Prime Minister Liz Truss has announced that the ban on fracking will be lifted as part of plans to speed up the UK’s domestic energy supply.
Ms Truss said lifting the moratorium, introduced by the Conservatives, would allow developers to apply for planning permission for fracking and get gas flowing as soon as six months.
Ms Truss said she was “setting a new ambition for our country”.
Truss Condemned Over Energy Ad: Live Updates
“Far from being dependent on the global energy market and the actions of malign actors, we will ensure that the UK is a net exporter of energy by 2040,” he said.
Fracking is a technique for recovering gas and oil from shale rock by drilling into the ground.
It was banned in England in 2019 after new research raised fresh fears about the risk of earthquakes.
The Tory’s manifesto said the party would not support fracking “unless the science shows categorically that it can be done safely”.
Ms Truss said it would only be allowed “where there is local support”.
But Georgia Whitaker, an oil and gas campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said there had been no change in the science since that pledge was made three years ago.
The campaigner said that before the ban was introduced, the industry had been experimenting with fracking for 10 years but it “didn’t produce any energy for the UK”.
He said all he got was “two holes in a muddy field, traffic, noise, earthquakes and a huge controversy”.
Image: Prime Minister Liz Truss presents her energy plan
He added: “Communities who have been inflicted with this nonsense in the name of an outdated ideology will wonder who their elected representatives really represent.”
Why is fracking controversial?
Fracking has been surrounded by controversy since it hit the headlines in 2011 for causing two minor earthquakes in Lancashire.
Environmentalists have warned that the search for new sources of gas, a fossil fuel, is not compatible with efforts to tackle climate change, and the focus should be on developing cleaner energy sources such as renewable
The government is under pressure to increase domestic energy production after the war in Ukraine has pushed up the cost of energy.
But in March, Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng argued that those calling for the return of fracking “misunderstand the situation we are in”.
The then business secretary said it would take a decade to extract sufficient volumes and would have a negative impact on communities without reducing energy bills.
He wrote in the Mail on Sunday: “With the best will in the world, private companies will not sell the shale gas they produce to UK consumers below market price. After all, they are not charities.”
Use the Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
0:23 Shadow climate change secretary says government is ‘turning its face against renewables’
Ed Miliband, the former Labor leader and shadow climate minister, said lifting the moratorium was “another case of ideology overriding common sense”.
He told Sky News that the price of fracking gas extracted in the UK would still cost the same as imported gas because it is sold on the international market and “is nine times the current price of renewables”.
“There is only one way to get out of the hands of the geopolitics of Putin and others and that is a clean energy sprint,” he said.
“I’m afraid the government seems to be turning its back on this.”
Read more: The five big unknowns about Liz Truss’s energy plan. How much will your bills be after the Truss energy plan is revealed?
As well as lifting the ban on fracking, Ms Truss pledged to launch a new licensing round for oil licenses while accelerating the deployment of clean and renewable technologies.
He said securing energy supply is vital to growth and prosperity “although it has been ignored for too long”.
It also revealed it would protect households from rising costs by freezing energy bills at £2,500 for the next two years.