Simon Clarke said the government needed to be realistic, but added that community consent “will be at the heart of our energy policy”. He defended the decision not to impose a further windfall tax on oil and gas companies to pay for the long-awaited package, to be announced later on Thursday morning by Liz Truss. The Guardian understands that an immediate lifting of the ban on fracking for shale gas will be ordered when the Prime Minister makes her announcement. In a major shift in tone from Boris Johnson’s administration, Clarke also told people to be “disciplined” about their energy use this winter, saying the public can play a role “to help keep prices down energy at low prices and to preserve our energy reserves”. The support package to prevent millions of people from being impoverished by October’s energy price hike is estimated to cost the taxpayer £130 billion as Truss faces a worsening cost of living crisis. Clarke declined to pre-empt her announcement, but said fracking was “something the Prime Minister will be talking about in her statement today.” Kwasi Kwarteng, now chancellor, said months ago when he was business secretary in the previous government that fracking “would take years of exploration and development before commercial quantities of natural gas could be produced for the market and would certainly have no effect on prices in the near term.” . Clarke said it was “absolutely correct to say that this alone will not change the economics of energy”, but insisted it was not true that ending the fracking moratorium would make no difference to gas prices. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There is a middle ground here where we can be realistic that taking more gas from all sources makes sense to do if there is community consensus. But we are not going to have miracle solutions to the challenges we face.” Clarke added that “we need natural gas from all sources as part of our transition to net zero” and accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to “weaponize” energy to “break the resolve of the West”. Defending the decision not to impose a further windfall tax on offshore oil and gas companies despite reporting huge profits, Clarke said they were already paying “their fair share” and imposing a further levy would curb investment and growth . He promised that the package to be announced by Truss would provide “comfort and clarity”. Martin Lewis, who runs the Money Saving Expert website, said there now appeared to be the “political will” to tackle the issue of spiraling energy bills and described it as a “radical change of policy” by the Johnson government. He said the reported plans weren’t perfect, but he hadn’t seen any solutions that were, adding that tens of millions of people would “breathe a sigh of relief”. Clarification was needed from the Government on whether extra payments would be made for those on benefits and with disabilities, Lewis said, adding that the £400 universal payment – if not reintroduced next winter – would still mean “min aid’ for households in 2023. Lewis also called for anyone who switched to a fixed rate because of a previous lack of help to be allowed to stick to the “government subsidized energy tariff” without facing exit penalties. Ed Miliband, the shadow business secretary, said the refusal to impose a windfall tax on the excess profits of energy companies had been done “purely on the basis of doctrine”. He added: “This investment argument is completely bogus, that it would have a devastating effect on business.” Long-term fixed-price contracts will “lock in” huge profits for energy companies for years to come, Miliband said.
