In this Fracking Week in Parliament:

• Bonds for fracking sites
• Fracking and climate change in Scotland

Thanks to TheyWorkForYou.com for the transcripts

UK PARLIAMENT

13 March 2017

Written question on fracking

Question by Tom Elliott, UUP, Fermanagh and South Tyrone

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he plans to establish a contingency bond to cover the costs of environmental clean up in the event of a shale oil or gas company going into administration.

Reply by Jesse Norman, Business Minister, Conservative, Hereford and South Herefordshire

Government has been clear that shale development must be safe and environmentally sound. In the UK, we have been regulating for gas and oil drilling, both onshore and offshore, for over 50 years and have tough regulations in place to ensure on-site safety, prevent water contamination, and mitigate seismic activity and air pollution.

Projects must be approved by the environmental regulator (in Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency) and the Health and Safety Executive. Approval must also be sought from the relevant Mineral Planning Authority (MPA) through the planning system. MPAs are able to set the planning conditions they consider necessary, and some have already chosen to do so for site restoration.

In England, as part of the petroleum licensing process, and prior to awarding a licence, the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) assesses whether a company has adequate financial capacity for its planned operations. The OGA also checks at the drilling and, where relevant, production stage that the company has sufficient funding and appropriate insurance. The licensing of oil and gas development is devolved to Northern Ireland.

BEIS officials are working with the industry’s trade body UK Onshore Oil and Gas to ensure that liabilities for shale wells are addressed in the rare circumstance where all of the companies on a licence became insolvent, and where no rescue mechanism for those companies could be found.

Link to question

SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT

16 March 2017

Debate on draft Climate Change Plan

Extract of speech by Claudia Beamish, Labour, South Scotland

There are synergies between the plan and the energy strategy—there is also my proposed member’s bill to place a ban, for climate change reasons, on onshore fracking. Job opportunities in renewables and energy efficiency, related manufacturing and the circular economy must be underpinned by a just transition for workers and communities.

Extract of speech by Andy Wightman, Green,

As the Oil Change International report said last year, to meet a 2°C or a 1.5°C global warming target, global emissions need to peak now and they need to begin declining immediately. Therefore, and as the Greens have made clear, we need to leave two thirds of hydrocarbons in the ground. That means no more drilling west of Shetland, no more exploration around Rockall, and no more development of existing reserves. Indeed, it means ceasing all fossil fuel development and, above all, it means no fracking.

Link to debate