generation would probably be greater than the savings in CO2, emissions from using wind. I will, if I may, make some progress.
Until we find a way of controlling CO2 levels in the atmosphere that will not cost more than the benefits of doing so, we should not impoverish this generation. My respect for the hon. Lady and her colleague, the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), begins to evaporate when they abandon their real belief, which is that we should not burn any fossil fuels, and start to concoct fabricated fears and spurious arguments against fracking. Their first argument is that there will not be much there—that was what they originally said. Now the British Geological Survey says that there is probably an awful lot there, but that we will not know until we have drilled it.
The hon. Lady went on to say that the process will be so costly that it will cost more than the price, in which case no one will extract it, so her fears can evaporate. She clearly does not believe her own argument otherwise she would not even bother to attend this debate because it would not be important. She alleges that it will be more difficult geologically to extract shale in this country than in the United States, and that the geology here is less attractive than there, but that is simply not the case.
When the Select Committee interviewed Cuadrilla and BHP Billiton in the States, we asked them how thick the shale beds were in the States that they typically extracted from. They said 300, 400 or 500 feet thick. How thick is the Bowland shale? It is a mile thick; up to 20 times as thick as in America, which means that from one surface pod, we can get up to 20 times as much fracking as they can in the States—perhaps it is only a dozen times.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on obtaining the debate and on her spirited contribution. Unlike the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer), I can only recall being in debates in which I disagreed more or less 100% with her, but I may have missed some of the other debates.
I want to make a few points about the hon. Lady’s spirited contribution. One of the phrases that I have heard used several times is that we are “betting the farm” by moving ahead with shale gas. I have not heard anyone in the Government or otherwise saying that we should do that. We do not want to bet the farm on it. We want a mixed supply of energy for the future, and gas will rightly be part of that. She mentioned Sam Laidlaw who now runs Centrica and who was previously at Conoco and Amerada Hess. Just to put her mind at rest, he is an ex-Etonian, just as she is from Malvern, but I went to a state school in the midlands, and she can take my speech in that way.
I want to pick up on four points. The hon. Lady talked about fossil fuel subsidy. Apparently tax relief —VAT or other forms of tax relief—would be a subsidy. There is a difference between giving a technology money to make it work—I am not necessarily against doing that for some renewables—and just taxing it a little less, and we need to recognise that. I think that she also said—she must intervene if I am wrong—that fossil fuels were six times more expensive than renewables.
David Mowat
I apologise; it is probably my fault. Just to be clear, the price of solar is something upwards of 45 times the price of electricity produced from gas at the moment.
As for the climate change issues around shale gas, or unconventional gas, I would take hon. Members’ concerns about the impact of climate change more seriously—I am inclined to think that we should address it—if they took a different attitude to nuclear power, the technology that is far and away the most likely, worldwide, to make a difference at scale to carbon emissions.
I want to consider whether shale gas will affect the UK economy. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) made an interesting speech about the necessary volume of wells. I was not aware of what he said and found his numbers hard to believe, but if they are true, the point is interesting and important. Let us be clear: shale gas is already having a massive influence on the UK economy, because right now one of our major industrial competitors, the US, has energy prices and therefore electricity prices that are a quarter of ours. It has feedstock prices as an input to the global gas industry and the petrochemicals industry that are a quarter of ours. That is already making a difference at the margins. Some industries are already deciding not to invest in the UK and to bring petrochemicals and chemicals back to the US—indeed, out of China, let alone Europe. Shale gas is already having a massive impact on the UK economy, and it is nonsense to pretend that anything we say in this debate, or that the Government do, will make any difference to that.
David Mowat
They will burn, as my hon. Friend says, a dirty coal. It is extraordinary that that is happening right now in the EU, and even more extraordinary that there appear to be members of the Green party in that country’s Government while it is happening—the same Green party that purports to care about carbon emissions and climate change.
Caroline Lucas
Germany is on course to meet its emissions reduction target far more effectively than we are. There is a short-term gap, admittedly, because it got rid of nuclear so fast. No one wants more coal, but it is a short-term thing as Germany gets its renewables even further up to speed. It is massively ahead of us on renewables and will get its emissions down faster than we will.
David Mowat
The hon. Lady makes an important point, if it were true, but the fact is that Germany has 25% higher carbon emissions per unit of GDP than the UK, and the UK is decelerating more quickly than Germany. To pretend anything else is not right.
I have some more time—I thank the hon. Lady for that—so I want to wrap up by talking a little about local considerations. When I first became interested in the subject, I could see that Lancashire—my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) made a good speech on behalf of his constituents today—was heavily affected. However, the maps of shale gas have since come out in more detail, and there is more in Cheshire, around Manchester and Warrington. Of course it is right that the work should not go ahead without adherence to the highest environmental standards and that the Government should not give permits without being satisfied that fracking will not considerably increase the earthquake cost and all that goes with it. There should be no compromise on that.
In an intervention, I mentioned the fact that Aberdeen contains three constituencies with the lowest unemployment in the country. That is not a coincidence; it is because the sort of economic activity that we are talking about brings jobs. I want to say on behalf of the people of Warrington that we welcome IGas and Cuadrilla. If they wonder where they should have their UK headquarters and if they pick up the text of this debate, I say to Mr Egan and Mr Austin from those companies, we are open for business in Warrington. We would like them to have their UK head offices in our town. It is only an hour and 40 minutes from London. They are very welcome, and we should go ahead as fast as possible.
Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing the debate.
I first want to dismiss the poor arguments produced this afternoon and previously on the merits of shale gas extraction: we should not have the slightest interest in where executives of oil and gas companies went to school; the possibility of a company making a profit in a market economy is not a serious argument or a reason to dismiss its proposals; and nor is it of any interest or significance that a businessman might at some point have met a Minister to discuss shale gas—heaven forfend! In the end, the Government have to make a judgment on the basis of the national interest, and that judgment must be approved by the House of Commons. We therefore have to consider the arguments sensibly and seriously, not merely chucking mud or rocks in the belief that that will somehow strengthen the argument. In actual fact, it will not; it will undermine it.
Secondly, I want to talk about my interests, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) did. I have a constituency interest, because the Sussex Weald basin, which covers a large part of my constituency, has been identified as an area that might contain significant reserves of exploitable shale gas. At the moment, we do not know the extent of any possible drilling or how exploitable any reserves might be. Test drilling is about to begin, subject to planning permissions being obtained.
I want to engage in the argument about what the national interest is. It cannot solely consist of the contention that shale gas might lead to cheaper energy and economic benefit, powerful though that argument might be—in any case, we have heard that it is debatable. There are of course other arguments about whether the form of energy generated is sustainable or the kind of clean energy that we should be investing in for the long term. For now, I set aside that important economic argument.
There are other national interests, one of which is our landscape. To pick up on a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw), some of the areas in which the drilling would have to take place in Sussex are in the national park. National parks are areas with the highest landscape designation, and they are designated as such precisely because the landscape is treated like no other, so there should be a strong presumption against any kind of economic activity that may damage them. That does not mean that no activity can ever take place in a national park, or even that that should be the case, but it does mean that we have to make judgments carefully, recognising the national interest in protecting such areas, not only the local interest or vested local interest. That has to be considered. We must be able to balance the national interest properly.
What has struck me about the debate this afternoon is that we do not yet really know what the effect in each of our constituencies will be. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) suggested that there might be about 164 wells per constituency. I do not know whether that figure is right or wrong, but I do know that my constituents are completely bemused by the possible impact on their areas and the landscape in an entirely rural setting, which is tranquil and quiet and where the countryside is especially valued. Further concerns involve the supply of water in a stressed area and the impact on groundwater. It must be right that should any activity take place, it is conducted according to the highest environmental standards.
The kernel of my argument, however, is the importance of a system that properly balances the arguments both nationally, so that we take a careful view of the national interest and where we should do anything, and locally, so that we preserve the integrity of the local planning system. We must be able to judge locally where activity might be particularly damaging to the local area because of a high landscape designation or the impact on the local environment. The process should be gone through transparently, so that communities have a sense that their concerns are being properly weighed and balanced.
Caroline Lucas
I very much agree about the planning system. Does the right hon. Gentleman therefore share my disappointment that the guidelines we were promised from the Department for Communities and Local Government before the recess have not been forthcoming? Does he also share my disappointment that, when they finally arrive in the weeks or months to come, they will not be open to consultation, but simply there as a given?
Nick Herbert
My interest is in what the guidelines say; I will not criticise the Government for not bringing the guidelines forward. I am making a plea for the guidelines to ensure that we maintain the integrity of the local planning process.
I strongly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) about the need for an evidence-led debate and a good supply of information. That is exactly what my constituents want. They are unclear about the impact of any proposals. We do not know whether the shale gas is exploitable, or what the impact of drilling would be—the footprint of the drills might be minimised, or there might not be as many as suggested, because the gas is not exploitable—and that unknown is fomenting a great deal of fear. The provision of sensible information and having a sensible debate are therefore incredibly important.
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Amess. I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee on allowing this debate to take place. This is the second debate on shale gas that we have had in this Chamber in the last couple of days; some Members here took part in that debate, and some did not.
I am pleased that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) had the opportunity to read the Hansard report of Tuesday’s debate. I do not intend to repeat much of my contribution that day, partly because I am conscious that during this debate, Members have raised questions to which they seek responses from the Minister, and I want to ensure the maximum possible time for those answers that he has available to be forthcoming to those Members, who have expressed important points.
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert). Towards the end of his contribution, he made a crucial and important point about the balance in this debate between different issues that must be properly addressed. I have no financial or registrable interests in anything to do with any aspect of the energy industry, but I have an interest in ensuring that we have a balanced, rational, evidence-based debate and that conclusions are drawn and decisions made on the best evidence available.
The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion chided me for saying in the debate on Tuesday that some people had an absolutist position. It is not an insult; it is a statement of fact. She has an absolutist position against the extraction of unconventional gas. That is an entirely legitimate position for her to hold; it is a position held by some and diametrically opposed to the position held by others. It was not intended as a slight. My point in saying it was that some people will never be in favour. That is perfectly legitimate. I was interested during the debate on Tuesday, and I am interested during this debate, to consider properly all the factors involved and ensure that all the environmental concerns expressed by numerous Members with constituency interests—including my hon. Friends the Members for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), the hon. Member for Wells (Tessa Munt), the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) and my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer)—are properly addressed.
Caroline Lucas
The hon. Gentleman implied that it was ideological or absolutist to say that I cannot see what scientific evidence is out there that would persuade me that the extraction of shale gas is compatible with staying below 2ºC. That is an evidence-based position, and to say that it is ideological or absolutist undermines that. That is the point that I was making in my criticism.
Tom Greatrex
The hon. Lady makes my point for me. That is an absolutist position, and she has defined in her terms why it is absolutist. In relation to the evidence, I point her to the report by the Committee on Climate Change. Sometimes, when we get into debate on the issue of unconventional gas, we consider that it is only about electricity generation. She will be aware, as other hon. Members are, that we use a considerable amount of gas in this country for heating as well, and we will continue to do so well into the future. I have been on a platform with her in the past when she has made the point about the need for gas as peaking capacity as well. I do not think that she is suggesting that we will not need gas.
The consideration, then, is whether it can be done safely, whether the regulation can be right and whether it can be monitored properly. That is why, in March 2012—I will not read it into the record again, as I did so on Tuesday—I set a number of conditions that I believe need to be met in terms of regulation. However, the monitoring must also be in place, and it must be as comprehensive as the regulation is robust. That is where I have continuing concerns, particularly relating to the resources of the Environment Agency and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and their ability to do that.
It is right that people should be concerned about some aspects of self-certification, particularly in the early stages. I take Government Members’ point that the technology is not new, but it is a new application of the technology in the UK context. For that reason, a higher public acceptability test must be met. If it is not met, planning applications will not be successful and shale gas development will not happen. There is an interest in ensuring that it is done properly, which is why I continue to have concerns about the level of monitoring.
Tom Greatrex
I will give way one more time, but then I hope to conclude my remarks.
Caroline Lucas
The hon. Gentleman is kind to give way. I am only intervening again because he is quoting what he says I did or did not say. On the issue of whether we need gas, yes, we need a small amount of gas as a transition fuel to get us to the renewable future that we need, but the question is what to do over the next 10 years. Do we lock ourselves into or put in place the infrastructure for a whole new gas business here in Britain, or do we use the 10 years that it would take to get shale gas going in Britain to invest properly in renewables? There is an opportunity cost and a decision to be made. I would rather we invested in renewables.
Tom Greatrex
I would like us to invest in renewables, because I think that it is important, but I take a slightly different view of the prognosis for how long we will require gas both for heating and for electricity generation. In relation to our indigenous gas supply from the North sea, the hon. Lady will know as well as I do that the extent to which we rely on imports has changed massively in the past 10 years. The trajectory is going one way. If it is possible to extract shale gas safely, and if it is properly regulated and monitored, we may have the benefit of being able to replace some of what we import with indigenous supply. We should not close our minds to that or seek to block it.
I would like to make a slightly different point to the other extreme. I have been listening to the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) responding to other speeches from a sedentary position. He has said a number of times to Members with constituency interests in the issue that it is about showing leadership. With all due respect, leadership is not about hysterical hectoring; it is about ensuring that the approach is evidence-based and that all the arguments can be properly, systematically and fundamentally dealt with, so that people can see exactly what the level of risk is.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)
I, too, thank the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for starting this debate, and all those who have contributed to it. For those of us who were here on Tuesday, this has been a slightly livelier debate, but none the worse for that. I will try to set some context, say more about the way in which the industry is being regulated, deal with some of the myths, and then turn to some of the specific questions and worries that have been expressed. I hope that colleagues will bear with me.
I start by saying that oil and gas are vital for our economy. About three quarters of our current energy demand is met by oil and gas. Even as we move to lower-carbon sources, which we all want to do, 70% of the primary energy we consume here will come from oil and gas by 2020. They are a vital part of our economy and will remain so for some decades to come, even as we move to a low-carbon economy.
Before I deal with some of the specific questions, let me debunk some of the myths about shale gas: that it is a recent technology, that it is new technology, and that accelerating its exploration involves increasing the risks. Let me take those three myths in turn. The first is that onshore oil and gas production began recently. In fact, we have been exploiting oil and gas onshore for nearly 100 years.
The first production well was drilled onshore in 1919 at Hardstoft in Derbyshire. Since then more than 2,100 conventional wells have been drilled, and onshore production continues to take place throughout our country from the south of England up to Scotland. Just last week, I visited IGas operations in the South Downs national park in Sussex, which is a very good example of how oil and gas operations can work even in the most sensitive environments. We have nearly a century of experience of oil and gas production with no history of chemical spills or gas leaks comparable with the experience in the United States. During that century, we have put in place robust regulation to ensure that oil and gas operations are safe for people and the environment. Given that century of onshore exploration and the expertise and robust supply chains that exist as a result of extraction in the North sea, we are very well placed as a country to make the right decisions about shale.
The second myth is that fracking is new. It is not. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) said, some 2.5 million hydraulic fracturing operations have been performed at oil and gas wells worldwide. It is thought that as of 2010 around 60% of all new oil and gas wells are hydraulically fractured. Some 27,000 wells were drilled in the United States in 2011 and most of them were fracked. Even here, that has been happening in some form for the past 60 years. We have already had some 200 wells fracked in this country. With all that activity, there is still no confirmed evidence of contamination of aquifers caused by fracking.
Michael Fallon
If the hon. Lady will excuse me, I will not give way.
The United States has felt the great difference that shale gas can make. It has reinvigorated the economy, gas prices have halved, reducing costs for industry and consumers, and billions of dollars of new investment and thousands of jobs have been created. Nations across the globe, including India and China, are looking in on that boom and joining in. We must start to think seriously about shale. We must get on and explore the resources that are there and understand the potential, to see whether shale gas can be extracted here as economically and as technically efficiently as it has been in the United States.
The third myth I must deal with is that we are somehow accelerating shale gas and that that means increasing the risk. Conditions vary from country to country, of course, and it is already clear that the shape and development of the industry here will be significantly different from that in the United States. We have the advantage of learning from experience in the United States, but we are, as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) said, a much more densely populated country, which has implications for where and how we can drill. The geology of our shale, as has been said, is much thicker in some areas, but we are committed to ensuring that the industry can prosper here if the conditions are right.
Michael Fallon
I will certainly consider that suggestion, and if I may, I will write to my hon. Friend about it.
The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion also asked me about the differences in well designs between operations here and in the United States and about the possibility that we might have methane leaks on the scale that we have seen in Pennsylvania. I visited the United States to talk to experts, and I am aware that the standard of environmental regulation has varied widely across the different states of America. They do not have the overall, national regulatory system that we have. Practices appear to have been tolerated in some states that would not be acceptable in others.
I understand that the repertoire of well design technology is essentially the same as in the United States, but the regulatory framework in the United Kingdom is quite different. Here, we have a national regulator—the Health and Safety Executive—which will require a full review of well design and construction by an independent competent person. I should point out to the hon. Lady that the Royal Academy of Engineering commented that that was a highly valuable feature of the United Kingdom’s system. We can certainly learn from the experience in the United States, but I want to emphasise to her that we start from a position of having what the United States did not have—a system of national regulation.
Caroline Lucas
The Minister has referenced, now and at the beginning of his winding-up speech, the fact that our regulations are essentially much stronger. In that respect, I wonder why he would think that it is all right, perhaps, that Britain’s offshore rigs and platforms have leaked oils or other chemicals into the North sea on 55 occasions in the last month alone, according to the figures from DECC. The idea that our drilling regulations generally are somehow much better than those elsewhere is more questionable than he suggests.
The Minister also spoke earlier about the number of countries that are falling over themselves now to go down the fracking route. He did not talk about countries such as France, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Austria, the Republic of Ireland, Spain, Denmark and Germany, all of which have full or partial bans or moratoriums on fracking. That gives a slightly different picture.
Finally—this was one of the key questions that I asked the Minister—why have the planning guidelines been delayed; what does “very soon” mean; and if he is seriously genuinely concerned about consultation with local people, why are those planning guidelines not open to some discussion with the communities?
Michael Fallon
I am coming to the point about planning guidance—I was due to do that—if the hon. Lady can contain herself, but first let me deal with the point about the North sea.
Michael Fallon
I was coming to the point about planning guidance. The hon. Lady has somehow suggested that I was not or that I had missed it. Let us just deal with her slur on the North sea. The North sea has one of the most extensive safety regimes in the world. Of course, we have learned from the accident on Piper Alpha, which sadly took place 25 years ago this month. Of course we have learned from that, but if she compares operations in the North sea with operations in other seas right around the world, she will see that we have one of the best and safest regimes there is. The proof of that is precisely the fact that the incidents that she referred to have to be reported to the Heath and Safety Executive, which is at present in Aberdeen. They have to be monitored; explanations are required from those involved. I think that it is rather remiss of the hon. Lady to try to suggest somehow that there is laxity in our regime in the North sea.
Michael Fallon
The hon. Lady raised two other questions in her last intervention, but I will give way if she wants to intervene again.
Caroline Lucas
I should like to intervene again, first to say to you, Mr Amess, that I think that this is yet another example of the kind of patronising tone that we hear again and again from Government Members, particularly towards women in this Chamber, and I absolutely deplore it. Secondly, and more to the point of the debate, the Minister says that I am casting a slur on the North sea somehow. The facts are that there have been 55 leaks in the last month. Is he or is he not comfortable with that fact?
Mr David Amess (in the Chair)
Order. This is a very warm afternoon. I just appeal to hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber to bear that in mind. We are the mother of all Parliaments. Let us continue to have a civilised debate, but obviously I have heard what has been said.
Caroline Lucas
That is very kind, Mr Amess. I sense that the mood in the room is one of warmth. We have probably done our best with this debate, so I thank the Minister for his words. It will not come as a surprise to him that I do not agree with him, and I am sure that the debate will continue.
Question put and agreed to.