JACK Straw has warned David Cameron current compensation offers to councils and communities to accept fracking are not enough.
The Blackburn MP told the Prime Minister at Commons Question Time: “As someone who strongly supports shale gas extraction by fracking, your current package will not assuage local communities, which on a cross-party basis in Lancashire have treated these latest offers as near derisory? Why can you and the Chancellor not sit down with the cross-party Local Government Association and negotiate on its proposal for 10 per cent of revenues to be shared with local communities?”
Mr Cameron said: “I thought the proposal was that it should be 10 per cent of profits.
“My point is that one per cent of revenues, from the moment shale gas starts coming out of the ground, could well be a better offer.”
He said his proposals meant £100,000 when a well was dug, one per cent of revenues which could be £10 million, and full retention of business rates, which could be £2 million for a local authority.
In June a survey revealed shale gas resources under the M65 corridor across Hyndburn, Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale.
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