Fracking is expensive, unsafe and without consent - Sheffield Hallam's Olivia Blake MP

The Conservatives have so far completely failed to help families struggling with this crisis, for example by refusing to implement Labour’s call for a one-off windfall tax on the oil and gas producers making bumper profits from these high prices, to fund a package of support to save households up to £600 on their energy bills.

And last week, we saw the Government relaunch their failed energy policy.

This could have been an opportunity not just to deal with the immediate cost of living crisis, but also to provide a green, home-grown renewable energy sprint to cut households bills and deliver energy sovereignty for the UK.

But instead, we got more Tory energy chaos that failed on all counts.

The Government ludicrously failed to overturn the ban on onshore wind – the cheapest, cleanest, and quickest form of power we have. Boris Johnson bowed to his backbenches, and in doing so denied the UK the cheapest, homegrown power we have.

The Government’s chaotic approach is also clear in their fracking policy.

Fracking is expensive, unsafe, and does not have the consent of local communities.

Many of us had hoped that this matter had been closed in 2019, when residents living near Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road site in Lancashire were hit by three separate earthquakes over five days, and the Government finally suspended all further fracking.

It was a victory for the campaigners who had pointed out all along that the project was unsafe.

But now, while the Government knows that fracking is unsafe and dangerous, they are now in the ludicrous position of asking the British Geological Survey to “look again” at the scientific evidence on fracking. Not because it is in the national interest, but because it is the pipedream of Conservative backbenchers.

Fracking will take years and even decades before production could begin at scale so will do nothing to reduce our reliance on imported gas in the immediate term.

It will also do nothing to address the cost-of-living crisis or provide relief to the millions of people who will struggle to heat their homes this winter. Government Ministers admit this, as do Cuadrilla themselves.

What fracking will do is cause devastation to communities across the North.

If the threat of earthquakes wasn’t enough, fracking can also cause serious air, water and noise pollution, with potentially devastating public health impacts. That’s led 20 leading medical experts to write to the British Medical Journal stating that “the arguments against fracking on public health grounds are overwhelming”.

It should go without saying that you won’t deliver energy security for communities in the North by causing earthquakes in their backyards, contaminating their water supply, or risking their health. But as well as this local damage, on the international stage re-starting fracking would also undermine any credibility of the UK as an international climate leader. Fracked fuels can be even more damaging to the climate than gas and oil because shale gas is more energy-intensive to extract and leaks polluting gases into the atmosphere during production.

We are in a climate and ecological emergency. We should be turning to clean, green, net-zero solutions to the energy crisis, not adding more fuel to the fire.

Instead of looking to false solutions like fracking, the Government should back Labour’s plan for a green energy sprint.

A Labour government would invest £6bn every year for a decade to insulate and upgrade 19 million homes, cutting household bills by £400, gas imports by 15 per cent, and our carbon emissions. We would double our onshore wind capacity, increase offshore wind and triple solar power by 2030. All this would clean our air and water and create good, green, unionised jobs up and down the country to power this transition and ensure no one is left behind.

A green energy sprint on this scale, is the best, cheapest, and quickest way to tackle the cost of living crisis, deliver a more secure energy system, and tackle the climate crisis. Johnson needs to learn, quickly, that there’s no way we will be backing fracking.

Olivia Blake is MP for Sheffield Hallam and Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Net Zero.