 The next item of business is a statement by Fergus Ewing on unconventional oil and gas. The minister will take questions at the end of his statements, and there should therefore not be any intervention or interruptions. Come, Fergus Ewing, Minister, 10 minutes. Presiding Officer, the Scottish Government has long been concerned about the approach of the UK Government to the licensing of unconventional oil and gas in Scotland. The Smith commission process and given the licensing powers are coming to Scotland, something that I campaign for and that I welcome, it makes no sense for the UK government to exercise them in Scotland. The Scottish government's policy has been cautious, considered and evidence based. The UK's approach has sought to develop shale gas quickly at any cost. In particular, the Conservative plan to remove landowners' rights to object to fracking under their property is a disgrace. I formally objected to the UK Government plans and I was pleased that the UK will not now remove householders' rights in Scotland. Given the precedent of not acting on a policy area about to be devolved, the UK government should now do the same with onshore licensing and should not issue any further licences. I wrote to Energy Secretary Ed Davie last Friday to make this point. This was also why SNP MPs backed the amendment in the Commons, which called for a UK-wide moratorium on onshore oil and gas. The Scottish Government takes the issue of unconventional oil and gas, including fracking, very seriously. There are a range of views on the issue, and we have tried to listen to all of them as we have developed our policy. We have listened carefully to concerns raised by local communities and environmental campaigners, and we have strengthened planning policy in five key ways, including by the introduction of buffer zones for the first time. However, we need to do more. We recognise that local communities are likely to bear the brunt of any unconventional oil and gas developments, particularly in terms of increased traffic and related emissions and noise impacts. Those are issues that must be more carefully considered and be the subject of further research. We are therefore working to further strengthen planning guidance, and my colleague Alex Neil, as Minister responsible for planning, is taking this forward. We have ensured that strong environmental regulation is in place via the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, and we have made it clear that we wish to tighten it further. Working with my colleague the Minister for the Environment, Dr McLeod, work to take that forward will begin shortly. Last summer, when the independent expert scientific panel published the report, we said that we would look further at the public health aspects of unconventional oil and gas. I can therefore confirm today that we plan to commission a full public health impact assessment. We have listened to legitimate concerns about potential negative impacts, however we must also acknowledge that some take a different view and see opportunities in unconventional oil and gas extraction. The oil and gas industry in particular has a potential interest in this area for a number of reasons, as do the chemical industry. INEOS has indicated that it can use shale gas as both a fuel and a petrochemical feedstock for Grain's Mouth, and I am sure that I do not need to remind members of the economic importance of Grain's Mouth to the Scottish economy. Of course, while much of the debate on oil and gas taxation has been about revenues from our offshore oil fields, onshore extraction could lead to additional public revenues. There is also an international dimension to unconventionals, and we should have due regard to the experience and practice of other countries. If there are lessons to be learned, we must understand what those are and implement them here. We will seek to do that as part of our evidence-gathering activities. I want to ensure that the voices of the communities likely to be most affected are heard and are heard in a more formal and structured way. I am therefore announcing today that, in addition to the technical work that I have referred to on planning, environmental regulation and on assessing the impact of public health, Scottish ministers will also launch a full public consultation on unconventional oil and gas extraction. That will allow everyone, with a view on the issue, to feed it into government, a logical next step in the cautious and evidence-based approach that we have demonstrated to date and an example of this Government's commitment to community engagement. It also means that the longer-terms decisions on unconventional oil and gas will be informed not just by technical assessments but also by a fuller understanding of public opinion. I have set out this Government's cautious, evidence-based approach to date and the work that we will do to build on and further inform that approach. The further work that I have announced today on planning, environmental regulation, health impact assessment and a full consultation process will take time to complete. We will update Parliament on the timescales for that work in due course. Given the importance of this work, it would be inappropriate to allow any planning consent in the meantime. I am therefore announcing today a moratorium on the granting of planning consent for all unconventional oil and gas oil, including cracking. This moratorium will continue until such time as the work that I have referred to today has been completed. I will keep Parliament advised of the progress of that work. A direction will be sent to all Scottish planning authorities today to give effect to that policy. In order to ensure consistency in the regulatory regimes, the Environment Minister, Dr McCloud, will issue a similar direction to SIPA for relevant new controlled activity regulation licences. This Scottish Government has taken a responsible, cautious and evidence-based approach to unconventional oil and gas extraction. My statement today sends the strongest possible message that we will continue to do so. When we assume responsibility for onshore licensing of unconventional oil and gas, rest assured that my colleague Mr Neil and I will deliver a robust, consistent and complementary licensing and planning system that will be developed through the evidence from our consultation and further research that is announced today. We should never close our minds to the potential opportunities of new technologies, but we must also ensure that community, environmental and health concerns are never simply brushed aside. This Government will not allow that to happen, and I hope that the actions that I have announced today will be widely welcomed as proportionate and responsible. The minister will now take questions on issues raised in his statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions after which we move to next item of business. It would be helpful, members, who wish to ask a question where to press a request to speak, but now and I call Lewis MacDonald. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Nobody who knows him will be surprised that Mr Ewing used the word cautious four times in his short statement today. I thank him for an advanced copy of his statement, but the most important words he used today were that we need to do more. Indeed, the Scottish Government needs to do much more if it is to meet public concern about this issue. Labour has pressed for early devolution of licensing powers following the Smith agreement. Order. Order. The response of some of those behind the minister is very revealing indeed and shows how selective they are in the way in which they have followed the issue. We have pressed for that early devolution of licensing powers, but the key issue is how ministers use the planning and environmental consenting powers that they already have. I want to ask the minister today, in spite of his instinct for caution, if he will add some more to what he has to say about those issues this afternoon. Labour, at Westminster, added 13 specific conditions. Members should be as well to listen to this so that they can be a little better informed in dealing with the issues that are raised. Labour has added 13 specific conditions to the infrastructure bill, which must be met before consent can be given to fracking, 10 of which are in devolved areas. Will the Scottish Government now endorse those 13 conditions so that the consensus regime in Scotland will be at least as tough as that in the rest of the United Kingdom? Will the minister today match Scottish Labour's commitment that Scotland will not be first to frack in the UK until lessons have been learned from elsewhere? Will the Scottish Government now agree that no fracking project can proceed without the support of a local community that is expressed in our local referendum? It is the hope of the Scottish Government that we can build the widest consensus and coalition behind the measures that we have announced today. The measures that we have announced today, I believe, are characterised as Lewis MacDonald has recognised on a cautious approach on which the evidence is the central foundation of the decisions that should be taken. I believe, as a lawyer and as an MSP, that that profoundly is the correct approach. Today we have announced that there is now a moratorium in Scotland on unconventional oil and gas extraction. That moratorium will prevent any grant of planning permission until such time as we have completed the work that I have announced today. It is therefore not necessary to hold local referenda on those issues, because no planning permission will be granted whilst the moratorium is in place. Where? Let me say this gently to Mr MacDonald, who is colleagues in Westminster, on one hand say that they wish to stop fracking, but on the other hand, when they have an opportunity to vote to halt fracking, abstain or just do not turn up, that is a very funny way to show their approach. It may be as the former Labour leader in Scotland said that Scottish Labour is a branch office, but under new management it appears that nothing very much has changed. If I could point out, so far as a local referenda is concerned, that the track record on the Labour Party in holding local referenda is not suspicious, because when they held a referenda in Aberdeen on the union terrace proposals, the people said yes, but Labour said no. I thank the minister for the advance copy of his statement, but it looks like his need did not be outflanked by Labour on this issue, which means that he has suffered a humiliating defeat in his war with Joan McAlpine. It must be a source of regret that so much of this debate is characterised by political posturing rather than being evidence-led and science-based, and that the Scottish Government would rather play politics than take decisions in the best interests of the Scottish economy. Yesterday, Tom Crotty from Ineos said that if Scotland does not embrace shale gas, we could see a collapse in manufacturing. It was little more than a year ago that every major party in this Parliament came together to help to secure the future of the Ineos Grangemount plant with the thousands of jobs that rely on it. Now, the Scottish Government has taken a decision to cut off any domestic supply of shale gas to Grangemount, which Ineos says would help to secure jobs for the future. Instead, it will have to continue to import shale gas from the USA. Is it really the Scottish Government's position that fracking is fine, as long as it happens in Pennsylvania, but not in our back yard? It is our position that, in Scotland, we should look at the evidence pertaining to Scotland. That evidence does not exist. That was the conclusion of our independent panel last year, which said that there were considerable gaps as to our knowledge in relation to hydraulic fracturing in Scotland. Let me say, Presiding Officer, and repeat—as I referred to in my original statement—that we engage closely with Ineos, and we meet with him regularly. We want, in the consultation that I have announced today, to hear everyone's views, as I made absolutely clear. That would include the views of Ineos and, of course, the chemical sector, as it includes views of individuals and communities throughout the country. I do think that Murdo will really overstate and exaggerates his case. Mr Crotty made it clear in the newspapers yesterday that the supply of gas that they require to continue their operation is a contract that has been secured for 13 years. We welcomed that. Not only did we welcome that, but Mr Swinney and the former First Minister were fully involved in supporting and helping to facilitate those arrangements. However, if I could turn to the approach that his colleagues in England are taking, I first characterised that approach as Gung Ho. His approach is to carry out fracking any time, any place, any where. It seems to me, Presiding Officer, that one inevitable consequence as we have seen where planning applications have been put down south in England is inevitable conflict and confrontation, leading, I suspect, to challenges in the port. I suggest that the Conservatives, in conclusion, revert to the approach that they advocated in their policy document of January 2013, which was to take an evidence-based approach on those matters. I have many members who wish to ask a question. Can I ask for the questions and the answers to be as brief as possible? I might just get to the end of the list. Angus MacDonald will fall by Liam McArthur. The minister will be aware of my significant constituency interest. Therefore, can he tell me how today's statement affects the live planning application for unconventional gas extraction in airs in my constituency? In addition, I warmly welcome the moratorium, including the commitment to conduct a full public health impact assessment and a full public consultation on UG extraction. Can the minister, given assurance that evidence will be gathered from experiences in other parts of the globe, not just in the UK? Yes, I recognise that Angus MacDonald has consistently in long campaign for his constituents on these matters. I pay tribute to his industry and also the way he has pursued these issues. Therefore, his representations helped to form part of the process that persuaded us that we do need to consider the public health impacts. I am happy to confirm that today. As far as the impacts on existing planning applications, the moratorium cannot apply retroactively to those applications that have already been granted, but it will be, obviously, applicable with immediate effect. The chief planner of Scotland and my colleague Mr Neil, of course, are taking that forward. I thank the minister for his van sight of his statement. It has been fascinating to watch Labour and the SNP try to outdo each other in signing scepticals about fracking, which they both support. To be clear, is Mr Ewing saying that, after all the consultations, assessments and impact studies have been completed, will he, as energy minister, be ruling out signing any contract for fracking in Scotland? Well, the whole point of obtaining evidence, as I have announced today in a whole series of fronts and a variety of issues, which are of genuine concerners—I think that Mr MacArthur would acknowledge, certainly some of his colleagues do—is to consider the evidence once we have it, not to prejudge the evidence before we have obtained it or sought it. Plainly, we will not prejudge the outcome of the process that we have set out today. I hope, however, that the plea that I made to Ed David, his colleague recently, that no further licences should be issued in Scotland following the principle that Amber Rudd set out by disapplying from Scotland the proposal that the Liberals and Conservatives put forward to confiscate rights of householders to object to activities under their households. Now that that precedent has been set, surely Liam MacArthur and the Scottish Liberals will say that no further licences should be granted by their colleagues who are in coalition government with the Conservatives. I very much hope that they will speak out on that issue. Does the minister agree with Friends of the Earth, Scotland head of campaigns, Mary Church, who said, that it was a surprise that Scottish Labour MPs mostly abstained in the vote on a UK-wide moratorium on fracking in a vote in Westminster on Monday, given the party's new commitment over the weekend? Does the minister agree with me that this exposed very clearly Labour's posturing on fracking to be nothing more than a disgraceful, shameless sham? That did not relate to the items in your statement, Jackie Baillie. Let me give the minister another chance to provide clarity on the Government's position. Can I ask the minister for a yes-no response to two elements of Labour's triple-lock system? Does the minister agree that there will be no fracking in Scotland until we learn lessons from the rest of the United Kingdom? I did not hear an answer to that when Lewis MacDonald asked the question. Secondly, by his own statement, the moratorium is not indefinite. Will he agree to local referenda when applications are submitted, or is he denying communities a voice on issues affecting their areas? I have announced today that there will be a moratorium on granting planning permission for the extraction of unconventional on-gas. That means—let me put this absolutely clearly—that no planning permission will be granted for that activity. The Scottish Government position is therefore totally clear. A moratorium applies and there will be no planning permission granted. I am not quite sure what part of that is unclear, but let me turn to Jackie Baillie's second part of her question about the points that she has raised, including local referenda. Local referenda, according to the initial advice that we have had, would be complex, costly and difficult to ascertain the electorate by the nature of fracking activity, where fracking applies beneath the ground in an extended fashion, and therefore it would be impossible to ascertain the electorate. Therefore, it is not a process that is sensible or, indeed, part of planning law at the moment. However, because we have announced today, Presiding Officer, a moratorium, the questions that Jackie Baillie raised do not arise. In conclusion, it seems that the Labour position is not so much a triple lock as a total joke. I warmly welcome the statement, in particular its delivery of a moratorium. Can I ask the minister to set out what steps the Government will take to ensure that the consultation process is as far-reaching as possible so that the voices of the people of Scotland are heard on the issue of unconventional oil and gas extraction? I can all agree in this chamber that it is right that decisions about these matters are taken in Scotland, and we have the opportunity. We opened 216 to take decisions, armed not solely with some of the relevant levers such as planning and environmental regulation, but also licensing, which, of course, is the key lever, and that is why it is so important. Therefore, it is absolutely right, as Mr Day suggests, that we should have a wide consultation of the people of Scotland, because the people of Scotland who we represent are entitled to and should have the opportunity in participating in a debate about a proposal of a technology that, although not new in any sense, will be newly applied in Scotland. Mr Day is absolutely right that we intend to announce the consultation in around about two months. It will last for 12 weeks, the standard period, and I very much look forward to engaging with all the people of Scotland in this debate. Will the minister confirm that he will consider the implications of fracking and cold bed methane in relation to climate change? In particular, will he address the issues of fugitive emissions and the research that is now out there, given that the Scottish Government has failed to meet its own climate targets in the first three years? Yes, I can confirm that that, of course, is one of the relevant issues which myself and Dr McLeod will consider carefully in the course of the evidence-gathering exercise that I have set out today. Will he call for you to follow by Cleelah Behanie? Thank you. Can the minister clarify that the granting of further licences by the UK Government cannot circumvent Scotland's planning system where those applications will be determined? That is the purpose of the moratorium. The moratorium is to use the powers that we have in order to ensure that we can obtain the necessary evidence and have the consultation that I have set out. However, in response to Mr Coffey's question, I would point out—and it is a matter of fact—that planning decisions can be challenged through the courts. They are subject to challenge by judicial review in other ways. The only means that Scotland can take full power, control and decision making and represent the people of Scotland on this matter is by restoration to Scotland of all powers on these matters, including not just planning but licensing as well. Can the minister explain where the Scottish Government moratorium leaves communities such as Cannanby in my region, where permission for cold bed, methane extraction has already been granted? Will the minister agree with me that, however robust any future guidelines were to be if racking was to go ahead, the skills capacity does not exist to assess applications or monitor developments? It is a perfectly valid question, one to which we have given considerable thought. That is why, as I have indicated earlier, Dr McLeod has issued a direction today to SEPA, the Environment Protection Agency in Scotland, to issue a direction to SEPA that no car licence will be issued in respect of any unconventional gas application pending the moratorium. That action has been taken with ministers, myself, Mr Neil and Dr McLeod working together. Of course, the answer is again, if we had full powers in Scotland over all of these matters, if we would power over the licensing, the ability to grant the right to carry out mineral extraction in the first place, then we would be far better able to control those matters in Scotland instead of those matters being in the hands of a Conservative Liberal Government in London. Rob Gibson, by Alison Johnstone. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can the minister deal with the question of international evidence gathering that needs to be carried out on public health and on methane emissions in a way that separates the worrying facts surrounding unconventional oil and gas extraction from the fixings that are out there about fossil fuel use being acceptable in this day and age? Of course, that is a matter that, as I have already stated, will be the subject of consideration in our evidence-based approach. The member knows that, of course, we are in the transition to a low-carbon economy and we have made great strides forward both in generating green electricity and also in reducing emissions. However, there is more work to do and, therefore, in the course of the evidence-gathering that I have described, we will consider those matters with extreme care. Alison Johnstone, by Clare Baker. Thank you. The Scottish Green Party is pleased that the Scottish Government has finally agreed with our long-standing call for clear opposition to unconventional gas extraction, and the huge public support that we have had for our principle stance has undoubtedly played an important part in today's announcement. However, of course, a moratorium is only— A really good question, Mr Johnstone. It is only a delay or a suspension. Is the minister aware that, if he keeps the storage r, public opposition will continue to grow and greens will continue to engage with those communities across Scotland who want an outright ban now? I hope that, as I said at the outset, we can see a broad consensus emerge that the proposals that I have announced today on behalf of the Scottish Government are a sound, sensible, cautious approach, in which we have a national debate that is characterised by examining the evidence and looking at it with extreme care. Precisely because we do not have, as the member knows, all the relevant evidence relating to Scotland in a whole variety of ways, I believe that that debate should be better informed by the process that I have set out today. Meantime, the moratorium will apply until the process of evidence gathering and consultation has been concluded. I think that that is the right approach, and not to prejudge the outcome of that is also the correct approach. However, of course, everyone in this chamber is perfectly entitled to continue to campaign and make their views known, and I am perfectly sure that that is exactly what they will do. The minister is well aware of my concerns around the UCG proposals for Fife. Will the minister's announcement today on a moratorium apply to the UCG proposals for the first of fourths? The powers that we possess apply to onshore planning activities, as the member will know, they do not apply to offshore activities such as that that I believe would be covered by UCG. Therefore, we would urge the potential developers, in the meantime, to engage closely with the local communities on those matters and also to acknowledge that the highest possible standards in respect of environmental regulation must be pursued. Of course, were we to be in possession of powers in relation to offshore licensing as well, then, as Clare Baker may wish me to do, we could have been in an opposition to make further progress, but sadly, as yet, we are not. In the interests of complete clarity about the Scottish Government's position, is the minister saying that any landowner in Scotland would be in a position to prevent fracking under his property? The applications are considered in accordance with the planning process. Today, I have announced that a moratorium applies in Scotland, and applications will therefore not be granted pending the outcome of the process that I have described. I think that it is widely shared in Scotland that, when on 28 July, Matt Hancock announced that rights to object to activities underneath people's houses would be withdrawn without any consultation of the Scottish Government, far less the Scottish people. We thought that was entirely wrong, and I think that most people in Scotland, Presiding Officer, agree with us. My apologies to Richard Simpson. I'm afraid I need to move on. The next item of business is a debate on motion number 12160, in the name of Kezia Dugdale.