Free gas for fracking sounds like bribery – David Behrens

This week, it was the threat to oil of a cruder variety that caused Andrea Leadsom to leap into action. It was, she said, “only right” to ask people if they would accept free fuel in return for a licence to mine shale gas in their area.

She saw it as an incentive, but there’s a thin line between enticement and bribery. And the schism her policy would open up between those on opposite sides of the fracking debate would run deeper than the mines themselves. It would be like the coalfields of the 1980s all over again, when rival unions set neighbour against neighbour amid accusations of selling out.

It’s not hard to see why. I’m against fracking because it seems to me that forcing water, sand and chemicals into the ground at very high pressure in order to extract gas or oil from inside rocks is inherently dangerous to the environment. Several earthquakes have resulted. Yet I’m pragmatic enough to acknowledge that if someone offered to underwrite my fuel bills for the rest of my life, I might well turn a blind eye to a mine a few fields away. There’s enough selfishness built into the human psyche to make hypocrites of us all.

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But where did Ms Leadsom’s idea come from in the first place? The debate on whether to turn England’s green and pleasant land into a pincushion of holes drilled by vast, vertical rigs had been dormant since November 2019, when the Government announced a temporary ban on the process. That was after the Oil and Gas Authority said it was impossible to predict the likelihood or size of earth tremors caused by the practice. Just five weeks ago, the argument seemed to be officially over when the mining firm Cuadrilla announced it would permanently abandon its two wells.

But the rise in gas prices, coupled with the volatility in Russia, presented them with an opportunity to reignite the old arguments – and on Tuesday they called on the Government to lift its moratorium in order to reduce the UK’s reliance on foreign gas.

Now, ministers are speaking openly about “exploring all options” for including shale gas – which is the polite term for fracking – as part of “our future energy mix”, provided it has the support of locals.

That’s not the same, though, as overtly buying their support, which is what Ms Leadsom appears to be suggesting. In the North York Moors, which have seen vast protests against extraction, her intervention may be seen as a political hand grenade. There are certainly a lot of people there who will have to be paid off if the objections are to melt away – and not many will sell out as easily as me.

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Besides, the manipulation of the debate belies a few home truths. Chief among these is that few other politicians – certainly not those in marginal seats – are likely to come down in favour of fracking. A survey this week suggested that only five of 138 MPs in target areas would actively support it.

There is not even a consensus within the industry itself – not since Third Energy, the Ryedale concern that was one of the main proponents of fracking, was taken over by a renewable energy group and withdrew its interest in the shale sector.

Nevertheless, in playing to our economic fears rather than our environmental sensibilities, the remaining players have found a rich seam to mine. Earthquakes that haven’t happened yet are intangible; rising fuel bills are not.

The greasing of palms has been known to be effective in political circles but never in my memory has a politician suggested doing it quite so openly. It’s like offering people free bacon if they agree not to object to a pig processing plant at the end of their street. And I think even Mr Streaky would have agreed that to do that would be quite nuts.

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