Liz Truss breaks Conservative pledge in 2019 to allow fracking despite safety concerns and opposition
Backbench Conservative MPs are set to provide their opposition to the government’s plan to lift a ban on fracking, despite a manifesto pledge to not pursue fracking.
The Conservative manifesto claimed the government would not allow fracking until it is proven to be safe and until it gains local support.
Liz Truss now faces the prospect widespread condemnation and opposition from within her own party.
Numerous Conservative MPs, such as Simon Clarke, the levelling-up secretary, reiterated the Conservatives pledge to not pursue fracking as he stated:
“To be clear, fracking will only take place where there is local consensus. So, if there isn’t, it won’t happen, it’s as simple as that.
I didn’t detect great enthusiasm from many of my constituents for it, but critically if there is consent, it can go ahead and that is a fair position.”
Brendan Clarke-Smith, Conservative MP for Bassetlaw, said he wanted to see more evidence that fracking is safe. When asked in Question Time whether he supported fracking he stated:
“No, because I’m very consistent on this. I’m fairly neutral on it, I want to see more evidence.”
In spite of geologists warnings of how this potentially could cause earthquakes the government has lifted a ban on fracking with Jacob Rees-Mogg, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, claiming the warnings of earthquakes were “hysteria”.
However, Rees-Mogg was questioned by Tory MPs in the Commons on the necessity of this measure and how local support was going to be garnered. He added:
“It is shown to be safe. The scare stories have been disproved time and again. The hysteria about seismic activity, I think, fails to understand that the Richter scale is a logarithmic scale.”
He went on to assure members that the government would pursue fracking firms to compensate people affected by fracking.
However, Mark Fletcher, Tory MP for Bolsover, expressed his concerns about Rees-Mogg’s comments on financial compensation as he stated:
“I have listened carefully to the secretary of state, and I have to say that the local consent plans do not seem to wash.
It seems to come back to communities’ being bought off rather than having a vote.”
Mark Menzies, the Conservative MP for Fylde in Lancashire, an area where fracking took place before ministers halted the practice in 2019, told the Guardian that allowing fracking to take place would explicitly breach Truss’s promise during her Tory leadership campaign that drilling would only happen with local approval. He added:
“If Beis [the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy] do this, they do so in the face of clear commitments made by the prime minister – there is no ifs or buts, it is crystal clear what she said.
Let’s give her an opportunity to demonstrate to the people of this country that she is a PM who does what she says she is going to do. Let’s hope we don’t get into the territory of people feeling they’ve been told one thing and another thing happens.”
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