- Bishop Hill blog

The news that the Scottish government has kicked the shale gas question into the long grass until well after the general election has elicited a pretty forthright response from one of the experts involved in the official review of unconventional oil and gas north of the border.

SNP ministers are deliberately misleading the Scottish public by pretending their fracking ban is about health and environmental concerns instead of political posturing, an expert they asked to research the controversial practice has said.

In a damning intervention, Professor Paul Younger, Rankine Chair of Engineering at the University of Glasgow, said the Scottish Government’s justifications for unveiling an indefinite moratorium on fracking were “all made up” and “completely feigned”.

Read the whole thing.

Update on Feb 2, 2015 by

Bishop Hill

Prof Younger has apparently posted the following in the comments to the Telegraph article:

Just for the record, re the following reported comment of Stewart Maxwell MSP: "... Mr Maxwell insisted the panel’s report did not provide all the evidence required but could not specify what was missing ... He claimed it did not address the public health impact but the interviewer pointed out this was tackled in the document. Pressed on his error, he then claimed that many experts disagreed with its findings ...".

The final line shows that, not abashed by having failed to read the report himself before the interview (otherwise he would have known its contents), Stewart Maxwell has now made up a story about disagreements from "many experts" disagreeing with our report's findings. Let me categorically state: no such disagreements from any scientist or engineer has been brought to the attention of the former members of the expert panel by the Scottish Government, and none have been directed to me, either publicly or privately. The "many experts" are therefore a complete fabrication on the part of Stewart Maxwell MSP. Shameful.