Rees-mogg faces party split as he lifts fracking ban

Business Secretary accuses those opposed to shale gas extraction of taking funds from Putin regime

OPPOSITION to fracking in the UK has been funded by the Putin regime, Jacob Rees-mogg claimed yesterday, as he faced backlash from his own party for lifting a three-year moratorium on shale gas extraction.

The Business Secretary accused those who oppose fracking of “hysteria” and “Ludditery” and announced that drilling will recommence in the “national interest” – even if it risked causing earthquakes.

Ministers argue that accessing reserves of subterranean shale gas will increase the UK’S energy security and could bring down the price of gas.

But the Government also faces backlash in Parliament, including from Conservative MPS who are unconvinced that local people will be consulted about the drilling.

Yesterday Mr Rees-mogg told MPS that some opposition to drilling has been funded by Russia.

“I’m well aware that there have been objections to fracking, but I would also note that there have been stories widely reported that some of the opposition to ... fracking has been funded by Mr Putin’s regime,” he said.

The claim was previously made by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, then secretary general of Nato, in 2014. He said Russia was running “sophisticated information and disinformation operations” to support opposition to shale gas in the UK as part of efforts to maintain reliance on Russian gas.

A Nato spokesman later said Mr Rasmussen was expressing a personal view.

Ed Miliband, shadow climate change secretary, said Mr Rees-mogg’s claim was an “absolutely outrageous slur”.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats both oppose lifting the moratorium on fracking and have respectively described it as a “dangerous fantasy” and of showing “callous disregard for our communities and countryside”.

The fracking ban was first put in place by the Conservatives after the 2019 election, following a 2.9 magnitude tremor at a site in Lancashire owned by fracking company Cuadrilla.

In April, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, ministers asked the British Geological Survey to conduct an investigation into the link between shale gas extraction and earthquakes.

The resulting report, published yesterday, concluded that predicting tremors remains a “scientific challenge for the geoscience community” and that more data would be required to make an accurate assessment of the likelihood of seismic events

But in a written statement to MPS yesterday, Mr Rees-mogg suggested that the risk of further earthquakes was worth taking, and that more data could be collected when drilling resumes.

The announcement was opposed by several Tory MPS in the Commons chamber. Sir Greg Knight said: “Is [Mr Rees-mogg] aware the safety of the public is not a currency in which some of us choose to speculate?”

Mr Rees-mogg said that while he did not have a “formal thing” to announce about local consent, fracking firms will be asked to provide compensation packages for those who live near their sites.

He added: “The hysteria about seismic activity... fails to understand that the Richter scale is a logarithmic scale. This [fracking] is of such importance, and it is sheer Ludditery that opposes it.”