UK Parliament / Open data

Energy Bill [Lords]

Proceeding contribution from James Cartlidge (Conservative) in the House of Commons on Monday, 18 January 2016. It occurred during Debate on bills on Energy Bill [Lords].

I did not say that it did not; I was talking about Lancashire, which obviously has an extremely important fracking issue at the moment.

My position is that fracking is clearly incredibly controversial. The point is that, because of some of the stuff coming out in the media—warnings of terrible things that could happen—I do not see how a district council in that climate would ever approve a fracking application, and yet that industry potential offers so much. We at least have to give it a go. Indeed, shale production could create up to 74,000 jobs, many in areas of high unemployment. It has to be said that it is easier for the MP for South Suffolk to support it—east Anglia apparently has no shale deposits—but we have to recognise the different context. Renewables is a developed industry and shale has not got going. We have exploratory drilling but no commercial drilling. We at least need to give it a chance to get commercial drilling going to see what impact it has in reality, so that we can get away from some of the hysteria and examine the potential. It could be a vital economic resource for this country.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

604 c1204 

Session

2015-16

Chamber / Committee

House of Commons chamber
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