George Osborne has requested that ministers make dozens of interventions to fast-track fracking as a “personal priority”, including the delivery of numerous “asks” from shale gas company Cuadrilla.
The list of requests are laid out in a leaked letter to the chancellor’s cabinet colleagues. They include interventions in local planning, and offering public land for potential future drilling. Anti-fracking campaigners claim the letter reveals collusion with the industry, while Labour said it showed the government was an “unabashed cheerleader for fracking”.
The revelations come on the day of a Commons vote on fracking – the first MPs have had on the issue – and just hours after an influential cross-party committee of MPs published a report calling for a fracking moratorium because of potential risks to public health and climate change.
The UK’s first planning applications for full-scale fracking are also set be decided this week, with Lancashire county councillors to begin deliberations on Wednesday – having already been advised to refuse the proposals by planning officials.
David Cameron has said the government is “going all out” for shale gas in the UK, claiming it would create thousands of jobs, benefit community investment and cut reliance on imports. But opponents argue that high-pressure fracturing of rocks to release gas risks health and environmental impacts and will undermine the country’s climate change goals.
In Osborne’s six-page letter, dated 24 September, to the high-level cabinet committee on economic affairs, the chancellor demands “rapid progress” on “reducing risks and delays to drilling” from Ed Davey, Eric Pickles, Vince Cable, Liz Truss and other ministers.
More on: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/26/george-osborne-ministers-fast-track-fracking
