David Mowat
Main Page: David Mowat (Conservative - Warrington South)(10 years, 10 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
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.
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.
Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, and to have your understanding that I may have to nip out and see a Minister about a school. I hope that I will also have the understanding of other hon. Members.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on ensuring that we could have this debate. I think that this is the fifth time in 18 months that we have had such a debate, and my right hon. Friend the Minister has had the pleasure of my company and that of other hon. Members only in the last few days on pretty much the same topic. I will try to take a different tack from the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, given that I represent a constituency that sits on the majority of the Bowland shale, which apparently is becoming the nirvana of plugging our energy gap. That is how it seems to many of my constituents, who are worried on a number of grounds.
Personally, I have always tried to take the middle ground. I am not, and never have been, completely set against the use of shale gas in the UK’s energy mix. However, following conversations with constituents and having done my own research, I do have concerns about the safety and the environmental aspects of the fracking process. That includes, in particular, the integrity of water supplies for those who draw water from their own boreholes and not from the mains supply. That is an issue that I keep raising, and I have raised it in meetings with companies and civil servants, who still do not seem to understand that there are people in Lancashire who do not have a mains water supply. They are clearly concerned about the possible contamination that may occur with a process that goes on below the water table; but more importantly, they are also concerned about the quantities of water taken from the water table to use in this process. They are still waiting to have those questions answered.
My constituency is right next to where the small earth tremors happened. Test drilling at Preesall in the Fylde constituency was stopped to check what was going on. As hon. Members can imagine, in a county that was already seeing the speed at which people were trying to get to the shale gas but hearing few answers, the fact that a small tremor happened—whatever one wants to argue about the tremor itself—led to extremely serious worries among my constituents.
I accept that, since then, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has put in place a number of additional safeguards. Certainly, the regulatory system has been beefed up. He has also confirmed that all data from the exploratory process will be monitored to assess further the environmental impacts. The additional safeguards; the monitoring of seismic activity; a strengthening of the regulations in relation to wellhead integrity; and—this is the important one for me and I am grateful to the Energy Secretary for it—the presence of an independent expert on-site, while fracking takes place, are all moves in the right direction. They are important measures, but I believe that more can be done to strengthen things further, particularly the water safety element.
I understood the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion to refer to the DCLG in terms of the planning regulations, and we in Lancashire are waiting to see the nature of them. I hope to see very strong roles for the Environment Agency and the Health and Safety Executive throughout this process. There needs to be some understanding that the area of the Bowland shale is rural Lancashire, so there are extreme concerns about the impact not just on the ground, but on some of the most outstanding countryside that we have in this country. We need to be assured that each site will be assessed on its own merits in terms of how it affects the local landscape. I have always made the same point in relation to applications for wind turbines, and it would be wrong of me to approach planning consents for shale gas well pad sites differently. Local people must be allowed to have a full say in the planning process.
I will now return to a familiar theme. Hon. Members have heard this long and hard from me, but the issue still concerns me. If we are to have large-scale extraction of shale gas, how will that represent a bonanza for the local community? The mineral rights belong to the Crown, to the duchy or to the county, and local residents will not see the sums that communities and landowners in the US or Europe could get. Moreover, the statements on the number of jobs that will be available are not convincing enough for me. Promises are being made, but I do not believe that this activity will create large-scale employment opportunities across Lancashire.
I accept that a move to industrial-scale production of shale gas has not been advocated by the Energy Secretary at this stage, but it does look as though there is more and more evidence that economically viable extraction is possible. I have seen a reference to £366 billion-worth of extractable gas from the Bowland shale. Therefore, the community’s share of the profits needs to be sorted. I am determined that if Lancashire is to produce shale gas that benefits Lancashire and the rest of the country, Lancashire residents will get financial recompense.
We have now heard that a community compensation scheme will be established, which is good news. However, we are told that it will be a voluntary scheme, run by the United Kingdom Onshore Operators Group. The plan is to provide £100,000 per well at the exploration stage, and once production starts, 1% of all revenues generated during the well’s lifetime will be allocated to the local area, with one third going to the county and two thirds to the local community. That is a good start, but I and others in this Chamber would like to see a lot more. We want to see more clarity, more certainty, a guarantee of additionality and, ideally, more money.
David Mowat
My hon. Friend is making a number of strong points on behalf of his community in Lancashire, and I agree with them all. I will just draw his attention, though, to the unemployment figures that came out yesterday. The three constituencies with the lowest unemployment in the country are all around Aberdeen, and that has been achieved without community transfers. Does my hon. Friend not think that there will be a bonus in terms of economic activity, potentially centred on his constituency?
Eric Ollerenshaw
On balance, my hon. Friend makes a fair point. It has been put to me that, if the area were the first where fracking went ahead, the potential for university research, engineering and skills would be an advantage, but as I have tried to explain, against that is the fact that we have had one test drill, which caused an earth tremor. We have seen nothing else, and we need to see what one of these well pads does to the environment. No one has seen that yet.
Dr Whitehead
Well, those are entirely different points. At a particular point we could meet a larger supply, but what I am talking about is the overall question of supply over a period of time that would be possible to underwrite as a result of that sort of level of shale gas production—two different points.
The additional point that needs to be borne in mind about shale gas wells is that they do not last very long. Research from the US demonstrates that the average life of a shale gas well is about seven years or so. That is because shale gas wells produce a lot of gas to start with, but they deplete very rapidly. So, after about seven years they are producing negligible amounts, even—as has happened in a number of instances—on the basis of refracking. Refracking of a well produces a little increase, but the well still dries over a fairly short period. Therefore, to maintain that sort of level of production over a longer period, one would need to redrill a number of those wells. That is the sort of scenario that we would set for ourselves if we were to introduce a level of shale gas production that would support the sort of intervention in the gas market that I have mentioned.
My second concern is this: would shale gas production actually reduce prices for everybody, if we went for it to that extent? The clear answer is no. The intervention of the shale gas itself would not reduce prices because of the way that gas is traded on the international markets, particularly in this country. There are three international markets for gas trading. Gas is not particularly transportable, except through vessels such as liquefied natural gas carriers, which make a marginal difference in terms of supply; gas is largely transported by pipelines. Gas is traded on the European market, the far east market and the north American market. The north American market has seen substantial price decreases because of the concentration of shale gas within that one particular market. We would need to have a similar amount of shale gas produced throughout Europe in order for the European traded gas market to come down significantly in price compared with what it is currently, notwithstanding LNG imports coming into the European market overall. So shale gas might make a marginal difference over a period of time, but probably not—for the reasons I have given—unless there were fundamental changes in gas trading.
David Mowat
I am trying to understand the point that the hon. Gentleman has just made. Is it that because there is not enough shale gas in Europe potentially, it will not have enough of an impact on the European gas price vis-à-vis what has happened in the US? Is that the point?
Dr Whitehead
If every country in Europe produced the same amount of shale gas that is being produced in the US, yes, that is possible, in terms of the trading in the European market, but that probably is not going to be the case. Therefore we have to look at the relevant prices of gas within the markets. It is a question of trading in a market, not a question of the gas being plugged into someone’s home and therefore creating a reduction in price there.
Dr Whitehead
I am sorry, but I cannot give way any more; I would lose the rest of my time.
What happens with those large numbers of wells in terms of the fracking process? That process involves the use of between 2 million and 7 million gallons of water, and 5,000 gallons of chemicals, per frack; whether we know what is in the chemicals or not, that is the sort of volume of chemicals needed. As has been said, that water cannot be injected into seams deeper than the fracking itself, as is the case in America, but would have to be disposed of by other means. Also, unless the fracking companies brought the water with them, water would have to be taken from the water table within the area where the fracking was taking place, which has implications for the integrity of the water tables in those particular parts of the country. That is an important but largely forgotten point.
The final thing that I want to say, given the short amount of time I have, is about the policy implications of going for a large amount of fracking. If we went for a large amount of fracking, as I have said we could perhaps supply—over a period—10% of overall UK gas supplies. If we went for a large programme of anaerobic digestion, we could provide 10% of the domestic gas supply. A farm-sized anaerobic digestion plant costs about £2 million to build—
Graham Stringer
That is completely consistent with what I was saying—that the fear of the activity, rather than the activity itself, is the problem.
I want now to move on to the science and to speak as a scientist. I agree with virtually everything the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) said, apart from when he completely accepted what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said. We must remember that it involves a political process, which lies on top of a number of scientific papers; its work is not necessarily put together by scientists themselves.
The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion could be accused of being unrealistically precise in her comments about what is likely to happen in the climate over the coming years, and I would make two simple points about the science. First, I have talked to most of the leading scientists on climate change in this country and in the United States, and there is no known way of distinguishing natural variations in the climate from impacts caused by carbon dioxide—nobody knows how to do that.
Secondly, the models that have been used to predict the increase in temperatures have all been wrong. In the Met Office, we have the biggest supercomputers in the world, which are great at back-projecting climate, but their projections of climate into the future have all been inaccurate. That is just an indication that there is something unknown about the science, which is not to say that carbon dioxide is not a greenhouse gas, because it clearly is, and it has been known as such for a long time. However, an artificial precision is being introduced into the debate, and it really should not be there. We do not, therefore, often talk about the science.
My next point is about the costs of all the different policies and the price that will result. An interesting report by Liberum Capital indicates the difference between the cost of the Government’s policies on replacing the sources of our energy and the cost of replacing like with like. It finds that there is a difference of more than £200 billion between the two, and that will come out somewhere in the price of gas to our constituents.
The Government’s energy policy is based on taking a long-term position on the price of gas and oil—fossil fuels. Essentially, they are betting the house, the country or hundreds of billions of pounds that the price of fossil fuel will continue to rise. If that happens, and if renewables are put in place, they are likely to win their bet—and it is a bet. They will have to find the capital to fund those renewable energy supplies, but given that prices of publicly quoted shares in the European renewables market have dropped below their level in 2004-05, that looks very unlikely. If the Government lose their bet, our constituents will pay more for their energy than they should.
David Mowat
I agree with the point the hon. Gentleman has just made about renewables and potential increases in the price of fossil fuels. Effectively, the Government’s strategy is to use renewables as a hedge against increased fossil fuel prices. That is not altogether unreasonable, is it?
Graham Stringer
It would not be if it was just a hedge and it was not artificially pushing the cost of gas and other energy supplies up by holding them in reserve. The hon. Gentleman is right: it is a hedge, but it is a very expensive hedge indeed.
There are two reasons for being against fracking, and the debate has been helpful in clarifying some of the facts. One—it is a completely reasonable to make this point on behalf of constituents—is that people worry when they hear that there is to be fracking in their area. It is therefore quite reasonable for them to ask for the good health and safety standards and good environmental standards that apply elsewhere in the country. However, it is not reasonable to push those standards to the point where the fracking does not happen. When the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion talks about the precautionary principle, that is really a way of trying to stop everything. She really should read the Science and Technology Committee report from the previous Session on the precautionary principle, which is often quoted, but it is often used to prevent anything from happening.
Let me give an example. One often has to use the best available evidence to do something, and the reason we are not getting protected areas in the sea at the moment is that the Government are looking for more and more scientific evidence when we should be using the scientific evidence available. If the hon. Lady wants to stop fracking by using the precautionary principle, she is likely to do that, but I think we have to look at the scientific evidence we have and apply high environmental standards.
Finally, I want to put the Government’s energy policy, which is not coherent, in the context of what is happening on emissions worldwide. Much of the Government’s policy is based on reducing emissions, in the belief that that will bring down global warming and slow down or stop climate change. However, the policy is failing, and emissions are going up. With emissions, one has to deal with imported goods, which are often created using industrial processes that create more carbon dioxide than processes here do. If we push up the price of energy here, we will export production to China, India and other places and increase the amount of carbon dioxide. That is a deindustrialisation policy, and I hope that, by exploiting shale gas in a safe and environmentally responsible way, we can start reindustrialising this country and creating the 72,000 jobs or more that it has been predicted will come from exploiting shale gas.
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.
Graham Stringer
One of the points that has not been made is that there is a slight assumption that shale gas is just methane. It is actually ethane and propane as well, and those can be used as feedstock to our chemical industry, lowering chemical prices and making the industry more competitive.
David Mowat
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. He is completely right. Indeed, it would be more accurate for us to talk about unconventional gas than about shale gas, because coal gas is also part of what we are discussing.
Clearly, there is already an impact on the UK economy. I used to do a lot of work on the correlation between energy prices and GDP. They are closely correlated, and particularly so if we are trying to rebalance the economy back towards manufacturing, chemicals, aluminium, steel and chlorine production, and all that goes with that. We cannot do that if we have differentially higher energy prices than our competitors. I refer mainly to the US, although there is increasing concern that the rest of Europe is taking a different path from the UK on carbon taxes, and so on. It is right to let shale gas go ahead and let the market define prices and how things will work.
In the US, the gas price has fallen from $12 per million British thermal units to about $3. The cost of importing liquefied natural gas, if its export is allowed, is about $5. That implies a cap on European gas prices if there were a free market; and the hon. Member for Southampton, Test is right to say that there are three gas markets currently. Such a move would imply a cap of about $8 or $9, which is considerably lower than now, although I accept that for strategic reasons the US Government might not agree to export any gas at all.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) made an excellent point about climate change. The issue about climate change and gas emissions is how we get coal out of the system. The UK still produces 70% of its energy from coal and oil and something like 3% or 4% from renewables, taking into account transport as well as electricity production. The UK has lower carbon emissions per head and per unit of GDP than nearly every country in Europe, in spite of the fact that we have less in the way of renewables. The reason is that we burn less coal than most countries in Europe. Incredibly, apparently aided and abetted by members of the Green party in Germany, a programme has kicked off there to build 10 or 12 unabated coal-fired power stations.
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.