Shale Gas Extraction 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
Shale Gas Extraction
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Mr Rees-Mogg
The thing we are lacking at the moment, most acutely, is affordable gas. Gas is the fuel that provides electricity at the margins, so when the wind is not blowing and demand is high, it is gas that provides the marginal unit of electricity. Gas is therefore fundamentally important to our energy security.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The present Chancellor said only a few months ago that “No amount of shale gas” extracted across rural England would lower energy prices, and indeed, that private companies would not sell their shale gas to UK customers at a cost lower than the market price. Ruining our countryside—in Sussex, East Surrey and around Bath—is not the answer. Why in his first week in office has the Secretary of the State ended the moratorium on fracking but not lifted the de facto moratorium on onshore wind?
Mr Rees-Mogg
We need to get as much energy as possible. Fracking does not ruin the countryside; fracking sites are actually surprisingly small for what they do. We have been expanding offshore wind dramatically—that has been a very big component—and we are continuing with increasing renewables, but we still need the base supply that can be brought on when there is a surge in demand, and that is dependent on gas.