Fracking for Normal People.

People may have been reading over the past few days about something called the Infrastructure Bill - it just had its third reading in the House of Commons yesterday (26th January.) Consequently, there is a lot of commentary going on about who voted for what. It was made more complicated because there were two votes last night.

Licences to frack are covered by the Petroleum Act 1998, I don't want to go into the details of fracking or whether its good or bad except perhaps to posit the notion; if you don't know about something its probably best left alone until you do. Currently, powers over licencing sit with the Department of Energy and Climate Change - this is a Westminster Government department so has nothing to do with Holyrood.

So what happened last night with this Infrastructure Bill? First of all, what is it. This isn't as easy to ascertain as you might think, I mean, fracking is quite important - since we don't know for sure what the ramifications are (although some accounts involve flaming taps and earthquakes) you'd think they'd make it a bit clearer.

Here's the preamble from the bill:

Make provision for strategic highways companies and the funding of transport services by land; to make provision for the control of invasive non-native species; to make provision about nationally significant infrastructure projects; to make provision about town and country planning; to make provision about the Homes and Communities Agency and Mayoral development corporations; to make provision about the Greater London Authority so far as it exercises functions for the purposes of housing and regeneration; to make provision about Her Majesty’s Land Registry and local land charges; to make provision to enable building regulations to provide for off-site carbon abatement measures; to make provision for giving members of communities the right to buy stakes in local renewable electricity generation facilities; to make provision about maximising economic recovery of petroleum in the United Kingdom; to provide for a levy to be charged on holders of certain energy licences; to enable Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to exercise functions in connection with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative; to make provision for underground access to deep-level land for the purposes of exploiting petroleum or deep geothermal energy; to make provision about renewable heat incentives; to make provision about the reimbursement of persons who have paid for electricity connections; to make provision to enable the Public Works Loan Commissioners to be abolished; to make provision about the electronic communications code; and for connected purposes.

This is the bit about fracking:

Make provision for strategic highways companies and the funding of transport services by land; to make provision for the control of invasive non-native species; to make provision about nationally significant infrastructure projects; to make provision about town and country planning; to make provision about the Homes and Communities Agency and Mayoral development corporations; to make provision about the Greater London Authority so far as it exercises functions for the purposes of housing and regeneration; to make provision about Her Majesty’s Land Registry and local land charges; to make provision to enable building regulations to provide for off-site carbon abatement measures; to make provision for giving members of communities the right to buy stakes in local renewable electricity generation facilities; to make provision about maximising economic recovery of petroleum in the United Kingdom; to provide for a levy to be charged on holders of certain energy licences; to enable Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to exercise functions in connection with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative; to make provision for underground access to deep-level land for the purposes of exploiting petroleum or deep geothermal energy; to make provision about renewable heat incentives; to make provision about the reimbursement of persons who have paid for electricity connections; to make provision to enable the Public Works Loan Commissioners to be abolished; to make provision about the electronic communications code; and for connected purposes. 

I'm still not sure about the 'Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative' - I'm just assuming its to do with fracking. In its entirety, the bill goes on for some 109 pages but last night's activity in the House of Commons consisted of a debate then two votes.

One was to do with devolving licences to frack to the Scottish Parliament, the other concerned a (Lib Dem proposed) moratorium on fracking across the entire UK. (Point to note, Northern Ireland already has the power to licence onshore petroleum recovery, including fracking. Off shore exploration/extraction still sits at Westminster.)

The upshot was put most succinctly in this morning's edition of The National:

So much of what goes on by politicians is calculated, while we can't say if Labour's attempts to devolve licencing around fracking to the Scottish Government was calculated to fail, given their very public opposition to just about any powers (actual powers, not responsibilities) being devolved to the Scottish Government - you'd be forgiven for being suspicious.

To be clear, Labour MP's like Curran & Nash voted for licencing being devolved, the problem is, they abstained from voting on a moratorium on fracking across the UK. What can one read in to that? Labour themselves are frozen by indecision but don't mind passing the buck onto others. They are the political equivalent of the classroom clype - worse than that, they'll happily line up others to carry the can while they hide in the sandpit.

To carry the analogy further, its a game of pass the parcel with the prize being a turd wrapped in several layers of very bad newspaper coverage. Ineos who own the Grangemouth refinery are currently importing Shale Gas (which is what you get from fracking) from Pennsylvania - this costs money and they (oddly) argue it adds to the carbon footprint of the process. They want to secure domestic supplies of Shale Gas which means fracking around the central belt, Fife, the Lothians - you've seen the map...

Ineos (and others) have already been awarded licences to frack in the central belt, last night's vote would have suspended the award of further licences.

Currently, the Scottish Government has no powers over licensing but could block Hydraulic Fracturing through the planning process. That puts them in an invidious position: on the one hand they'll have the anti-fracking pressure groups with their concerns and on the other Ineos and all those jobs. As we know, when it comes to jobs, Ineos play very hard indeed.

Labour on the other hand are free and clear - or they seem to think so. Their duty has been discharged, they wanted (to be seen wanting) licencing devolved but their motion was defeated. We shouldn't forget though, they abstained from voting on a moratorium across the UK which arguably would've achieved the same thing.

While all this was going on, the Scottish Labour Leader - who will 'not allow Scotland to be a Guinea Pig' for fracking' - was engaged in serious business north of the border.

Jim Murphy: "Have you seen my football?".