Tim Farron has reacted to the Commons vote which enabled tracking under national parks in England. His constituency has two national parks.
He said:
The Government today relaxed the rules on fracking around and under National Parks and other protected sites. The Government used a parliamentary wheeze to pass the change with no parliamentary debate.
Last week the Government signed up to a landmark climate change deal and is now abandoning those pledges to create a market for another fossil fuel.
Our National Parks and areas of Scientific Interest are now at risk and the Government should hang its head in shame.”
It is disgraceful that the government are ploughing ahead with fracking at the same time as scrapping the Carbon Capture and Storage scheme which is important for mitigating against climate change.
He was on Radio 4’s PM programme this evening. You can listen here at around 8.35 minutes in.
Tim said that in the coalition days, Liberal Democrats prevented fracking taking place under national parks. He said that it was a massive risk to our landscape, heritage and tourism industry. He said it was also hugely damaging in terms of tackling climate change after the government abandoned carbon capture and storage.
He reminded people that the government was disinvesting heavily in green energy at the same time as it signed up to the Paris agreement at the weekend. Green energy, he said, was basically a British industry and tens of thousands of jobs were now under threat as a result of the Government’s policies.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Violent Bonham Carter features on Fake or Fortune?
Have resignations led to a rethink?
High Fell leaflet watch (2)
Two new Makerfield by-election polls gives Burnham 5 and 12 point leads
David
Jana
Peter Martin
18 Comments
Well said, Tim….
Even if environmental science were on the side of fracking, and you d struggle to convince on that , to do so here , fracking in National parks , an outrage. To adapt the great liberal songwriter , Leonard Bernstein s concluding line from the song Officer Krupke , _ Gee Prime Minister , Cameron , frack you !!
The issues raised by TF are of course most valid – such an initiative so soon after the Paris Conference seems almost inconceivable. However, as I have pointed out on a previous thread, the likely conditions attached to TTIP, which will soon be in place, does require as greater investment as possible prior to the agreement coming into force if maximum damages are to be achieved by the corporations involved – should a future UK government want to halt fracking on the UK mainland.
Apart from this – I presume that L/D Lords are examining carefully the conflict of interests with regard to Osborne – highlighted by Wikipedia:
“Conflicts of interest[edit]
There have been a number of concerns raised regarding conflicts of interest between policy makers and financial links to hydraulic fracturing, notably Lord Browne of Cuadrilla – The former BP boss is chairman of Cuadrilla, which is exploring for shale gas in Lancashire and West Sussex. He is lead “non-executive” across Government.[185] Baroness Hogg – The non-executive for the Treasury sits on the board of BG Group, which has significant shale gas assets in the United States. Sam Laidlaw – The non-executive to the Transport Department is also chief executive of British Gas owner Centrica, which recently bought a 25 per cent stake in Cuadrilla’s most promising shale gas prospect. Ben Moxham – A former executive at BP when Lord Browne was at the helm, he followed the peer to Riverstone Holdings, which owns 42 per cent of Cuadrilla. Moxham was energy adviser at No 10 but quit in May (year?). Lord Howell – George Osborne’s father-in-law is also president of the British Institute of Economics, whose backers include BP and BG Group.[186] House of Lord’s Select Committee on Economic Affairs potential conflicts of interest with regards to hydraulic fracturing… “.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing_in_the_United_Kingdom#Conflicts_of_interest
Supporters of fracking cite the USA. Not a good comparison. We are a tiny island. We haven’t got the wide open spaces to soak any problems. Like the coal, let’s leave that gas in the ground.
Already posted this to my conservative MP who unfortunately won last time.
Can you confirm that any fracking in the Cotswolds or other areas of landscape value will not be allowed to use roads through the AONB or national park to ship in chemicals and sand to feed the fracking site on the edge of a protected area. Or will the roads become more busy.
The science of Fracking is very good. Our geology in the UK is much better than that in the USA for this process. The proposal is only to go underneath the national park, not to do anything on the surface. Some people who are anti-. fracking are also pro-nuclear. Madness.
This report from the BBC does raise some interesting questions – firstly, why is the government pressing so hard for fracking to go ahead when clearly there is great opposition for this to be the case and is likely to lead to civil unrest if achieved?
Secondly, if it is accepted that by the time the planning process is complete and all legal challenges overcome – it will be a decade before any gas could be produced on a commercial basis – a time by which the use fossil fuels should have been mostly eliminated.
Thirdly, why go ahead when it is expected that oil will remain at a low price over the next decade and that the cost of extracting shale gas is unlikely to be economically viable as a result.
There is no doubt that George Osborne is the government minister pushing for this development – he has even put aside £5m for a study to investigate ways to make extracting shale gas acceptable to the majority – a cost that should be born by the industry.
It is difficult for we serfs to understand the motives of these aristocrats – but can we assume that GO is completely indifferent to the plans put forward at the Paris climate conference – and he envisages this fuel being used for many years ahead saving the Exchequer tidy sums – so that the UK’s mojo can be working even better with a capability to bomb ever more targets?
Sorry missed out the link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34290896
From the Guardian…….”Conservative government dramatically cuts financial aid to household roof panels just days after signing low carbon energy deal at Paris climate talks”..
That speaks for itself
@expats
One of thousands of small ways the Tories will slip through nasty stuff, and then publicly claim that they are as nice and green and compassionate as they have always claimed they are. Big stuff like tax credits will get publicity, but the small stuff will slip through with barely a mention – except in left-leaning publications.
GK, I know…That is why LDV is missing the boat….Such things should be ‘shouted from the rooftops’…..
I am pleased to see that we have a sensible view on at least one domestic environmental issue, but I find myself in the somewhat embarrassing position of having to attack my own party on another. I’m talking about a petition doing the rounds aimed at banning the use of lead ammunition in game shooting. The key facts are these.
A 10 year ban on the use of lead ammunition on wetlands is being systematically ignored resulting in the deaths of an estimated 100,000 birds a year from lead poisoning. Birds eat discarded lead shot mistaking it for grit. 1 in 4 migrating swans seen at post-mortem have died from lead poisoning.
5,000 tons of lead per year are sprayed over the British countryside contributing to lead-based ammunition being the most significant unregulated source of lead deliberately emitted into the environment in the EU.
Game products sold for public consumption contain levels of lead in far higher concentrations than would be permitted in farmed meat. Young children in rural areas are at particular risk of developmental damage. The Food Standards Agency has issued tepid advice on the dangers of eating game meat shot with lead ammunition, but there is no requirement to use ‘may contain lead’ labels on game meat products.
This issue has become a party political with Tory MPs supporting the continued use of lead amunition and Labour led by Alex Cunningham MP, the shadow environment secratary, supporting a ban. We Lib Dems are depressingly silent on the issue. The campaign is supported by the RSPB and WWT.
Any members wishing to support that campaign can do so by signing the petition at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/111533
So we can now have fracking in the Lake District. Re Peter Hayes’ comment. Many of the roads going through our national parks are not designed to have an increase of heavy traffic. And at the moment we have 118 bridges which have been pronounced as being structurally unsound as a result of the floods. Many of the bridges in the national parks are centuries old thus adding to the charm and history of the park. So I can only endorse the concerns of PH and ask for an assurance that heavy traffic will be kept to a minimum.
Tony Dawson “Our geology in the UK is much better than that in the USA for this process.”
Apparently British Geological Survey do think that, but most experts disagree. Many think fracking is over-hyped and over-sold. Gullible politicians like Osborne, who are desperate to win an economic triumph by going out and buying a bridge from a street huckster, are an obvious target for the frackers.
http://theconversation.com/as-us-shale-industry-falters-a-uk-fracking-boom-is-unlikely-17791
Fracking may be good, or bad.
But why is fracking in National Parks uniquely bad?
Did I mishear on the radio this morning? I thought that the only licences being issued were for testing, not fracking.
@David Allen
“Apparently British Geological Survey do think that, but most experts disagree.”
That seems a strange comment, are you suggesting that the BGS are not experts? Who are the other experts?
What is so disappointing is that our government for the next four and a half years [and likely longer] seems so devoid of ambition with regard to climate change and the ending of burning fossil fuels. Prior to the Paris Conference David Attenborough suggested that the next ten years should be viewed as a challenge to the scientific community to come up with some form of renewable energy so that the climate change/global warming issue can be put to bed and the human race move on to the next stage in its development – this cannot happen whilst the threat of warming is ever present.
The Germans do seem if they are getting close with cold fusion:
http://www.iflscience.com/technology/germany-just-successfully-fired-their-nuclear-fusion-reactor
However, for an island, some form of marine power is the obvious solution – and it seems impossible to believe that heavy state investment in such research is the obvious step [as it was decades ago] I find it nigh impossible to believe that given the extraordinary achievements in space exploration – that one of the existing systems could not be made to work if sufficient investment were made.
I am afraid the only realistic conclusion that can be drawn is that vested interest blocks such developments. I understand that there has been a series of ‘break through’ technologies in this field where the oil industry has bought out the patents to prevent their further development. It is difficult not to conclude that these global monsters have no intention of devaluing their investments whilst they have the power to do so.
Chris_sh, if you bothered to click my link you would find references to other experts, for example Chatham House. No, I am not suggesting the BGS are not experts. You however are suggesting that my post lacks references, on the basis of your own inability to find and read them. Not very nice behaviour.