Sunak restores fracking ban but blows cold on onshore wind

New prime minister Rishi Sunak has reinstated the ban on fracking but declined to throw his support behind the building of new onshore wind.

Both stances are in opposition to his predecessor Liz Truss, who pledged to overturn the 2019 Conservative manifesto commitment to a moratorium on shale gas extraction and to relax the planning regime for onshore wind developments.

Speaking at his first Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday (26 October) Sunak repeatedly aligned himself with the positions outlined in that manifesto, which contained ambitious pledges around offshore wind but made no mention of onshore turbines.

Labour’s shadow climate change and net zero minister Alan Whithead quizzed Sunak on comments he made during this summer’s Conservative leadership campaign that any new development of onshore wind should be prohibited. He asked whether the prime minister will now “change his mind on that point”.

Sunak replied: “When it comes to energy policy, I stick by what we said in our manifesto. The important thing is though to focus on our long-term energy security. That means more renewables, more offshore wind and indeed more nuclear. That’s what this government will deliver.”

Shortly afterwards, Sunak was asked about fracking by Green MP Caroline Lucas, who said his  “reckless predecessor” had taken “a wrecking ball to nature”

She asked: “Yesterday, he promised to fix her mistakes as well as to uphold the party’s 2019 manifesto. So, if he is a man of his word, will he start by reversing the green light she gave to fracking since it’s categorically not been shown to be safe, and maintain the moratorium that was pledged in that very manifesto he promised to uphold?”

Sunak replied bluntly that “I’ve already said I would stand by the manifesto on that”. He went on to cite the government’s passing of the Environment Bill, with “more protections for the natural environment than we’ve ever had”. He said the government “will deliver on all these ambitions and we will deliver on what we said at COP because we care deeply about passing to our children an environment in better state than we found it ourselves”.

Following PMQs, a Downing Street spokesperson confirmed that the moratorium on fracking was now officially back in place.

It ends a brief revival in the fortunes of the technology, which had the strong support of the recently departed energy secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg. He suggested gas companies could “go around, door to door, as politicians do at elections and ask people if they would consent”. He indicated that if more than 50% of an identifiable community were in favour that would legitamise the project.

The Truss government suggested in early September that this approach could “get gas flowing in as soon as six months”.