Fracking ban lifted as Mogg offers cash sweeteners to locals
JACOB Rees-Mogg yesterday lifted the ban on fracking for shale gas and promised to win the backing of local communities with direct cash payments to affected residents.
The Business and Energy Secretary said the impact of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine meant it was vital to strengthen the nation’s energy security.
Boris Johnson banned fracking in 2019 due to opposition in Conservative seats in the north of England and concern over earthquakes caused by the drilling.
But Mr Rees-Mogg lifted the moratorium yesterday – and said he will
‘It is Luddite-ary to oppose it’
review whether the level of seismic activity allowed at fracking sites is too low. He said: ‘It is safe. It is shown to be safe. The scare stories have been disproved time and again. This is of such importance, it is sheer Luddite-ary to oppose it.’
He added that it was ‘fundamentally important that the cash benefits do not go to some faceless bureaucracy, but they go to the individuals who are affected’.
His department cited a report by the British Geological Survey, published yesterday, which found that more exploratory sites are needed to better understand how fracking causes earthquakes.
The study admitted forecasting tremors caused by fracking ‘remains a scientific challenge’. Mr Rees- Mogg said the current permitted level of seismic activity – 0.5 on the Richter scale – is ‘too low’ and suggested it could be pushed as high as 2.5. The 2019 Conservative manifesto pledged not to lift England’s moratorium on fracking unless ‘the science shows categorically it can be done safely’.
Experts yesterday suggested extracting shale gas could improve Britain’s energy security and help to ease the high prices that consumers and businesses are facing.
Professor Geoffrey Maitland of Imperial College London said: ‘It could be used in the medium term – from 2025 if drilling and fracturing is allowed to restart now – to replace diminishing North Sea gas production and some gas imports.’
But Mr Rees- Mogg’s announcement was met with immediate opposition from Tory MPs representing areas with shale gas reserves.
Mark Menzies, who represents Fylde in Lancashire, said there was ‘nothing Luddite about the people’ in his constituency. Bolsover MP Mark Fletcher said the fracking consent plans ‘ don’t wash’ and claimed that it appeared communities would be ‘ bought off’ rather than offered a vote on whether they want drilling for shale gas in their areas.
Labour called the move a ‘charter for earthquakes’ and accused the Tories of breaking their manifesto promise.
Shadow climate secretary Ed Miliband said: ‘I look forward to him and his colleagues explaining his charter for earthquakes to the people of Lancashire, Yorkshire, the Midlands, Sussex, Dorset, and Somerset, who will be part of his dangerous experiment.’
But Gary Smith, the general secretary of the GMB, one of Britain’s biggest unions and a major backer of Labour, said it was ‘demonstrable’ that fracking – the process of hydraulic fracturing which uses highpressure liquid to release gas from shale formations – could be done safely.
THE Mail has sympathy with communities which fear their quality of life may be hit by noise and pollution from fracking.
But the brutal gas and electricity bills hitting families starkly illustrate the dangers of outsourcing our energy supplies to foreign powers. So the Government is right to lift the ban on extracting shale gas and review the tremor limits. As well as supplying cheap energy, fracking could provide many thousands of jobs.
of course, drilling will need local consent. But if locals receive their gas for free, perhaps any opposition can be overcome.
At a time of an unprecedented energy crisis, it would be absurdly complacent not to give fracking a try.