Minister tells anti-fracking MPs to “accept victory”
Two Conservative MPs who opposed fracking in their constituencies have won their campaigns, the energy minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, told parliament tonight.
The owner of the fracking firm Cuadrilla predicted today that England’s moratorium on hydraulic fracturing would be lifted – but not before 2021.
The UK energy minister said this evening that fracking was over and the government had “moved on”.
More than 600 academics, politicians and campaigners signed a letter calling on the government to replace the current moratorium on fracking with an outright ban.
The cabinet minister who announced the moratorium on fracking last year has been sacked in today’s reshuffle.
The new Conservative MP for the Rother Valley in south Yorkshire is calling on the government to extend its moratorium on fracking to include drilling for shale gas.
A government minister seemed this morning to support the idea that a permanent ban on fracking would be the best way his department could tackle climate change.
Ineos plans to drill for shale gas in the south Yorkshire village of Woodsetts are to be decided by the local government secretary, James Brokenshire.
Plans by IGas to test a gas well at Ellesmere Port in Cheshire are to be decided by the local government secretary.
The government has made its first public comment on the legal challenge which quashed a key section of planning policy on shale gas and fracking.