Claire Young MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Sept 2026 · Fracking Ban · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the potential merits of a full ban on fracking. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for selecting this debate and giving me the opportunity to lead it. In December 2025, the Minister for Energy told this House that: “the evidence base is not there at the moment to suggest that low-volume hydraulic fracturing activities have the same associated risks as fracking for shale gas.” —[ Official Report , Westminster Hall, 10 December 2025; Vol. 777, c. 151WH.] I am leading this debate because I want to challenge that statement and bring the Government’s attention to why I and many others believe that the understanding of fracking that the Minister referred to is not suited for purpose. I want this House to consider the evidence for that argument. Let me begin with the point that matters most: we do not have a ban on fracking in this country; we have a moratorium, and the two are not the same. A moratorium is a pause, and a pause can be lifted. The previous Energy Secretary told the Labour party conference last autumn that this Government would legislate to ban fracking for good. This Government have been in power for two years, yet I see no indication that a full ban is due. Maybe the Minister will care to correct me, but it seems that this Government are not taking decisive action to stop all fracking activity. The reason this activity continues is because of a legal loophole, and it is worth being precise about it. The Petroleum Act 1998 defines fracking by the volume of fluid injected: more than 1,000 cubic metres at any single stage, or more than 10,000 cubic metres in total. Stay below those figures and the moratorium simply does not apply. The intent is identical to fracking, and the technique is identical—a company injects fluid at high pressure to fracture rock and release the gas inside—but because the volume is lower, the law treats it as something else entirely and waves it through. At Burniston, on the edge of the North York moors, Europa Oil & Gas has proposed exactly that—a so-called proppant squeeze—at volumes designed to sit just under the threshold. In correspondence obtained under freedom of information, the company itself referred to the operation as fracking, yet in its planning material it insists that it is not. The label changes, but the drilling rig does not. The Reform Mayor of Scarborough said, “frack ahead”, although the local council voted unanimously against the plans, and the Secretary of State did not choose to overrule that. However, I am concerned about the direction that this is taking. Before I move on, I want to insert a small caveat: I am supportive of the geothermal sector. Geothermal is a genuinely renewable source of energy. A small number of geothermal cases employ low-volume hydraulic simulation. My case for a permanent ban asks for fracking to be classified by intent, and would therefore ensure that geothermal was not under threat. This is important because the geothermal industry has great potential in this country that has yet to be realised, despite being extensively used in other European countries. I want to be clear that low-volume fracking—as a form of fracking—is something entirely different.

• 2 Sept 2026 · National Highways: M49 Severnside Junction · Hansard source

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  Just off the M49 in Severnside is a junction that has never carried a single vehicle. It was built six years ago and cost the taxpayer £40 million, but in those six years not a car, van or lorry has used it. The national press has dubbed it the “ghost junction”. I am grateful for the opportunity to bring this matter before the House today, because the future of the M49 Severnside junction is one of real consequence for my constituents in Thornbury and Yate. I am here because I want the junction to be fixed and so do my constituents. I hope the Minister listens and acts: doing something about this kind of issue is exactly how he can show people he is here to serve them and not himself. We are all quite fed up with ineptitude. First, some housekeeping. In a response to my letter, the Department referred to this as the Avonmouth junction. It is not in Avonmouth. The Avonmouth spur lies some three miles down the motorway. This junction sits in Severnside. I raise that because a botched junction whose supposed name is three miles adrift from where it stands tells us something about how far the responsible authorities are from the reality on the ground. I would be grateful if the Minister adopted the correct description in his own dealings, so that there is no confusion in the future. I would not want the right hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) to think that I am in any way moving the boundaries of our constituencies. Let me set out the background briefly. National Highways built this junction in 2020, at a cost of £40 million to the taxpayer. It was designed to connect the motorway to the Severnside enterprise area, one of the largest concentrations of industry and logistics in the west of England, and it was forecast to support some 14,000 jobs. Yet in the six years since, not a single vehicle has used it. There is a reason for that. Ever since it was built, the junction has stood unconnected to the local network, because the short stretch of road linking it to the estate had not been built, and no one would agree who was responsible for building it. In a letter to me, the Minister blamed a private developer for this. Questions could be raised around whether National Highways and the previous council Administration could have secured an enforceable agreement, but I will not rehearse that whole saga tonight. It is at last being resolved. South Gloucestershire council has taken the work on itself, with funding from the Department. Construction is under way. The council expects it to be finished by the end of this year. I want to put on record my recognition of the councillors and council officers who stepped in to deliver what others would not. They have done their part. However, that issue is not the reason I have sought this debate. We have now learned that the junction itself is defective. National Highways has admitted that it has identified defects at the junction that must be repaired before it can safely open to traffic. A junction built by National Highways, completed six years ago and signed off as finished, cannot safely carry traffic until National Highways repairs it—is the Minister as baffled as I am? National Highways has set out no programme for those repairs and no timetable for opening. The council has been told that there will be no further update until later this autumn, and the Roads Minister echoed that to me personally in response to my recent letter. To enlighten the Government, the traffic that the junction would have carried has not simply vanished. Instead, it runs through my constituency’s small country lanes—heavy goods vehicles, day and night, on roads that were never built to carry them. Residents in villages and isolated homes live with the noise and the lights of lorries passing at all hours. How can residents feel safe crossing their own roads? A parent with a pushchair should not have to weigh up whether it is safe to step out of their front door. Cyclists and runners have to tread carefully through what should be peaceful country lanes. When National Highways told me about the problem, it saw businesses as stakeholders, but not local residents. My constituents vehemently disagree. It is not just the smallest roads that are affected. Councillors and constituents alike tell me that the A403, the B4461 and others are facing misuse by HGVs. Horse riders, agricultural vehicles and families are finding it difficult to access those roads—if the Minister is looking for a way to apologise to my constituents for this debacle once it is fixed, he could do worse than providing permanent safety improvements on roads such as the A403. One constituent has told me that, over just 15 minutes, he recorded multiple HGVs seemingly over 7.5 tonnes using the B4461 despite environmental weight restrictions. This is a regular issue in Hallen, too. My constituents tell me that it is difficult to report those vehicles, because the short time they get to see them is not enough to grab the registration and other necessary details. They feel that the companies using the roads pay lip service, but never take concrete action. I am totally against those vehicles breaching the weight limit in this way, but I understand the motivation: they have no direct access to the motorway. The businesses of Severnside continue to wait. This is a major logistics centre, and its operators depend on efficient access to the motorway and the docks. Every year the junction stays shut is a year of longer routes and higher costs. The economic case for this junction was made years ago and accepted by the then Government, but the delivery has lagged behind. I need not explain to the Minister why getting this junction functional is so important to the economic aims of this Government. Further costs are falling on the council and local people. The council spent scarce funds on repairing the very roads that this delay will now be damaging. HGVs continue to blitz through country lanes, and newly repaired roads will only be subject to the same continuous pressure for longer. The council expected the roads to be used by local people, which is why they repaired them now. From the perspective of both local people and the public purse, it is utterly farcical just how much money and effort is being wasted due to the delays in opening the junction. The council will now have to find the money to mend those roads once again after traffic finally arrives on the junction—I need not explain why the funds are not there. This is public money spent once, and needed again, to repair damage caused by a failure that was not of the local authority’s making. This Government’s devolution agenda will be undermined if situations like this are not put right for local communities. National Highways is not a private developer the Minister can gesture towards; it is an organisation answerable to the Minister’s Department. When it builds a junction that does not work and then declines to say when it will put that right, I must ask the Minister to justify its approach. My constituents and I find that approach unacceptable. I understand that there may be legal issues and investigations that the Minister cannot reveal, but the lack of communication from the Department has been shocking. I want to raise one further concern, which I raise as a question, not as a claim. I understand that this junction used a novel construction technique, and that one other location where that technique has been used has been identified as defective. The House deserves to know whether these are isolated faults, or two instances of something more systemic in how these structures were built and signed off. If it is the latter, that is a far graver matter than one junction in Severnside, and the Minister would be wise to get ahead of it. He may recall that National Highways already has something of a record in my area, because we have a large amount of motorway infrastructure that was built in the 1960s, and we recently endured a three-year road closure when a bridge over the M4 had to be closed for safety reasons and completely replaced. We already have an ageing infrastructure; if we are adding new problems, that is worrying. I will close with a few questions, and I ask the Minister to answer each of them directly. First, will he require National Highways to publish a clear timetable for the repairs, rather than the open-ended promise of an update at some point this autumn? Secondly, will he tell the House what the defects actually are and when they were first identified, given that the junction was declared complete in 2019? Thirdly, will he commit to a firm date by which this junction will finally open to traffic? Fourthly, will he establish how a newly built junction came to need structural repair before carrying a single vehicle, and whether the same fault affects other National Highways structures? Fifthly, who is responsible? Will this Government do what is right and launch an investigation so that the public and all stakeholders can properly scrutinise those responsible? Sixthly, will he provide additional funding for the council to repair the roads again, once the junction is finally open? My constituents have waited six years. They have watched a £40 million junction sit empty above a motorway that they cannot access using the junction, and they have carried the traffic and the disturbance in the meantime. They are not asking for much; they are asking for a date and for someone, at last, to take responsibility. I hope the Minister can give both tonight.

• 2 Sept 2026 · National Highways: M49 Severnside Junction · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for giving way. I would just like to clarify one point. He said that it would have been appropriate for me to be notified earlier. Probably more importantly, it would have been helpful for South Gloucestershire council, which is proceeding with the work, to have been aware of the work earlier. Will he take that point back to National Highways?

• 16 Jul 2026 · National Planning Policy Framework · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) for securing this debate. My constituency is large and rural, containing the towns of Thornbury, Yate and Chipping Sodbury, as well as numerous villages and hamlets, and stretches from the internationally designated Severn estuary all the way to the Cotswold escarpment. A large part of the countryside that surrounds those communities is designated green belt, with all the protections that that used to bring, but now that protection is under threat. Before I go further, I will provide some context. Under the current administration, South Gloucestershire council recognises the need for new housing and has developed a plan to deliver its housing need, which recently went through its examination in public. More than that, the council recognises the importance of homes for social rent and has been punching above its weight in their provision. With around 0.6% of the population of England outside London, it delivered 1.6% of total new social rent completions last year. However, there is an implicit deal with local people in that local plan, which delivers homes while protecting the remaining countryside from speculative development. The Government’s grey belt policy fundamentally threatens that. Green belt land will now be parcelled up into cells for assessment, and it will be difficult to show an individual cell’s contribution. The changes to the framework around the grey belt essentially make purposes C and E void, and particularly C, which protects countryside from encroachment. The danger is that pockets of land will be considered in isolation and be judged only to contribute to purpose C. Indeed, the 2022 West of England combined authority report, in the local plan evidence, showed that the primary reason for just about all the land in the local green belt is purpose C. However, the cumulative impact of developing those pockets of land would degrade the green belt as a whole. Some of our green belt is very narrow, and it will only become more so if this is allowed to happen. Our towns and villages will slowly be swallowed up by Bristol, and the distinctiveness of our communities will be lost. My constituents do not want that, and I suspect that the good people of Bristol do not want it either, although some hon. Members may think otherwise. The Government rightly want to speed up housing delivery, but indiscriminate housing built by big developers with no regard for the environment or the people living nearby is not the answer. Ironically, far from increasing the speed of housing delivery, as the Government claim it will, in my area the grey belt changes the level of risk, creating more delays by distracting planning officers from the planned sites and from the Government’s new town proposal. Time will be wasted arguing with speculative developers about what constitutes grey belt, when it could be spent delivering local housing need through the local plan. I urge the Minister to listen to hon. Members across the Chamber, who are rightly raising concerns, and to advise the new Cabinet and the incoming Prime Minister that rural voices must be heard, and the NPPF revisited.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Families in rural communities may spend the next six weeks finding out that the Government’s “kids go free” scheme is not designed for them. In Thornbury and Yate, the Government are funding First Bus, but not the rural local bus companies, so the combined authority has had to foot the bill. I am sure that we are not the only rural community affected. I have written to the Transport Secretary about this, along with more than a dozen other MPs. Will the Leader of the House ensure that we receive an urgent response?