Labour will attempt to force a binding vote on fracking on Wednesday, as Tory MPs mull backing a bid which would allow the opposition to put down a bill banning shale gas extraction.
The motion submitted by Labour for its opposition day debate is drafted to make it very difficult for the government to ignore the vote or allow mass abstentions.
Liz Truss, who pledged to lift the moratorium on shale gas extraction during her leadership campaign, is already facing a wall of opposition from Conservative backbenchers. Dozens of MPs have written to the business secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg, to express their opposition and raise concerns about the procedure for public consent.
Labour will attempt to exploit the divisions with a debate to guarantee parliamentary time for a bill to ban fracking. The binding motion will make it difficult for the government to abstain – which it routinely does in order to ignore opposition day motions.
The bill would be passed in a single day, drawing on a similar tactic that rebels used to pass the act preventing a no-deal Brexit, spearheaded by Labour and Conservative MPs including Oliver Letwin, Nick Boles, Hilary Benn and Yvette Cooper.
Voting for that motion, which allowed the opposition to take control of the order paper, saw Boris Johnson remove the whip from 21 Conservative MPs who had voted with Labour. A repeat of that risk is likely to be very worrying for anti-fracking Tory MPs.
A Labour source said: “Every single Conservative MP stood on a manifesto in 2019 to ban fracking, and they are now faced with a clear choice. Do they follow Liz Truss and her collapsing leadership into yet another disastrous decision, or do they stand against her in the best interests of the British people?
“We know that Tory MPs are privately terrified that fracking is unpopular in their constituencies. They know that fracking is unsafe, expensive, and dangerous. We urge Conservative MPs to honour their pledge and vote with us.”
The government has previously said that MPs will not get a specific vote on fracking and the moratorium has been lifted using a written ministerial statement.
Whipping MPs to vote against the measure will allow Labour to capitalise locally in MPs’ constituencies where there is concern about fracking.
Some MPs who feel more strongly about fracking have been in talks with Labour about whether to abstain or defy the whip, though one Conservative source said the tactic by Labour to effectively seize control of parliamentary business made rebellion less palatable.
Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary of state for climate change, is expected to say in the debate on Wednesday that Labour will withdraw its motion if the government guarantees its own vote on fracking.
A number of key government figures have previously voiced opposition to fracking, including the Cop26 president, Alok Sharma, the housing minister Lee Rowley and the Cabinet Office minister Brendan Clarke-Smith.
Others who have been vocally opposed to fracking include backbenchers Richard Graham, Mark Menzies, Greg Knight, Ruth Edwards and Mark Fletcher.
“Today, Conservative MPs have a simple choice: do they break the manifesto commitments they made to their constituents and allow the government to impose expensive, unsafe fracking on communities that do not want it, or will they support Labour’s ban on fracking once and for all,” Miliband said ahead of the debate.
He called Truss’s plans an “unjust charter for earthquakes” and said Conservative MPs “must now put country over party and support Labour’s ban on fracking”.
The motion calls on the government to introduce a ban on hydraulic fracking for shale gas. It names Tuesday 29 November as a day when precedence for government business “shall not apply” and calls on the leader of the opposition to present a bill concerning the ban.
