§ Mr. Nigel JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment has been made of the potential impact on the natural environment around St. Kilda following the decision to grant a licence for oil exploration. [70990]
§ Mr. BattleThe advice of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC, the Government's statutory advisers on environmental matters) was fully taken into consideration in the decision about which blocks should be offered for licence in the 17th Round of offshore petroleum licensing. In the light of the JNCC's advice, no blocks were offered for licence within 25 miles of St. Kilda. In the event, the nearest block for which a licence was awarded is 45 miles from the island.
Any deep drillings, as well as developments for the commercial extraction of oil or gas and the construction of pipelines, are also subject to project-specific consent under the Offshore Petroleum Production and Pipe-lines (Assessment of Environmental Effects) Regulations 1998. These implement the Environmental Impact Assessment
668WDirective (85/337/EEC) across the whole of the UK Continental Shelf. They require that before making any decision about the granting of consent for specific petroleum projects, the Secretary of State must consider the likely environmental impact of those projects. Under the Regulations, the JNCC and the relevant fisheries departments are consulted about all applications for consent and where they recommend that a full environmental statement be required, that statement must be made available to the public for their comments and the Secretary of State must take into consideration any comments when making his decision about consent for the relevant project.
Companies carrying out seismic surveys on the UK Continental Shelf are required to follow guidelines produced by the JNCC to reduce the possible impact of noise during surveys. Reports of cetaceans sighted during these surveys are published by the JNCC annually.