Jacob Rees-Mogg facing backlash from Tory MPs over decision to lift ban on fracking – UK politics live

Rees-Mogg facing a strong backlash from some Tory MPs over his decision to lift ban on fracking

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the business secretary, is facing a strong backlash from some Tory MPs over his decision to lift the ban on fracking, my colleague Peter Walker reports.

Immediate anger on the Tory benches from Mark Menzies, MP for Fylde, who says he is furious not to have been briefed about this in advance. Manzies asks what local consent will mean. Rees-Mogg pointedly dodges the question.

— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) September 22, 2022

Rees-Mogg has been asked twice more how ministers will decide whether there is local support for fracking. Again he dodges it, beyond saying fracking firms need to come up with “financial rewards” for communities.

— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) September 22, 2022

Quite a few worried Tory MPs. Sir Greg Knight says it’s impossible to predict seismic activity from fracking: “Is he aware that the safety of the public is not a currency some of us choose to speculate in?”

— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) September 22, 2022

I will post more on this shortly.

Key events

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Rees-Mogg angers Tory MPs by failing to promise local residents will get to vote on allowing fracking schemes

Jacob Rees-Mogg faced repeated criticism from Tory MPs in the Commons over fracking, particularly over what his claim that drilling would only go ahead with approval from local communities. Some MPs wanted an assurance that residents would get to vote on whether projects should go ahead. But Rees-Mogg refused to promise that. Instead he said it would be up to fracking companies to come up plans that would be welcomed by residents – which he said should involve people being compensated financially for the inconvenience they would face.

Mark Menzies, the Tory MP for Fylde in Lancashire, was particularly angered by Rees-Mogg’s claim that opponents of fracking were Luddites. (See 11.39am.) He said:

There is nothing Luddite about the people of Lancashire or of Fylde …

Can we be crystal clear on one thing? The prime minister at the Manchester hustings … made it crystal clear, no ifs, not buts, no caveats, that fracking would only take place in the United Kingdom where there was local consent. Crystal clear. So, if the prime minister is to remain a woman of her word, a woman that we can believe in, which I believe she is, can the secretary of state outline how that local consent will be given and demonstrated?

In response, Rees-Mogg said companies would work with communities to draw up plans they would accept.

Greg Knight, the Conservative MP for Derby North, told Rees-Mogg that the government should not be taking risks with safety. He said:

Despite what [Rees-Mogg] said, is it not the case the forecasting the occurence of seismic events as a result of fracking remains a challenge to the experts. Is it not therefore creating a risk of an unknown quantity to pursue shale gas exploration at the present time? Is he aware that the safety of the public is not a currency which some of us choose to speculate in.

Rees-Mogg said he disagreed. “It is all a matter of proportionality,” he said.

Scott Benton, the Tory MP for Blackpool South in Lancashire, asked Rees-Mogg for more detail of how the government would decide if a project had local support. And later Mark Fletcher, the Conservative MP for Bolsover in Derbyshire, said he was not impressed by Rees-Mogg’s comments on local consent. He said:

The local consent plans don’t seem to wash. It seems to come back to communities being bought off, rather than having a vote. Can the secretary of state confirm, once and for all, if local residents across Bolsover will get a vote to object to these schemes locally.

Rees-Mogg refused to give that assurance.

Paul Maynard, the Tory MP for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, also said he has assured local residents that their consent would be required before fracking projects went ahead. He went on:

Listening carefully to the secretary of state this morning, I have yet to hear any explanation of how local consent will be determined – indeed, an absence of any reference to local consent. Let me try once more; will my consituents be asked whether they want fracking or not?

Rees-Mogg says the companies would have to get local consent, and that would involve giving money to residents.

Rees-Mogg facing a strong backlash from some Tory MPs over his decision to lift ban on fracking

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the business secretary, is facing a strong backlash from some Tory MPs over his decision to lift the ban on fracking, my colleague Peter Walker reports.

Immediate anger on the Tory benches from Mark Menzies, MP for Fylde, who says he is furious not to have been briefed about this in advance. Manzies asks what local consent will mean. Rees-Mogg pointedly dodges the question.

— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) September 22, 2022

Rees-Mogg has been asked twice more how ministers will decide whether there is local support for fracking. Again he dodges it, beyond saying fracking firms need to come up with “financial rewards” for communities.

— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) September 22, 2022

Quite a few worried Tory MPs. Sir Greg Knight says it’s impossible to predict seismic activity from fracking: “Is he aware that the safety of the public is not a currency some of us choose to speculate in?”

— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) September 22, 2022

I will post more on this shortly.

Rees-Mogg accuses fracking opponents of ‘hysteria’ and ‘sheer ludditery’

In his response to Ed Miliband on fracking (see 11.27am), Jacob Rees-Mogg, the business secretary, said allowing fracking was “good common sense”. He went on:

It is safe, it is shown to be safe, the scare stories have been disproved time and time again. The hysteria about seismic activity fails to understand that the Richter scale is a logarithmic scale. It seems to think that it is a straight arithmetic scale, which of course it is not.

Bringing on this supply will bring us cheaper energy, which we need …

This is is of such importance, and it is sheer ludditery that opposes it.

Labour denounces Rees-Mogg’s ‘charter for earthquakes’ on fracking, saying it will do nothing to cut energy bills

Back in the Commons the urgent question on the energy package for business is over and Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary of state for climate change and net zero, has asked an urgent question about the decision by Jacob Rees-Mogg to relax the rules governing fracking. Here are his key points.

  • Miliband said lifting the fracking ban would not cut the energy bills. It would not, Miliband said, because gas was sold on the international market. He went on:

The current chancellor said so in February of this year, and I quote, ‘No amount of shale gas would be enough to the to lower the European price of gas.’

Even the founder of Cuadrilla said the secretary of state was wrong in an article published yesterday.

So first, why doesn’t [Rees-Mogg] admit the truth, that anyone who knows anything about this subject says his claim that fracking will cut bills is nonsense.

  • Miliband said the government had failed to provide evidence that lifting the fracking ban could be done safely – even though in their 2019 manifesto the Tories said they would only lift the fracking bank if it could be done safely. And he pointed out that, in his written ministerial statement on the subject today, Rees-Mogg says:

While HM government will always try to limit disturbance to those living and working near to sites, tolerating a higher degree of risk and disturbance appears to us to be in the national interest.

I look forward to [Rees-Mogg] and his colleagues explaining his charter for earthquakes to the people of Lancashire, Yorkshire, the Midlands, Sussex, Dorset and indeed Somerset [that they] will be part of his dangerous experiment. Let me tell the party opposite, we will hang this broken promise around their necks in every part of the country between now and the next general election.

He also said the announcement showed communities could never trust the Tories again.

The truth is, [Rees-Mogg] doesn’t get this, that you can’t escape a fossil fuels crisis by doubling down on fossil fuels. Renewables are today nine times cheaper than gas. The only way to cut energy bills with energy security is with zero-carbon, home-grown power, including onshore wind and solar, which his wing of the Conservative party hate and he continues to block.

Here is a link to the text of the full response from Prof Martin Marshall, the chair of the Royal College of GPs, to the health plan being announced by Thérèse Coffey. It will have “minimal impact”, the RCGP says.

In interviews earlier this week Liz Truss defended her plan to cancel the planned increases in corporation tax, saying that when corporation tax was cut, revenue increased. But at its briefing this morning the Institute for Fiscal Studies said cancelling the proposed increase would not pay for itself.

Catholics outnumber Protestants in Northern Ireland for first time

Catholics outnumber Protestants in Northern Ireland for the first time, a demographic milestone for a state that was designed a century ago to have a permanent Protestant majority, my colleague Rory Carroll reports.

Coffey denies being part-time health secretary because of deputy PM role

Thérèse Coffey is deputy prime minister as well as health secretary. Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain this morning, and responding to a question from the former Labour MP Ed Balls, who was presenting, she said that as deputy PM whould be would “chairing things like the home affairs committee and different elements like that”. But she rejected claims this meant she would be doing the health job part time. She said:

I’m conscious that in two weeks we’ve already pulled together our plan for patients and we will continue to develop that.

I don’t think it will be a case of being part-time … We don’t have fixed working hours.

Average earners £500 a year worse off in real terms than last year, says IFS

Most people will be worse off this year than last year, despite the huge package of support offered by the government to help with the cost of living crisis, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said.

In a briefing before the “emergency budget” tomorrow, the IFS researcher Xiaowei Xu said rising inflation meant people across the income spectrum would see their living standards fall in real terms. She said:

In real terms, we expect the median earner to be £500 worse off than they were last year, which is around a 3% net cut in their income.

High earners – but not very higher earners – will be more than £1,000 worse off which would be a larger increase in percentage terms. Lower earners and those out of work will be more shielded from the rising cost of living, both in cash terms and as a share of income.

Even after the government is spending vast amounts of money to protect households from the rising cost of living, most households would still see their living standards fall this year compared to last year.

UPDATE: Here are the figures.

But earnings and benefits not keeping up with rising inflation means that most households will still be worse off compared to last year.

The median earner (£29,000) will be £500 worse off in real terms, and many low-income households will still see falls in living standards. pic.twitter.com/euuEYzDXMY

— Institute for Fiscal Studies (@TheIFS) September 22, 2022

The SNP’s Stephen Flynn said it was good to see Jacob Rees-Mogg in the Commons, instead of standing by a pile of rubbish. He asked Rees-Mogg to confirm that companies such as Amazon would benefit from the plan announced yesterday, and he said Scotland, which produced more oil and gas “than we can possibly consume”, had been let down by Scotland.

In response, Rees-Mogg said he was reminded of what PG Wodehouse wrote about it being “not difficult to discern the difference between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine”. He did not address the point about Amazon.

England fracking ban lifted – with limits on seismic activity to be raised

The ban on fracking in England has been lifted, after Jacob Rees-Mogg called the current limits on seismic activity “too low” and admitted they were likely to be raised. My colleague Aubrey Allegretti has the story here.

Labour says government’s ‘fantasy economics’ is ‘threat to British businesses’

Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow business secretary, tabled the urgent question on the energy package. He said the government had failed to say how much the energy support package would cost. He went on:

This government says it can cut taxes, increase spending, increase borrowing and magically pay for that through higher growth that after 12 years in office has completely eluded them. This is fantasy economics and is a threat to British businesses and the financial stability of this country.

In the Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg, the business secretary, has just started answering an urgent question on the energy support package for non-domestic users he announced yesterday.

Before he began Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, said he was very disappointed that such an important statement was made to the media yesterday, and not in the House of Commons. MPs were in the Commons yesterday to swear oaths of allegiance to the new King. Hoyle said he would have allowed a statement.

Rees-Mogg says he did not think it was possible to have a statement on a day when MPs were swearing oaths of allegiance. That had not happened before, he said, and it did not happen in 1952, the last time there was a change of monarch.

Hoyle interrupted Rees-Mogg to point out that he could have asked. If they had had a conversation, Rees-Mogg would have found a statement was possible, he says.

The i’s Paul Waugh has the clip.

Hoyle channelling his inner headmaster.
“I am not angry, I am so disappointed.”

(Points out Rees-Mogg frequently complained as backbencher when ministers made announcements on TV before coming to the Commons). pic.twitter.com/PBg2MTZALc

— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) September 22, 2022

There are two urgent questions in the Commons this morning, before business questions and then the health statement from Thérèse Coffey.

Coffey refuses to say whether she thinks sugar tax has been successful

Here is a summary of the main things Thérèse Coffey said on health policy on her interview round this morning.

  • Coffey, the health secretary and deputy prime minister, said the target for patients being able to see a GP within two weeks was “an expectation”, rather than a firm guarantee. Asked on the Today programme whether this was a guarantee or a target or just an ambition, Coffey said it was “an expectation” that she was setting out on behalf of patients. Alastair McLellan, editor of the Health Service Journal, says the government appears to have over-briefed what was actually being announced.

Once again the Gov’s NHS plans are revealed to be less robust than the press briefings.

Gov press release yday said ‘GPs WILL see people in 48 hrs’

Pree reports that – with steer – as ‘MUST’

now @theresecoffey says it is an ‘expectation’

— Alastair McLellan (@HSJEditor) September 22, 2022

Coffey’s clarification may come as a disappointment to readers of the Daily Express.

  • Coffey said GPs could meet the two week deadline by offering a telephone consultation. Asked if the pledge meant patients would see a doctor face to face withing two weeks, she told LBC:

That’s open to the relationship between the GP and the patient I’m not going to be overly prescriptive. I know that some people enjoy just having a phone call, but may need to go in and see the doctor, I know that other patients are very keen in that regard.

  • She accepted that the NHS needed more doctors, but said the government had already set out a long-term plan to address this.

  • She sidestepped questions about whether the government is reviewing its anti-obesity strategy. (As Guardian readers will know, the strategy is being reviewed, on the orders of the Treasury; my colleague Denis Campbell revealed this last week.)

  • Coffey refused to say whether she thought the sugar tax – introduced to discourage people consuming soft drinks with a high sugar content – was working. There is evidence showing it has been successful, but Liz Truss is sceptical about government interfering with consumer choice, the cost of living crisis has made it harder to defend, and there has been speculation that her administration could axe the sugar tax too. When it was put to Coffey on the Today programme that most of her predecessors supported the measure, she said she had just been in the job for two weeks and was focusing on her plan for patients.

GP leaders say Thérèse Coffey’s NHS plan will make ‘no tangible difference’

Good morning. The House of Commons will be sitting properly again today and Thérèse Coffey, the new health secretary and deputy prime minister, will make a statement on plans to improve the NHS. Liz Truss has said that, at the start of her premiership, she wants to focus on three priorities: health, cutting taxes, and energy. During the Tory leadership contest Truss talked a lot about the second two topics, but she said almost nothing about her thinking on health policy. Her campaign sent out almost 50 press releases, but only one of them mentioned the NHS, and only three mentioned health.

Some aspects of the announcement have been briefed overnight, and Coffey will be setting out “her expectation that everyone who needs one should get an appointment at a GP practice within two weeks”. Older readers may remember that around 20 years ago the Labour government has a target for everyone being able to see a GP within two days, not two weeks – although it led to GPs refusing to book appointments more than two days in advance, and was later scrapped by the Tories.

My colleague Denis Campbell has a preview of the announcement here.

So far doctors’ leaders have been unimpressed – primarily because they say Coffey is not addressing the main problem, which is a shortage of staff for the workload they are facing.

Prof Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said:

Lumbering a struggling service with more expectations, without a plan as to how to deliver them, will only serve to add to the intense workload and workforce pressures GPs and our teams are facing, whilst also having minimal impact on the care patients receive.

And Dr Farah Jameel, chair of the British Medical Association’s GP committee for England, said in a statement:

The target of GPs now offering appointments within two weeks is simply another addition to a tick-box culture highlighting a tone-deaf government approach when it comes to those delivering the service on the ground.

GPs need to be freed up to deliver the care that we know patients so desperately need – that means we need a genuine strategy to address the workforce crisis. There simply aren’t enough GPs and staff to deliver the care our patients need and deserve.

Today’s GP workforce data shows that between August 2021 and August 2022 we lost the equivalent of 314 full-time GPs. We now have the equivalent of 1,850 fewer fully qualified full time GPs than we did in 2015, with 16% more patients per GP. We are losing more GPs than we can recruit and this combined with cost of living pressures is starting to spell the end of GP practices as we know them …

If the new health secretary had met with us before this announcement we could have suggested a workable strategy to address the unfolding crisis before us for this winter and beyond – instead we have in reality minor tweaks that will make no tangible difference to patients struggling to access care.

Coffey has been giving interviews this morning. I will summarise what she has been saying shortly.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: The Institute for Fiscal Studies holds a briefing on what is expected in Kwasi Kwarteng’s “emergency budget” tomorrow.

9.30am: Census data for Northern Ireland, including figures on religious affiliation, is published.

After 10am: Thérèse Coffey, the new health secretary, makes a statement to MPs about plans to improve patient access to the NHS.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

12pm: The Bank of England announces its decision on changing interest rates.

2.15pm: The CBI, the Resolution Foundation and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation give evidence to the Commons Treasury committee about the cost of living.

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source: theguardian.com