Small-scale Fracking Ban

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alison Hume]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend that Reform’s plans are a threat to our beautiful countryside, and our constituents do not want them.

Europa’s plans have been widely opposed by the local community. In response, campaigners launched a petition that has garnered more than 10,000 signatories calling for a Government ban on small-scale fracking. Fracking—short for “hydraulic fracturing”—is the process of injecting fluid at high pressure into an underground rock formation to release the gas or oil inside.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for securing this debate. The Government must commit to ensuring that local people have the final say. In terms of buying property or businesses in a certain area, fracking should be unable to go ahead without the say-so of the entire local community and the Government must abide by that decision. Does the hon. Lady agree?

[Alison Hume]

I completely agree with the hon. Member. We must listen to our local communities, who are telling us loud and clear that they do not want fracking on their back door, in their beautiful fields or in the countryside.

Since 2019, there has been a moratorium on fracking across the UK—a decision taken after Lancashire was rocked by an earthquake caused by fracking operations at Preston New Road. However, not all forms of fracking are currently covered by the moratorium. The Petroleum Act 1998 uses a fluid-based definition for fracking. Section 4B(1)(b) describes it as

“the injection of…more than 1,000 cubic metres of fluid at each stage, or expected stage, of the hydraulic fracturing, or…more than 10,000 cubic metres of fluid in total.”

The volume of liquid proposed for the Burniston site is under that threshold, so despite the intent of the plans being exactly the same—to explore for and to extract gas by injecting a substance into the rock at pressure to cause it to fracture—the current legislation actually allows Europa to do exactly what the moratorium should be there to block. It is clear that the volume-based definition has created a legal loophole for oil and gas companies to evade the Government’s ban on fracking and proceed to do so under a different name—in this case, “proppant squeeze”.

The Burniston application is not the first time that planning permission has been sought in England for proppant squeeze. Between 2016 and 2019, Egdon Resources applied several times and was eventually granted planning permission for a proppant squeeze in north Lincolnshire, with a hydraulic fracture plan approved in May 2021. In November 2024 another company, Rathlin Energy, also applied to the Environment Agency for permission to carry out similar work at West Newton, an oil and gas site in East Yorkshire.

There is no evidence that the volume of fluid used can accurately determine the risk of seismic events. However, the volume of fluid proposed for use at the Burniston site in my constituency surpasses the highest daily fluid amount in the week leading up to the 2019 earthquake that triggered the existing moratorium. Seismologists have warned that our country’s geology responds unpredictably to even small injections, under- scoring that any fracking has risk, regardless of fluid volume.