A ban on fracking must stay because the UK is not Utah, the environment minister has insisted despite protests from Conservative MPs.
More than 30 of Boris Johnson’s backbenchers have urged him to rethink his current policy after Cuadrilla, the energy company, was ordered to seal up two of England’s only viable shale gas wells despite concerns about the current energy crisis.
But Lord Goldsmith (pictured, L.), a minister in Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said ministers would end up paying a high price if the current fracking moratorium – which was introduced in 2019 – was overturned.
“It’s hard to overstate just how unpopular fracking is with the British public,” he wrote on Twitter, citing a Department for Business attitude tracker that showed 18 percent support.
“People do not want large-scale industrialization of the British countryside. And given the gas would be produced by private firms and sold at the highest price internationally, there would likely be no measurable impact on UK gas prices anyway.
“We do need gas – it is the cleanest bridge to renewables. But the UK is not Utah. To have any impact at all, the Government would need to rig the market and go to war with furious communities. On every level, the cost would be enormous.”
His comments came as Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader, warned on Sunday that Britons would face further “spikes and shortages” unless the UK made more use of its domestic onshore and offshore gas supplies.
‘Shutting these things down is a major mistake’
Sir Iain told The Telegraph: “I’m in favor of us rediscovering the need for taking gas out of our own areas and we’ll probably be able to supply parts of Europe to take their dependency off Russia, so it makes sense for us.
“Shutting these things down is a major mistake and the biggest mistake we made is we went from being a net exporter of gas to a net importer of gas because different governments took a decision to phase out our domestic supply and we were wrong.
“Here we are importing gas from Norway because we don’t want to tap into our own gas – it doesn’t make any sense at all. It was a major error of previous governments to cut back. ‘Get on with it’ is the answer, and we need to do that now.”
Craig Mackinlay, the deputy chairman of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group (NTSG) of Conservative backbenchers, suggested the group could play a similar role to the Covid Recovery Group of lockdown skeptics – which was instrumental in 100 of Mr. Johnson’s own MPs voting against Plan B restrictions last December.
“We haven’t actually seen any legislation yet that really backs up some of these net-zero ambitions beyond the statutory instrument in 2019,” he said.
“There’s lots of legislation in the pipeline in which I would say we can play a part, and where we’re currently standing, that’s a negative. I just want some common sense to bring to bear – we all like to be virtuous until it hits our pocket.”
‘Never a good idea for the state to pick the winners and losers’
Greg Smith, the Conservative MP for Buckingham, called on the Prime Minister to scrap all green levies, adding that the current approach to meeting net-zero targets could backfire at May’s local elections amid spiraling energy costs for households.
“Personally I would much rather see the innovators and the private sector come up with the solutions,” Mr. Smith said. “It’s never a good idea for the state to pick the winners and the losers. My fear is we’ll inevitably pick the loser.
“Most elections in living memory have been fought on the basis of the economy, and if people are feeling the pinch, we’ve got to be very wary of that.”
Read more at Daily Telegraph
From was place did they find this screwball from anyway? He should be stranded in the Wilderness of Alaska far away from any other living things
“Most elections in living memory have been fought on the basis of the economy, and if people are feeling the pinch, we’ve got to be very wary of that.”
That’s right, “It’s the economy, stupid”.
Roll on the US ‘mid-terms’.
The problem is that if you get rid of this government, all the other political parties are just as gung-ho about the redicilous and unnecessary net-zero target. Frying pan and fire spring to mind.