Tom Greatrex – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Greatrex on 2014-04-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many staff of the Environment Agency are engaged in regulation of hydraulic fracturing and unconventional gas.

Dan Rogerson

The Environment Agency has set up a team of ten national officers working full time to develop the regulatory regime for oil and gas activities. This work covers conventional and unconventional oil and gas activities.

This team is supported by additional technical resource from elsewhere in the organisation. The workload fluctuates and these specialists are not solely dedicated to regulating and permitting unconventional activities. It is therefore not possible to give an exact answer, but the Environment Agency estimate that approximately a further 40 staff are currently involved in this work across England.