Fracking may or may not make plastic ducks wobble on Lancashire landladies’ Anaglypta — “good heavens, the walls are quacking” — but its possible revival certainly shook the foundations of the net-zero lot. They thought they had killed off shale; now it was back on the parliamentary annunciators. This was the stuff of Greta Thunberg’s adolescent nightmares. “Ban it!” they cried. “Stop this nonsense now! It would do nothing for our national security! Lancashire says no!” The public hated the idea of fracking. But what if public opinion was changing?
“Nothing has changed,” insisted the “energy and clean growth” minister, Greg Hands, in response to an urgent question about the destruction of shale exploration sites. Nothing has changed? Theresa May used to say that.
Rocketing gas prices, the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, a ban on oil from Russia: nothing had changed.
The urgent question was put by Lee Anderson (C, Ashfield), who came in for flak from anti-frackers. Anderson flared at them: “I hear some trumpeting but I would challenge any MP to come to my constituency and speak to real people who are struggling with their gas bills. Not one person in this place has to worry about paying gas bills. Hang your heads in shame!”
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (C, Chingford) thought it might be an idea to be “pragmatic”. He was greeted by a hail of tuts and tsks. This was no time for pragmatism, thank you! Wera Hobhouse (Lib Dem, lukewarm Bath) said anyone “reading the room” could see fracking was unpopular. But Craig Mackinlay (C, South Thanet) liked it. Ditto Sir Bernard Jenkin (C, Harwich). Ditto Sammy Wilson (DUP, East Antrim), Mark Jenkinson (C, Workington), Dame Andrea Leadsom (C, South Northants) and others. Maybe Hobhouse’s room-reading skills are only at an early-years stage.
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Hands felt the Tories’ 2019 manifesto promise on shale was still elastic enough to allow ministers to judder, spit and swivel in several directions.
They could say “in principle we are not opposed to fracking” while imposing a moratorium on drilling. Delicious equivocation. Hands saw no need yet to fill the manifesto with concrete and declare it defunct. But even a minister this skilful struggled to counter backbench demands for a more frack-friendly approach. After Hands’s repeated assertion that fracking must have local support, Sir Edward Leigh (C, Gainsborough) wondered naughtily if that meant big wind farms should also be popular with residents. Hands suddenly went rather cool on local approval.
Stephen McCabe wanted to generate power by gathering vats of sewage and cooking them into some sort of stew. Hands said it depended on “prevailing prices”. Prevailing winds, too, surely.
Kevin Hollinrake (C, Thirsk & Malton) reported that the major threat to energy firms was banks applying woke investment criteria rather than thinking of the national interest. If Hollinrake sought an ally, how about Rishi Sunak? At Treasury questions he made some deft pro-fracking noises, saying we needed “a diversified and secure supply of energy, more of which comes from here at home”. Boris Johnson could be outflanked on the right by his chancellor on this.
Meanwhile, Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab) was in trouble for having fallen asleep during a debate on Monday. During a speech by the Greens’ Lady Bennett of Manor Castle he looked to be slumped in repose, dribble coming out of his snoring chops. Bennett can have this effect. He’s not the first and won’t be the last. Some of my most refreshing siestas have been in the Lords gallery. I say “solidarity with Lord Young”. But not too loudly. We don’t want to disturb him.
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Also in the Lords on Monday, that trade minister Paul Scully — the one with the beard — turned up to sit on the steps of the throne to listen to a debate about sanctions on oligarchs. His arrival caused a stir. Peers thought he was Lord Lebedev.
