BREAKING: Rishi Sunak has hinted that the fracking ban will remain in place.
‘We will deliver on what we said at COP, because we care deeply about passing our children an environment in better state than we found it ourselves.’
Shale extraction could resume ‘in six months’, the new prime minister claimed in September, while saying an extra 100 licences for oil and gas wells in the North Sea would be greenlit. Tory MP Simon Hoare, from North Dorset, said ‘my opposition to fracking is well known’, adding: ‘No local community is going to grant consent.’
He said there ‘should be a free vote’ adding: ‘I would love to vote against fracking tonight, but…I want to keep my voice and my vote to help shape the future of the party I’ve been a member of since 1985 and I’m not prepared to throw that away on an issue which is actually not, as I say, going to happen.’