Liz Truss pledges to overturn ban on fracking in bid to end reliance on foreign energy imports
- Liz Truss has pledged to end fracking ban to make UK ‘energy-secure’ dynamo
- She said UK cannot be ‘held hostage’ by authoritarian countries for energy
- This morning Ofgem will announce the new price cap to around £3,600 per year
- Boris Johnson placed banned fracking in 2019 after opposition over earthquakes
Liz Truss will end the ban on fracking as part of a plan to make the UK an ‘energy-secure dynamo’, she writes in the Daily Mail today.
The Foreign Secretary said Britain cannot be ‘held hostage’ by authoritarian regimes and must end its reliance on foreign imports within a decade.
She pledged to win the support of local communities for fracking by ‘ensuring’ they see the benefits, and said new projects will only go ahead if there is a ‘clear public consensus’ in their favour.
It came as one fracking company in the North of England claimed, in a letter to the Treasury, that it would be likely to be able to inject shale gas into the energy market by January if it were granted a licence immediately.
This morning Ofgem will announce the new price cap to around £3,600 per year from October 1.
‘Energy security starts at home, which is why we must radically boost our domestic supplies,’ said Liz Truss
Boris Johnson placed a moratorium on fracking in 2019 after widespread opposition from the public, and concerns over earthquakes. Pictured: Preston New Road drill site where energy firm Cuadrilla Resources had fracking operations to extract shale gas near Blackpool
Writing in today’s Mail, Miss Truss said: ‘In a world where authoritarian regimes are willing to weaponise energy, we cannot afford to be held hostage… We do not rely on Russian gas, unlike our European allies, but no country is safe from malign efforts to push up energy prices. Energy security starts at home, which is why we must radically boost our domestic supplies.
‘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.’
The comments suggest she will go considerably further than previous Tory administrations to win over local communities.
Boris Johnson placed a moratorium on fracking in 2019 after widespread opposition from the public, and concerns over earthquakes.
YouGov polling recently found 53 per cent of Britons would support fracking if it meant a reduction in bills for people in the community. Miss Truss also today states her support for nuclear power, citing small modular reactors made by Rolls-Royce, and promises to ‘champion renewables such as wind and tidal’.
She concluded: ‘This is why I believe our great country can become over the next decade an energy-secure dynamo, which could be powering Europe as a net energy secure exporter.’
Her comments came as Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi held meetings with nuclear and renewable energy producers to discuss how Britain can reduce its reliance on international markets.
Treasury officials have put a menu of options together for the new prime minister, including a recommendation to re-start fracking to secure the nation’s energy security.
Ofgem will announce the new price cap to around £3,600 per year from October 1
Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi (pictured) has held meetings with nuclear and renewable energy producers to discuss how Britain can reduce its reliance on international markets
The new ‘three winter’ plan aims to bring down energy bills between now and 2025. A Treasury source told The Daily Telegraph: ‘The third winter is about increasing our general energy supply through things like North Sea drilling, more nuclear, more renewable, more wind.’
Support for fracking has grown as soaring gas prices have hit household budgets, with Tory members voicing their support for new drillings in leadership hustings.
A mining engineer, speaking at the hustings in Manchester, said: ‘You cannot run, you cannot grow, you cannot progress a modern economy without a secure supply of cheap, abundant, readily available energy.
‘Right below our feet is the largest energy bonanza this country has ever discovered, bigger than coal and bigger than the North Sea.’
Fracking involves injecting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals at high pressure into boreholes a mile underground to fracture the rock and release gas or oil.
A Treasury source said: ‘The Chancellor wants to see a proper cost-benefit analysis of fracking, with safety and the environment taken in as considerations.
‘Energy bills are rising… and we need to look at everything on our disposal.’
Fracking started in Lancashire at two sites run by Cuadrilla in 2010, but the Government imposed a seven-year moratorium in 2011 because of tremors.
When the sites reopened, they were met with protests from locals and groups including Extinction Rebellion.
In November 2019, the Government announced a moratorium, citing a report that found current technology could not predict the likelihood of tremors.
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