Tory MP’s fury as shale gas sites are shut while ‘still useful’ amid energy crisis

ANGRY Tory MPs have blasted a minister’s claims that two UK fracking sites have reached “the end of their useful life”.

Energy giant Cuadrilla is due to concrete over its two wells in Lancashire next week.

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It has been ordered to do so by the Oil and Gas Authority in a ban on the gas extraction technique.

But MPs want that decision overturned and fracking to be given the green light again.

Energy minister Greg Hands told MPs late last week: “Gas wells need to be safely decommissioned at the end of their useful life.”

But Steve Baker hit back: “The minister’s suggestion that these wells are at the end of their useful life is outrageous. They are nowhere near the end of their useful life.

“They are ready to produce shale gas so we can create British jobs and tax revenues, energy security and a faster route to Net Zero.

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“The only thing that is causing a problem here is a state ban on British gas, and the state mandating that we pour concrete down Britain’s only shale gas wells at the height of an energy crisis.”

He was backed by fellow Tory Craig Mackinlay, chair of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, who said: “These wells haven’t even started their useful life! As we face possibly the most serious energy crisis in history, they could play a fundamental role in preventing British people from being put at the mercy of a volatile global gas market dominated by Russia.

“The only thing that’s useless is the moratorium on shale gas extraction and a bizarre Business Department instruction to concrete up our wells in the midst of a cost of living crisis, made worse by armed conflict in Eastern Europe. It amounts to nothing less than incoherent industrial vandalism.”

On Sunday, 34 MPs and five peers wrote to the PM to urge him to think again on fracking — saying the ban plays into the hands of the Kremlin as it stops the UK “following this path to energy independence”.