My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for introducing this statutory instrument today, which I welcome. I have listened very carefully to the contributions made by others, and I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for her expressions of appreciation to the
farming community, which cares very deeply about biodiversity. I should declare an interest as we have a farm in Suffolk, although not where any fracking will be taking place.
Can my noble friend tell us a little more about the urgency of the need to get shale gas into action, bearing in mind the various aspects of gas and oil production that we have been debating over the past year? As noble Lords will know, we had a big debate on setting up the Oil and Gas Authority. At the moment gas seems to be in fair profusion—they are not the words I really want to use but I cannot think of the right ones, so I apologise to noble Lords. I think that we in Committee are all agreed that we need to have a balanced approach to energy production. That is what we are really after and I am grateful to noble Lords for their support in that.
I listened with great care to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, who is rightly very passionate about his concerns on areas of outstanding natural beauty. I also take up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, which I had not picked up, that SSSIs were not included, so I shall be interested to hear what the Minister has to say on that.
In the scenario that I have set out, I wonder if we have slightly more time to review the way in which we use, and explore for, shale gas. I am sure that it is the right thing to be doing, but the gas that has been referred to is not as great as it might have been considered a couple of years ago. That is not to say that I am not in favour of shale gas exploration, because clearly I am. However, I wonder whether the Minister can tell us a little more about the costs involved, or if there are costs that I missed in the impact assessment, because of the decline in the cost of oil and gas, and whether fracking has less of a drive than it perhaps had a little while ago when energy costs were so expensive. I can well understand if the Minister wishes to write to me on that because it might be argued that that is why we are having this debate today. I thought it was important to include it because certainly we need to be looking to the future for a sustainable supply of gas—shale is but one option—and at the same time having a very balanced approach to the biodiversity of the land above the soil and obviously, as noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, to that beneath. I take the point that it is a long way down; it is in fact metres, not feet.
I have raised one or two questions in the broader context and I wonder whether there is slightly less pressure than there was in the circumstance before. It gives us a wonderful opportunity to use the shale gas that is there to be used while at the same time ensuring that we use it in the wisest way and that we have time to review how that development is going. If there are issues on which the Minister does not have briefing, I am more than happy for him to write to me later on.
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