I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing the debate.
I first want to dismiss the poor arguments produced this afternoon and previously on the merits of shale gas extraction: we should not have the slightest interest in where executives of oil and gas companies went to school; the possibility of a company making a profit in a market economy is not a serious argument or a reason
to dismiss its proposals; and nor is it of any interest or significance that a businessman might at some point have met a Minister to discuss shale gas—heaven forfend! In the end, the Government have to make a judgment on the basis of the national interest, and that judgment must be approved by the House of Commons. We therefore have to consider the arguments sensibly and seriously, not merely chucking mud or rocks in the belief that that will somehow strengthen the argument. In actual fact, it will not; it will undermine it.
Secondly, I want to talk about my interests, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) did. I have a constituency interest, because the Sussex Weald basin, which covers a large part of my constituency, has been identified as an area that might contain significant reserves of exploitable shale gas. At the moment, we do not know the extent of any possible drilling or how exploitable any reserves might be. Test drilling is about to begin, subject to planning permissions being obtained.
I want to engage in the argument about what the national interest is. It cannot solely consist of the contention that shale gas might lead to cheaper energy and economic benefit, powerful though that argument might be—in any case, we have heard that it is debatable. There are of course other arguments about whether the form of energy generated is sustainable or the kind of clean energy that we should be investing in for the long term. For now, I set aside that important economic argument.
There are other national interests, one of which is our landscape. To pick up on a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw), some of the areas in which the drilling would have to take place in Sussex are in the national park. National parks are areas with the highest landscape designation, and they are designated as such precisely because the landscape is treated like no other, so there should be a strong presumption against any kind of economic activity that may damage them. That does not mean that no activity can ever take place in a national park, or even that that should be the case, but it does mean that we have to make judgments carefully, recognising the national interest in protecting such areas, not only the local interest or vested local interest. That has to be considered. We must be able to balance the national interest properly.
What has struck me about the debate this afternoon is that we do not yet really know what the effect in each of our constituencies will be. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) suggested that there might be about 164 wells per constituency. I do not know whether that figure is right or wrong, but I do know that my constituents are completely bemused about the possible impact on their areas and the landscape in an entirely rural setting, which is tranquil and quiet and where the countryside is especially valued. Further concerns involve the supply of water in a stressed area and the impact on groundwater. It must be right that should any activity take place, it is conducted according to the highest environmental standards.
The kernel of my argument, however, is the importance of a system that properly balances the arguments both nationally, so that we take a careful view of the national interest and where we should do anything, and locally, so that we preserve the integrity of the local planning system. We must be able to judge locally where activity
might be particularly damaging to the local area because of a high landscape designation or the impact on the local environment. The process should be gone through transparently, so that communities have a sense that their concerns are being properly weighed and balanced.