Holyrood has power to ban fracking, claims QC

● SNP ministers urged ‘to live up to their rhetoric and legislate’

The Scottish Government has been urged to ban fracking after the publication of a legal opinion indicating that it is within the power of MSPS to do so.

SNP ministers announced an “effective ban” on fracking in 2017, but a legal challenge was mounted by petrochemical firm Ineos.

Following the challenge, a Court of Session ruling in June last year found that, as a matter of law, there is no prohibition against fracking in Scotland. A legal opinion published by Aidan O’neill QC now suggests that the Scottish Parliament has the legislative competence to pass a fracking ban.

It also indicates that doing so would be less likely to result in successful legal challenges from companies with an interest in the industry.

Friends of the Earth Scotland, who commissioned Mr O’neill, say that the Scottish Government must now act to definitively ban fracking.

“Communities on the frontline of this dirty industry have been waiting for over four years for the Scottish Government to bring its long drawn out process on unconventional oil and gas to an end,” Friends of the Earth Scotland head of campaigns Mary Church said.

“It is time for ministers to live

0 Anti-fracking groups demonstrate outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh

up to their rhetoric and legislate to ban fracking for good.

“Eighteen months ago, the First Minister promised a ban on the industry, but last year the Government’s position was exposed by Ineos’s court case as having no legal force.

“When it is clearly within

Holyrood’s power to legislate to protect people’s health, environment and the climate from the fracking industry, continuing only to use policy levers would be a betrayal of the tens of thousands of people across the country who called on the Scottish Government to

act to stop this industry. Holyrood has a clear mandate from the people of Scotland to do so.

“If the present Scottish Government cares an ounce about its legacy, then we urge it to work together with the other anti-fracking parties to pass a law banning fracking and finally put this issue to bed once and for all.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said further assessments would be required before the finalisation of policy on the issue.