Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 23 November 2017 to Question 113658, if he will make it his policy not to grant hydraulic fracturing consent for Third Energy’s wellsite in Ryedale, North Yorkshire, without having received a certificate from the Health and Safety Executive that all of the requirements in condition 2 of section 4A of the Petroleum Act 1998 have been met.

Where an application for hydraulic fracturing consent is made, the Department requires that appropriate arrangements have been made for the independent inspection of the integrity of the relevant well as set out in condition 2 of section 4A of the Petroleum Act 1998.

In situations where hydraulic fracturing operations commence, the Health and Safety Executive will scrutinise the weekly operations reports produced by the well-operator in accordance with Regulation 19 of the Offshore Installations and Wells (Design and Construction, etc) Regulations 1996, to ensure that the health and safety risks are managed appropriately.

On Wednesday 29 November, my Rt Hon Friend the Secretary of State issued a Direction to the Oil and Gas Authority which will impact on the existing application submitted by Third Energy and certain other applications by operators seeking to carry out hydraulic fracturing in future. I would refer the hon Member to the Written Ministerial Statement that accompanies that direction which provides further details. This can be seen here.