§ Mr. EvansTo ask the President of the Board of Trade if she will list her responsibilities in respect of issuing licences for oil exploration; what monitoring of companies after the issuing of such a licence is undertaken by her Department, with particular reference to the interpretation of clauses within the licence; what sanctions her Department has available in respect of companies found to have caused environmental damage through breach of their licence conditions; and what action her Department has taken in the past three years against such companies. [20107]
§ Mr. BattleThe Secretary of State grants licences to search and bore for, and get petroleum within Great Britain and her Continental Shelf. In issuing the licences, I seek to ensure the thorough exploration for and economic exploitation of petroleum, while having due regard to the interests of other users of the sea (where appropriate) and the possible impact of licensed activities upon the environment.
Activities carried out under petroleum licences are subject to the obligations contained in Model Clauses attached to the licence as well as the separate conditions controlling their timing, extent and method. The drilling of wells and the development of any discoveries are subject to separate consents which may attract conditions. Failure to comply with these obligations and consents may lead to the revocation of the licence. Compliance monitoring is undertaken by a team of inspectors based in the Department's Aberdeen office, as well as through returns submitted by licenses about their operations and random surveillance flights carried out on a regular basis.
Where petroleum operations have led to suspected breaches of legislation, then papers have been sent to the Procurator Fiscal for consideration of further action. In 1997, there have been three such cases.