Britain is paying the price for its fracking panic

Between 1980 and 2005, the UK produced more energy than it needed. Today, we import more than a third of our energy and over half of our natural gas. Households are facing an increase in their annual tax bills from £1,500 to an eye-watering £3,000. While the Business Secretary may have tweeted this week that the current situation is a matter of high prices rather than security of supply, families already struggling to heat their homes are unlikely to tell the difference as they decide whether to heat their homes or pay for food.

This was never a foregone conclusion. A decade ago, the US shale gas revolution was well underway, with fracking creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and driving down gas prices. Household energy spending in America has fallen by around 15 per cent during the last ten years, even while helping drive a 20 per cent reduction in energy-related emissions over the past two decades.