Liz Truss must publish a recently completed review on fracking in the UK, green campaigners have urged, amid expectations the new prime minister will lift the moratorium on shale gas drilling immediately.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been sitting on a report delivered in early July by the British Geological Survey into the possible effects of fracking in the UK, including the danger of Earth tremors.
Truss spoke in favour of fracking during her campaign for the Tory leadership, and has also advocated expanding oil and gas production in the North Sea. It is thought she will announce an immediate end to the ban on fracking that was imposed in 2019 as part of her energy strategy on Thursday. She has previously said that fracking should only take place where there was the support of the local community.
Truss has already been warned this week by the government’s independent advisers on the climate, and on infrastructure, that increasing gas production from fracking will not bring down energy bills. On Wednesday, the former Conservative environment secretary John Gummer and Sir John Armitt, who chair the Committee on Climate Change and the National Infrastructure Commission respectively, took the unprecedented step of jointly writing to Truss warning that ramping up gas production would not solve the problem. They wrote:
“The UK cannot address this crisis solely by increasing its production of natural gas. Greater domestic production of fossil fuels may improve energy security, particularly this winter. But our gas reserves – offshore or from shale – are too small to impact meaningfully the prices faced by UK consumers.”
The BGS said its report had been delivered to the government two months ago. A spokesperson said: “BEIS commissioned BGS to produce a report based on a desk-based study to address six questions related to recent scientific research on the hazard and risk from induced seismicity during hydraulic fracturing of shale rocks. The report was submitted to BEIS on the 5 July.”
Fracking was first attempted in the UK more than a decade ago, but was plagued by a series of problems, including Earth tremors at its site in Lancashire. No gas has ever been commercially produced from fracking in the UK despite numerous attempts. In 2019 the government stepped in with an effective moratorium on fracking, ruling that only if fracking could be proven not to cause Earth tremors could it go ahead.
Fracking, for some odd reason, has remained a Tory pipe-dream, despite massive local and extensive national opposition to the process. Since 2011, the Tories have spent at least £32.7m supporting fracking and it has cost local police forces £12m to support the government’s policy.
A 2019 report by the National Audit Office (NAO) found no evidence that prices would be lowered, uncertainty as to whether it could viably produce gas in meaningful quantities, no plan for clean-up if a fracking firm were to go bust, serial breeches of agreed limits on earth tremors, strains on local authorities in fracking areas, and plummeting public support.
