Harriet Cross

What is important here is the reality and, as the Prime Minister said, being pragmatic. Some 24 million homes in the UK use gas, and that situation cannot change overnight. Whether or not we ban our own gas, that need does not change. The demand is what is important, not the supply. The demand is what will, or will not, dictate any sort of target or progression to other energy sources. I think the crucial question hanging over us in this debate is “Why?” Why is there a desire for a full fracking ban? Is it a concern about the environment—about seismic activity? Yes, I am sure that is part of it, but I expect it is more a continuation of the hostile attitude—an attitude to which we have become all too accustomed—towards UK oil and gas production. Let us put the merits of fracking as a means of production to one side. It cannot, or at least should not, be denied that the UK’s producing its own resources where at all possible—be they gas, oil, food, cement or steel; the list goes on—is a good thing. It is good for jobs, good for skills, good for investment, good for security of supply, good for industrialisation, and good for national security.