Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Joan Walley Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

Even if I believed that, such an ugly turn of phrase would fit ill on my lips, and I could not possibly bring myself to issue it. To that end, I will stick with my own choice of words.

The hon. Gentleman knows, because he is a great expert on these matters—far more expert than I am, I have to acknowledge—today’s new homes save £200 on average on their energy bills compared with homes built before the coalition came to power. He knows that new homes are more energy efficient. I want that energy efficiency to grow, however, so new homes will have net zero-carbon emissions from energy used to heat and light them, and there will be a higher efficiency requirement that may be augmented by on-site renewable energy measures such as solar panels.

Where that is not possible, however, to abate all carbon emissions on-site, the Government will allow developers to offset remaining emissions through off- site carbon abatement measures known as “allowable solutions”—precisely what the hon. Gentleman was referring to—which is a cost effective and practical way of dealing with carbon. I know it does not appeal to the purists, but it is deliverable. Either we want to hit these targets and get to our destination, or we do not.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I know very well about the Minister’s literary expertise, but why is he giving small-scale developments exemptions from the highest standards?

[Mr Hayes]

We are doing it on the grounds of practicality. The hon. Lady and I, during a recent session of the Committee she chairs, exchanged thoughts on the issue of emissions. She will know that there is always a balance to be struck. She refers in her intervention to the preferred threshold of 10 units, but as I say there is always a balance between inhibiting or even preventing development at all and achieving our desired outcomes on carbon. I am happy to hear representations on all these matters, as I want this Bill to be as good as it can be. We are trying to strike that balance, which is the frank answer to the hon. Lady—and I am known in this place for giving straightforward and frank answers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

The longer this debate goes on, the more interesting it gets. The contributions so far demonstrate to me that the Infrastructure Bill should be the means whereby we balance economic development with environmental and social responsibilities. We should be working out how to align the required long-term planning for the infrastructure needs of this country with what is coming out of the sustainable development goals, which this country, as well as others elsewhere, will have to adopt. The more contributions we have had, the more we realise that there are live issues, and that this has not been thought through. However much of a “kaleidoscope” this Bill might be, it does not provide the means of reconciling and balancing these different issues. It will be interesting to see to what extent the Secretary of State for Transport, who is not in his place, takes on board the genuine concerns that have been raised, and I would like to mention some of them briefly.

I did not agree with what the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) said about regulation, and I will come to that later, but I did agree with his comments on gas storage. This is an issue that I and other Members of Parliament representing north Staffordshire and the potteries have raised, including with the previous Minister at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon). We have repeatedly raised issues about gas storage, and I can tell the hon. Gentleman that I am sure there would be support for seeing how we can get this addressed. It certainly has long been on the agenda of the British Ceramic Confederation, of which Laura Cohen is chief executive, and it could easily be addressed, if there is a political will to do so, through this Bill. The extractive industries are also an issue.

Other matters relate to the work of the Environmental Audit Committee. Only today we launched a report on air quality and, in terms of investment in new roads, we clearly need to be looking at design and engineering, and we must take sustainable transport into account. We heard about the importance of cycling and walking and making sure, through the planning regime and the national planning policy framework, that new developments go where they need to be. This Bill does not allow the planning considerations to sit side by side with the long-term economic investment decisions that need to be taken. For that reason, I am pleased to be voting for the Labour reasoned amendment.

On road investment, I genuinely hope that throughout the Committee stage the Secretary of State for Transport will be looking at what will happen with the new successor body to the Highways Agency. It is critical that it takes on board regulation and environmental considerations, especially in the light of representations from the Woodland Trust, which is very concerned about ancient woodlands. I am sure that is a concern in constituencies all around the country, and we have not got assurances that these areas can be properly protected. We would be a little more confident if the Government could tell us when they are going to bring forward legislation for the public forest estate. In the absence of that, it is difficult to see how we are going to apply these higher standards to such areas of exceptional beauty.

I made an intervention on the Minister about zero-carbon homes, and I am sure many of my hon. Friends will refer to that later. Why have the Government decided that the right balance is to have higher standards for a development of over 11 properties and lower standards for developments of 10 or under? That is completely wrong and there is no logic to it. I say to the Minister that the Government have got this wrong and there is an opportunity to see whether amendments could be brought forward to deal with that.

I want to focus on clauses 38 to 43, which will, if passed, change trespass law to allow companies to frack under homes without notifying the landowner. This move comes at a time when there are a number of very significant unanswered questions about the impact of fracking which have not been addressed by the Government. Broadly, these relate to climate change and the current—inadequate—regulatory framework.

We know that we do not need new fossil fuels; far from it, because in order to avoid a rise of more than 2° C from climate change, only one fifth of existing global fossil fuel reserves, not including UK shale gas, can be burned. Talks are going on in Lima but Government Whips are apparently preventing our energy Minister from going out there to take part in those important discussions.

Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, recently told a World Bank seminar that the “vast majority” of fossil fuel reserves should be considered “unburnable”. Those remarks were made in the context of the benefits of integrated reporting and highlighting the costs and benefits of tomorrow to inform the investments and credit decisions of today. That information has been shared with the Environmental Audit Committee by the Governor of the Bank of England.

BP has stated:

“We agree that burning all known reserves would probably cause global temperatures to rise by more than 2°C—and that addressing this issue will require the efforts of governments, industry and individuals.”

Shell, Barack Obama and the International Energy Agency have made similar statements. It is therefore unclear why the Government are giving huge incentives to, and deregulating, a new fossil fuel industry that will either add to the stock of unburnable carbon or threaten climate change targets. The former chief scientist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Professor David Mackay, wrote last year that without a global climate deal,

“new fossil fuel exploitation is likely to lead to an increase in cumulative GHG”—

greenhouse gas—

“emissions and the risk of climate change.”

So why are the Government doing this?

We often hear claims that shale gas is low carbon because it will replace coal. Indeed, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that the only way in which shale gas could reduce emissions is by replacing coal. However, the best industry estimates state that shale gas will not be online until the 2020s. Meanwhile, the Committee on Climate Change has told us that coal must be offline by the 2020s. So by the time a shale gas industry is up and running in constituencies all around the country, there should be no coal to replace it. However, the International Energy Agency has warned that instead, shale gas

“could muscle out low-carbon fuels such as renewables”.

The time scale just does not add up.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that shale gas needs to replace coal, but that condition will not be met. It also states that methane leakage from shale gas wells must be “low”. However, there is a growing body of evidence to show that those emissions are not low. In fact, new reports have shown that methane leakage occurs during parts of the process that were not previously thought to be problematic. The IPCC recently revised upwards the global warming potential of methane, which, over a 20-year time frame, is 108 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. We therefore risk significantly increasing emissions at exactly the time when they should be rapidly reduced. So, given that fracking will add to unburnable carbon and that it will not meet the two key recommendations from the IPCC on coal and methane, the claims that shale gas can reduce emissions do not stand up to scrutiny.

Clauses 38 to 43 represent a lurch towards the further deregulation of fracking. We heard a lot about regulation from the hon. Member for Wealden. If passed, the clauses would give unprecedented rights of use to fracking companies. This would include activities that had not been assessed for their environmental safety, such as the keeping of substances or infrastructure within the land, with no limits on what could be kept or for how long. It is also worth noting, especially as we come up to the general election, that this change in the law is highly unpopular, with 99% of consultation respondents—and 74% of people more generally—opposing the change. Why have the Government decided to proceed when the outcome of the consultation was so stark? I do not believe that they should be doing so, given the response to the consultation.

It is also extremely worrying that the Government are pressing ahead with further deregulation when the evidence points to the need for a stronger, not weaker, regulatory framework. In last week’s autumn statement, the Government announced a new fund to reassure the public on fracking regulations. I believe that the public would be more reassured if the Government took steps to fill the gaps in the regulatory framework. Let us be clear: the evidence exists to show that fracking regulation is not fit for purpose. The often-quoted Public Health England report states that fracking could be safe if the regulatory framework were stringent. However, in the last two years, little progress has been made towards meeting the Royal Society’s recommendations on regulation.

It is not yet known whether fracking can be done safely. As highlighted by the United Nations environment programme, fracking could result in unavoidable environmental and health impacts if extracted properly, and more so if done inadequately. Other countries, such as Bulgaria and France, have introduced moratoriums. We should also take a precautionary approach in the UK. I am proud to be a lifelong member of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, which advocated in a recent report that we should adopt such a precautionary approach, and that a

“comprehensive research programme should be commissioned for the UK”.

The report goes on to state that the Government’s plans should go ahead only

“if/when there is a satisfactory evidence base that suggests operations could safely commence without causing unacceptable adverse environmental, economic, public health or wider social impacts”

and that a

“full, independent environmental impact assessment should be a prerequisite to any initial exploratory operations commencing.”

It also advocates, as I did in our debate on the Water Bill before it became law, that

“Full land remediation must be a non-negotiable condition of any such approvals.”

To conclude, the risks from fracking are high and there are a number of significant questions that the Government need to answer before storming ahead with fracking in the UK. The risks are too high for them to proceed without addressing the big ifs. One thing is certain: if we had this level of political support behind energy efficiency, it would do much more to bring down fuel bills, create jobs right across the UK and reduce dependence on imported gas. However, the Government have overseen a collapse in energy efficiency installations. Instead of smoothing the path for an untested and risky new fossil fuel industry, they should be making energy efficiency an infrastructure priority in the Bill. I would like the Bill not to receive a Second Reading until those concerns had been addressed, but I hope that there will be an opportunity for a real debate on the issues in Committee.