THE government’s latest plans to offer individual payments or ‘bribes’ to households to accept fracking on their doorsteps underlines the destructiveness of current energy policy.

It also demonstrates just how desperate the Tories are to force fracking through come hell or high water.

These plans may appeal to the corporate interests of the fossil fuel industry but they ride roughshod over public opinion and our chances of securing a safe climate for current and future generations.

Any attempt to start a new fossil fuel industry in this country is completely inconsistent with commitments made at the Paris Climate Talks in November.

We have also seen from the US that fracking results in the release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

These latest plans could prove deeply divisive, setting household against household and causing tension in communities.

This misguided policy demonstrates again that the government has no strategic energy policy and is a worrying indication of the failure of commitment to tackle climate change, demonstrated by Teresa May in her abolition of the Department for Energy & Climate Change (DECC).

Surveys suggest that only 19 pre cent of people in the UK support fracking, compared to 81% who support investment in renewables.

I would urge readers to write to their local MP and ask them to call on Theresa May to abandon plans to frack our countryside.

Molly Scott Cato MEP

Member of the European Parliament for the South West & Gibraltar