My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing these amendments. The extent to which operations across the UK can conduct flaring or venting is important, and it is clearly right that there should be an ability to issue a financial penalty if there is a failure to comply. Therefore, many of the provisions introduced here appear to make sense.
I have one question. Venting and flaring would require careful correspondence with the environmental aspects of the regulation of the North Sea, in particular, and indeed of onshore oil and gas operations. Has the Environment Agency been involved in and consulted on these amendments? How would the proposed arrangements work in relation to the requirement to include the venting and flaring of gases under the European Emissions Trading Scheme, which is administered by the Environment Agency?