The UK’s shortest serving prime minister has called for a revival of fracking for shale gas.
Photo: Institute for Government
Liz Truss, who led the country for 49 days, was speaking to the Institute for Government this morning, almost a year after her administration lifted the moratorium on fracking in England.
She resigned on 19 October 2022, the day after a chaotic parliamentary vote on fracking.
Her successor, Rishi Sunak, reinstated the moratorium on his second full day in office.
Ms Truss referred three times to fracking in today’s speech. In the conclusion said:
“in the energy sector, we need to get on with fracking and abolish the windfall tax in the housing market”.
Earlier, she defended her removal of the moratorium. She said the biggest constraints to growth in the UK economy had been in energy, housing and the labour market.
She said:
“That’s why we introduced the energy price guarantee, while we worked to open up fracking and the North Sea to make the UK energy independent.”
Ms Truss also said:
“We would have got moving on fracking and lower energy bills would have been on the horizon.”
The link between fracking in the UK and lower energy prices has been widely discounted, including by the former energy secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, who briefly became Ms Truss’s chancellor.
As prime minister, Ms repeatedly said there must be local consent for fracking operations. But there were no proposals by her administration about what local consent would look like or how it would be gauged. Today’s speech also did not go into detail.
Since Ms Truss resigned, plans have got underway to decommission shale gas wells at Preston New Road, in Lancashire, and Misson, in north Nottinghamshire. Another would-be fracking well, at Kirby Misperton, in North Yorkshire, is now part of a geothermal energy trial.
Other issues
Ms Truss’s speech was also interesting for issues, regarded by the public as important, that she did not mention.
There was no reference to asylum, brexit, crime, education, hospitals and the NHS, immigration, and unemployment. All are key issues tracked by YouGov in regular polling.
Ms Truss made one reference each to: health (the health and social care levy), climate change (2050 climate change target), net zero (net zero legislation), Russia (UK is third after Russia and China for the departure of high wealth individuals), transport (government needs to withdraw from micromanagement in sectors like transport) and defence (the US defence budget).
The speech had 21 references to growth, nine to economy and six to debt. But there were only two references to inflation and family and three to environment (“statist environmental solutions”, US Environment Protection Agency and “environmental regulations which are hiking the cost of living”).
DRILL OR DROP? 
Sums Tuss up perfectly
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/sep/18/liz-truss-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving
Truss will be proved right on this issue at least but unfortunately she is currently a laughing stock and does fracking no service at all. We continue to rely on the misogynists and head-choppers in the Middle-east for our gas.
She may be a laughing stock, Shalewatcher, and not my cup of tea but I would suggest her not knowing about £1.5T LDI funds is what might be expected of a politician, but the excuse from the Bank of England and the Treasury that they were not aware either, does make me wonder who should have told her?
It is taboo to suggest the BoE are out of touch, as that would somewhat erode the reputation of the City, however this was the latest, after they (and the Fed) denied inflation was looming and before that, suddenly having a financial crash caused by? The banks.
No one expects the politicians to get it right so out they go. Suggest Central Banks are not getting it right and there is panic.
Never mind, like Boris she will be better off not being PM, although I don’t see either writing in the Guardian.
Jack, thanks for the links to the horrible chemicals associated with Fracking. All evidence is valuable and I will read them carefully but my initial review doesn’t convince me. I see they use the terms “linked to” and ” associated with” , not a sign of a “caused by”. They do say that much more analysis is required before a conclusion can be reached. They also say that drilling a hole causes the release of chemicals found naturally in the soil. I trust they’re not proposing a ban on digging. The New Mexico paper says the drilling companies are using PFAs, which are commonly used to keep food from sticking to packaging or cookware, make clothes and carpets resistant to stains and create firefighting foam. Any household will have these dangerous chemicals but no-one is suggesting we stop buying them for household use.
I think you might find that chemicals used for “fracking” in some areas, are not used in others.
Just like forest fires are caused in their thousands by electricity distribution in some areas, but not in others.
Just like cobalt, a known carcinogen, is used in EVs-except that seems to be the case in most EVs across the globe.