Newbury MP Laura Farris suggests parts of Northern Scotland might be better fracking sites

Newbury MP Laura Farris has rowed back on what she has termed a ‘clumsy’ fracking gaff.

In a TV interview, she suggested that parts of Northern Scotland might be better sites for extracting shale gas.

She was asked if she was a supporter of fracking. Her Government is, believing it to be the answer to the UK’s energy security issues.

“Look it’s probably not going to happen in densely populated communities but I don’t know whether there are parts of – say – the northern reaches of Scotland where there would be appropriate sites,” she said. “And I wouldn’t discourage it if there were.

“It’s not something that’s going to happen in my constituency.

“But I understand that there are environmental concerns and I understand also that it won’t happen without local consent and I don’t think it is unreasonable when we are looking, with a greater urgency that we ever have before, at energy resilience in our own supply that we should at least explore whether or not there is more potential in shale gas.

“But I know that the communities who it does affect feel very passionately against it and I wouldn’t be able to support a policy that imposed it on an area where that view is held.”

There are currently no fracking sites in her West Berkshire consitutency, but it does border parts of Surrey, where there are.

Defending her position, she said: “I understand and respect the concerns and believe emphatically that it should never happen without community consent.

“The point I was making is that I accept that in many areas this will be the case, but was trying to say that if there are remote unpopulated areas where it could be safely explored with community consent I wouldn’t oppose.

“I was seeking to give an example of a remote area where communities don’t live. Perhaps clumsy to mention anywhere in particular. But I wasn’t advocating for it.”