Vox Political: Tories Break Promise over Fracking near Drinking Water

Mike over at Vox Political also posted this piece, reporting Cameron’s broken promise about not allowing fracking near sources of drinking water. The article cites a piece by Friends of the Earth, who have received a leaked letter revealing that, despite having made pledges to safeguard water supplies, Cameron fully intends to ignore his promise and go ahead regardless. The article begins

“We know you don’t want fracking, but we’re not listening. And we know we pledged to stop fracking near drinking water, but we didn’t mean it.” Those are the messages from this Government, according to Friends of the Earth.

The article states: “A few weeks ago we learned – in a leaked letter – that the Government will help fracking companies no matter what. And it appears to be good to its word.

“Last week it ignored increasing public pressure to ban fracking in England. But it did pledge to prohibit fracking near drinking water sources – due to concerns about contamination.

“Roll on just one week and the Government is now fiddling with the law to make this pledge meaningless.

“MPs will now have to vote on whether to accept this u-turn. If they don’t block the changes, then fracking could take place in the areas that provide around one third of our drinking water. This would seriously risk contaminating the drinking water supply.”

Mike’s piece states that this follows the government supporting a series of motions to regulate fracking. Apparently this follows a counter-proposal, launched in the House of Lords Monday night by the Lib Dems’ Baroness Kramer. This new proposal significantly waters down Labour’s proposed measures, and allows the secretary of state to define what constitutes a ‘protected area’.

So basically, the Coalition have decided that the interests of the fracking industry outweigh environmental concerns, including the public’s right to have safe, clean water coming out of their taps. If the Secretary of State doesn’t think somewhere should be a protected area, even if it contains a reservoir and an environment bursting with biodiversity, with rare species a-plenty, then it won’t be a protected area.

And possibly just as scandalous is the fact that the news of this U-turn was only reported on the website, DeSmog UK.

As Mike says, this isn’t what the average Tory voter wanted, when they asked their MPs to place limits on fracking. But it is very clearly what the Tories and Lib Dems want.

Once again, in the Tories’ eyes, the interests of big business beats the small guy any day.

Mike’s article is over at http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/02/11/fracking-threat-to-drinking-water-from-underhanded-coalition/.

Tags: Baroness Kramer, Coalition, Conservatives, DeSmog UK, Drinking Water, Fracking, Friends of the Earth, House of Lords, Labour Party, Lib-Dems, Secretary of State, Vox Political