25% off your energy bills... if you say ‘yes’ to fracking

FRACKING firms are preparing to offer people a 25 per cent cut in their energy bills if they back drilling sites in their local area.

Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have both indicated they will lift the ban on the controversial technology, which supporters believe could offer a solution to Britain’s energy crisis.

But both Tory leadership candidates have suggested they will allow new drilling to go ahead only in areas where the plans are supported by communities.

Writing in the Daily Mail last week, Miss Truss confirmed she would end the moratorium on drilling, which has been in place since 2019 due to concerns about earth tremors. The leadership frontrunner said there was a need to ‘radically boost our domestic supplies’ of energy, adding: ‘We will end the effective ban on extracting our huge reserves of shale gas by fracking but be led by science, setting out a plan to ensure communities benefit.

‘Fracking will only take place in areas with a clear public consensus behind it.’ A campaign source said: ‘We need to get every source of energy going, including fracking.’

Now the firms involved are drawing up plans to offer people direct financial incentives to support the technology in their area. Charles McAllister, director of policy at UK Onshore Oil and Gas, which represents the industry, told the Daily Mail that firms were looking at a range of incentives to encourage communities to embrace the technology.

He said communities that accept a test drilling site will automatically receive £100,000 to spend on their local priorities.

Those that go into production will get a share of total revenues and may also get direct discounts on fuel bills for local people of up to 25 per cent.

Details, such as how close people would have to live to sites to qualify for discounts, are still being finalised.

Mr McAllister said: ‘The Truss and Sunak campaigns are talking about removing VAT or [green] policy support. Let’s pretend you remove both of them, that’s about £275, maybe £300. What we’re talking about at prices even before the latest increase is about £811 off your annual bill, which is pretty good – much, much greater than is currently being offered.’

He said soaring energy bills had ‘changed the conversation’ about fracking, which has attracted protests in the past.

‘When energy prices are low, no one thinks about energy – it is just sort of there,’ he said. ‘But the prices now are crazy and everyone is thinking about it.’

Polling conducted for UK Onshore Oil and Gas at the start of the summer suggested that the offer of direct help with energy bills would see support for local fracking rise from 29 per cent to 53 per cent.

IGas, one of five firms involved in the market in the UK, has told the Treasury that UK shale gas could begin entering the market within 12 to 18 months if the Government gets behind the sector.

Mr McAllister said shale gas had the potential to make the UK self-sufficient in gas within a decade.

In Scotland, there is an effective ban on fracking developments after council planners were told by the Scottish Government not to allow it to proceed.

‘Self-sufficient in gas in a decade’

WITH energy bills now spiralling horrifically, the tories’ and SNP surrender to eco scaremongering over the supposed perils of fracking looks particularly cowardly and short-sighted.

As this country sits on rich layers of shale, which might provide cheap gas for decades, it is right that both Conservative leadership contenders have committed to restart it – although only if local communities consent.

Of course, the Mail has huge sympathy with those who fear their quality of life will be hit. But the tremors from fracking are minuscule, the pollution risks tiny.

If local people receive large discounts on their fuel bills, as fracking chiefs propose, perhaps their objections can be overcome.

fracking has transformed energy security and kept prices down in the US. It would be madness not to find out if it can here.