One of the most controversial of the Governments new proposals has been the return of fracking to the main stage. We’ve written about it multiple times recently, including a cautionary note from two weeks ago where we noted with some alarm the Government’s apparent attempts to cut consultation out of the process. On Wednesday afternoon, the opposition Labour Party scheduled a debate to push for a bill to outlaw fracking in the UK, in an attempt to put the views of Conservative MPs (not all of whom have been supportive of the practice) on record.

In order to try and head this off at the pass, the Government has decided to run a consultation. The consultation, in many ways, is about consultation. Since coming to office, the Government has consistently stated that fracking projects would only be allowed where there was local consent to them. As we highlighted in early September this might well have proved a challenge given the scale of local opposition to such developments.

It would seem, after the brief diversion into how they could get round consultation requirements, the Government might have realised what a tricky… er… prospect… the whole thing is. And so, on Wednesday evening, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy announced that there would be a consultation on what exactly ‘local consent’ meant.

Speaking in the House of Commons (and we will not be discussing what happened after…), Jacob Rees-Mogg announced a consultation on “ensur[ing] there is a robust system of local consent” which “must consider how the views of regional mayors, local authorities and parishes should be reflected as well as the immediate concerns of those most directly affected”. When questioned, he indicated that the consultation would contemplate the potential for local referendums, and that ultimately, local communities would have a veto on fracking projects.

So what can we take from the statement? Firstly, it’s difficult not to see it as a consultation being used to kick a difficult decision into the long grass. We’re not generally fond of this sort of thing, it smacks a little too closely of consulting with a lack of genuineness, but, taking this on face value, it should be a very interesting exercise.

Fracking proposals generally fall under the ‘major infrastructure’ bracket at the moment, a place where there are already well developed, widely supported, and generally solid consultation and engagement principles and requirements. We were at a conference about them the other week, and one of the core takeaways was how well they work to help ensure public participation and perceived legitimacy of projects.

Whilst we will have to wait for the actual proposals in the paper, it will be interesting to see how they relate to the pre-existing systems for similar-scale projects. We’re not sure that it’ll be easy to find much better, and the proposals to include potential referendums and local vetoes on fracking projects would only make it more difficult for potential frackers to proceed with projects- a challenge for the Government who are seeking to make fracking a key plank of the energy security programme for the future.

This latter point also raises another interesting question. If the Government is dead set on fracking as a part of the programme, then how will they handle a consultation that will likely conclude in a way that frustrates these ambitions?

Another point of interest is that the Secretary of State stated that any process for indicating consent must be run independently, rather than by the proposing companies. Whilst many consultors do hire external agencies to undertake their consultations for them, it would be fascinating to see how this would be enforced legislatively, and what impact this might have on challenges to any engagement processes done under such provisions.

With so many interesting ideas being thrown around, and all the complicated local, national and party politics around the question of fracking, this exercise should be a must-watch. We’ll certainly be watching out for it eagerly- we’ll let you know our thoughts when we see it.

ED: The author would like it to be known this was written at 11:00 on Thursday morning. We’re assuming it’s still valid.