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Households could be handed £1,000 to approve fracking in their area

A fracking site in Balcombe in East Sussex
A fracking site in Balcombe in East Sussex

Households will be offered up to £1,000 to approve provisional fracking in their area under a plan backed by Government ministers to secure local consent.

The proposal being floated is for companies that want to drill for shale gas to go door-to-door to convince residents to green-light the move.

Cash incentives could be offered, with exploratory drilling allowed to go ahead if more than 50 per cent of households in the local vicinity give their approval.

Should shale gas be found and removal is possible, companies would then offer those who own the land under which fracking takes place royalties to share in the proceeds.

The two-step idea is being explored in Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which oversees the policy area.

Liz Truss, the Prime Minister, overturned the moratorium on fracking last month as part of her push for the UK to become more energy independent.

Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine earlier in the year and President Vladimir Putin’s weaponisation of the gas supply to Europe have left prices soaring.

Critics of fracking warn of its negative impact on the environment and question whether it would ever really deliver a major increase in UK energy supply.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Business Secretary, defended the decision to lift the fracking ban earlier last month in the House of Commons.

Mr Rees-Mogg said: “It is safe. It is shown to be safe. The scare stories have been disproved time and again. The hysteria about seismic activity, I think, fails to understand that the Richter scale is a logarithmic scale. People seem to think it is a straight arithmetic scale, which of course it is not.”

Ed Miliband, the Labour shadow secretary for climate change, countered: “I look forward to him and his colleagues explaining his charter for earthquakes to the people of Lancashire, Yorkshire, the Midlands, Sussex, Dorset and indeed Somerset, who will be part of his dangerous experiment.

“Let me tell the party opposite: we will hang this broken promise round their necks in every part of the country between now and the next general election.”