Shale Gas Production Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Wera Hobhouse
Main Page: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)Department Debates - View all Wera Hobhouse's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(2 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend has represented Blackpool incredibly ably for the past 12 years and knows his community well. He makes, again, a strong point about the importance of community consent. He also makes the point about the speedy implementation of alternative, cheaper and cleaner forms of energy. That is why we announced, just a couple of weeks ago, a contracts for difference renewables auction on an annual basis to do precisely that.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Renewables are the cheapest form of energy. It is a well-established industry; fracking is not. Reading the room, I think it is very clear that that is understood here, so why do the Government not ban fracking altogether? The Government have already made new commitments to renewables, but is not now the time, given this new challenge—there is a new challenge; we might not call it a crisis—to double and treble on the plans that are already in the pipeline and make and plan for even more renewables than the Government are currently doing?
Greg Hands
The hon. Member calls on us to double or treble renewables. That is not good enough. We are going for the quadrupling—the quadrupling—of our offshore wind capacity in this decade. It is already the largest in Europe. We are not just doubling or tripling —we are quadrupling that capacity.