Fracking Ban
Debate between Richard Tice and Wera Hobhouse(2Â weeks ago)
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Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
Well, this is a fascinating debate, full of nonsense and misinformation. Let us just set the context of what we are talking about, shall we? It is not actually a debate about fracking. It turns out that it is a debate about gas—shale gas, for example. I urge hon. Members in this House and those watching to just ask themselves why everybody in this country is arguing and distressed and concerned about the price of electricity and energy. Why is it that the price of gas in the United States is a mere 20% of the price of gas here in the United Kingdom? Well, I can tell hon. Members: it is because for the last 20-plus years, yes, the United States has been enjoying the benefits of shale gas, which it has extracted through one method, which is called fracking or hydraulic fracking.
Wera Hobhouse
Would the hon. Member give us some figures or comparisons of how much fracked fuel we can produce in this country compared with the United States?
Richard Tice
I am delighted to assist the hon. Lady, who is clearly not informed whatsoever. We have somewhere between 30 years and 50 years of gas for the whole of the United Kingdom available onshore. In Lincolnshire alone—
Richard Tice
Yes, exactly. It may pay the hon. Member to listen. In Lincolnshire alone, there is some 10 years of shale gas—a decade’s-worth—for the United Kingdom, and that could generate thousands and thousands of jobs.
The context is very simple. In the United States, fracking has been transformational to the US economy. It is the reason that it has much lower gas prices and much lower electricity prices. In Lincolnshire alone, as I was just explaining, the density of shale gas in the Gainsborough trough is believed to be double that of the most productive shale gas in Pennsylvania of the Marcellus shale. The opportunity is enormous.
Even if hon. Members were to disagree with me completely, which I suspect may be the case, a middle ground might be to say, “Before we make a seismic decision, the answer might be to do a proper test, which could be independently monitored, supervised and checked for, let’s say, a year, or two years”—I am a generous man, of course—“and that can then be verified.” We could do that with a number of different wells using a number of different techniques, because there are indeed numerous different extraction techniques depending on the depth to which one goes. Some 11 techniques can be counted, including low-volume hydraulic fracking, high-volume hydraulic fracking, and acidic oscillation—on and on the list goes. Why would we be so dogmatic, so stubborn and, bluntly, so negligent against the financial interests and prosperity of all our citizens that we would refuse to use this glorious energy treasure that has made the United States so wealthy?
The potential is enormous: tens and tens of billions of investment into our community; tens and tens and tens, and tens and tens, more billions of tax revenue potential, with enormous community benefits.
Richard Tice
No, there have been tests into the Gainsborough trough, which is why I made the claim about the density. Then, of course, there is the evidence of successful businesspeople who invested hundreds of millions of pounds because they had done the geological work and realised that there is a huge opportunity, and they are still there. That is the evidence, because when people are prepared to invest sums of money, we know that they have done the research.
I come back to this point. It is gross negligence of the highest order—frankly, probably of a criminal order—to refuse to even try, and to not even say, “Okay Richard, I disagree with you, but let’s have an independent test over a couple of years at a couple of different sites, using a couple of different techniques.” Surely that would be the middle ground, because in the event that those on my side of the debate are correct and those on the other side of the debate are incorrect, we would then have taken advantage of this great opportunity.
Wera Hobhouse
In the spirit of co-operation, even if we did this test, could he explain the damage and disruption that would be caused to communities in the UK if we tried on the scale that the US has done, where there are vast amounts of empty country with no people disrupted by fracking? Can he explain how that compares and how disruptive it would be for our communities in the UK?
Richard Tice
I would be delighted to. The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. There are some 20 million people in the United States who live within 1 mile of fracking pads, shale gas pads or whatever one might wish to call them. I have seen the numerous nodding donkeys—oil drilling wells—in my county of Lincolnshire. You would not know they are there because they are hidden behind trees. Contrary to what some Members have said in the debate, the reality is that once a shale gas well is drilled, you barely know it exists. A well is a couple of metres high and there can be 10 pads on a site that is the size of about two football pitches—behind trees, so no one would even know that they are there.
The misinformation, the false information and the deliberate nonsense being peddled is depriving this great country of the opportunity to reduce our bills. If we carry on as we are, then our bills will be going up and up and up. Indeed, just today, we have heard that the forecast increase in bills for, I think, January will be at least 15%. We should at least have the courage to explore some alternatives.
I need to deal with the whole issue of seismicity—some people call it “earthquakes”—which is a very scary-sounding thing. At the Preston New Road site near Blackpool, there was a limit of just 0.5 on the Richter scale. Now, because the Richter scale is logarithmic, 0.5 is the equivalent of one of the Clerks of the House gently moving their chair backwards and standing up as they leave at the end of the day—that is 0.5. Hon. Members might like to imagine standing up with a melon in their hand, holding it to shoulder height and then dropping it in front of them—that would be about 1.5 on the Richter scale. A bus driving past your house would be in the order of 2.5, which is about the equivalent of the sort of limits applied to construction sites. We need some appropriate context and understanding as to the realities of the situation.
The opportunities here must be worth at least exploring. I fully accept that there are those who have a different view to me on issues around renewables, but we can all agree that diversity can be a wonderful thing—diversity of technologies and sources. Maybe one day—I am 62, Madam Deputy Speaker, so maybe after I am long dead—renewables might be cheaper, but at the moment that is not the evidence. The evidence in the United States is that shale gas is driving bills all the way down.
Climate Change
Debate between Richard Tice and Wera Hobhouse(3Â months ago)
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Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
We should add that water shortages are a real cause of conflict. Many communities will be displaced. Anybody who is worried about migration now should be deeply worried about migration in the future, because people will simply be displaced—
Wera Hobhouse
They will come, and you will shut the borders, but we will have wars over water shortages. We absolutely will. It sounds alarmist, but we can do something about it. We should not put our heads in the sand. Does my hon. Friend agree?