It would not be if it was just a hedge and it was not artificially pushing the cost of gas and other energy supplies up by holding them in reserve. The hon. Gentleman is right: it is a hedge, but it is a very expensive hedge indeed.
There are two reasons for being against fracking, and the debate has been helpful in clarifying some of the facts. One—it is a completely reasonable to make this point on behalf of constituents—is that people worry when they hear that there is to be fracking in their area. It is therefore quite reasonable for them to ask for the good health and safety standards and good environmental standards that apply elsewhere in the country. However, it is not reasonable to push those standards to the point where the fracking does not happen. When the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion talks about the precautionary principle, that is really a way of trying to stop everything. She really should read the Science and Technology Committee report from the previous Session on the precautionary principle, which is often quoted, but it is often used to prevent anything from happening.
Let me give an example. One often has to use the best available evidence to do something, and the reason we are not getting protected areas in the sea at the moment is that the Government are looking for more and more scientific evidence when we should be using the scientific evidence available. If the hon. Lady wants to stop fracking by using the precautionary principle, she is likely to do that, but I think we have to look at the scientific evidence we have and apply high environmental standards.
Finally, I want to put the Government’s energy policy, which is not coherent, in the context of what is happening on emissions worldwide. Much of the Government’s policy is based on reducing emissions, in the belief that that will bring down global warming and slow down or stop climate change. However, the policy is failing, and emissions are going up. With emissions, one has to deal with imported goods, which are often created using industrial processes that create more carbon dioxide than processes here do. If we push up the price of energy here, we will export production to China, India and other places and increase the amount of carbon dioxide. That is a deindustrialisation policy, and I hope that, by exploiting shale gas in a safe and environmentally responsible way, we can start reindustrialising this country and creating the 72,000 jobs or more that it has been predicted will come from exploiting shale gas.
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