Hoping our MP will speak out against fracking

ALEX Chalk MP is justifiably proud of his record in promoting and supporting measures to help the UK reach net zero by 2050.

So, I doubt he feels comfortable about the new Government’s energy policies, which put ideology before science and economics.

In October 2018 he told Parliament he was “intensely sceptical about whether fracking is sensible at all”. And, citing the newly-passed Climate Change Act, he said “environmentally, the starting point has to be that we should seek to keep fossil fuels in the ground”.

The Government is now reviving fracking, even though it is incompatible with the UK’S net zero aims. This is happening even though the new Chancellor says it “won’t materially affect the wholesale market price” of gas.

Meanwhile, the geologist founder of Cuadrilla, one of the major fracking companies, has said that the practice is impossible in the UK at any meaningful scale because of the UK’S geology.

Fortunately, we are not directly threatened here in Gloucestershire by fracking but when it was undertaken in other parts of England, it encountered intense local opposition.

So fracking is dirty, most unlikely to succeed, makes no economic sense and is deeply unpopular.

Meanwhile, on-shore wind and solar, which are cheap, clean and popular, are being strangled; and energy efficiency – the cleanest and cheapest way to combat both climate change and rising bills – is ignored.

Frankly the new Government’s policy in this area is insane.

Now Alex Chalk no longer holds a ministerial post, I hope he will speak out against fracking and in favour of real measures that address the climate crisis and our over-dependence on fossil fuels.

Adrian Phillips Cheltenham