Lifting of fracking ban not miracle solution, minister admits

A protester holds up a sign outside a fracking site in 2018, a year before the moratorium was imposed. Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters

Plans to increase shale gas supplies by ending the moratorium on fracking are not a “miracle solution”, the communities secretary has conceded, before plans to curb spiralling energy bills this winter are announced.

Simon Clarke said the government had to be pragmatic but added that community consent would “lie at the heart of our energy policy”.