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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what submissions his Department has received from (a) members of the public and (b) civil society groups on concerns over the maintenance of tremor limits in fracking regulations.

The Department routinely receives correspondence from members of the public and civil society groups in relation to the regulatory regime for shale gas extraction, including the traffic light system.

The Traffic Light System for monitoring induced seismicity was introduced after consideration of advice from scientists, following operations at Cuadrilla’s Preese Hall site in 2011. The level of magnitude 0.5 at which operators must pause operations, was set in consultation with industry as an appropriate precautionary measure. These regulations have been working as intended and there are no plans to review the traffic light system.