Labour urges Tories to back vote on fracking ban

The government lifted the ban on fracking in England last month

Labour has called on Tory MPs to "put country over party" and back its push for a vote on banning fracking.

The party wants to use a vote in Parliament on Wednesday to force the introduction of a draft law to ban the extraction of shale gas.

Last month, the UK government ended the fracking ban in England as part of its plan to limit rising energy costs.

Now Labour says it wants to give MPs a chance to overturn the decision, which broke a 2019 Tory manifesto promise.

Last week, some Tory MPs told the BBC they were talking to opposition parties about ways they could block the government's fracking plans.

Labour sources said the party had spoken to some Tory MPs who were willing to work together on opposing fracking.

Wednesday's vote is the first parliamentary test of the government's fracking plans, but is unlikely to be successful given the size of the Conservatives' majority.

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Fracking is a controversial practice that involves drilling into the earth to recover oil and gas from shale rock.

Fracking was halted in 2019 following opposition from environmentalists, and local concerns over earth tremors linked to the practice.

With energy prices rising, Prime Minister Liz Truss's government has backed fracking as a way to boost the UK's domestic gas supplies.

When lifting the ban last month, the government said fracking would only resume where there is local consent.

Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg has told MPs that residents living near fracking sites would be "compensated".

But is it not clear how local consent would be obtained, nor the extent to which extracting shale gas would lower energy bills in the UK.

New fracking projects could take years to come online and face stiff resistance at a local level.

As it stands, the government is not expected to give MPs a vote on banning fracking.

But on Wednesday, Labour will use an opposition day debate to push for such a vote in the House of Commons.

The party will put forward a motion which seeks to make time to table a bill that would ban fracking for good.

While an opposition day motion would not be binding, if it was backed by enough Tory MPs it could be used to show a lack of support for fracking in Parliament.

One Labour source said MPs in areas impacted by fracking "will have to consider their constituents before they troop through the lobbies".

Shadow climate change secretary Ed Miliband said the motion gave Tory MPs a "simple choice" between banning fracking and allowing the government to "impose" the practice on communities.

He said Labour was "standing up to Liz Truss's unjust charter for earthquakes", arguing "fracking would make no difference to energy prices".

"Every Conservative MP who opposes fracking must now put country over party and support Labour's ban on fracking," he said.

Fracking for shale gas in the UK has only taken place on a small scale, and faced several public and legal challenges.

The 2019 Conservative manifesto pledged not to lift England's ban unless "the science shows categorically it can be done safely".

A Government-commissioned report by the British Geological Survey (BGS) suggested more data was needed, saying forecasting tremors related to fracking "remains a scientific challenge for the geoscience community".