Chancellor’s list of requests, including responding to ‘asks’ from Cuadrilla, laid out in letter to cabinet colleagues

George Osborne has requested that ministers make dozens of interventions to fast-track fracking as a “personal priority”, including the delivery of numerous “asks” from shale gas company Cuadrilla.

The list of requests are laid out in a leaked letter to the chancellor’s cabinet colleagues. They include interventions in local planning, and offering public land for potential future drilling. Anti-fracking campaigners claim the letter reveals collusion with the industry, while Labour said it showed the government was an “unabashed cheerleader for fracking”.

The revelations come on the day of a Commons vote on fracking – the first MPs have had on the issue – and just hours after an influential cross-party committee of MPs published a report calling for a fracking moratorium because of potential risks to public health and climate change.

The UK’s first planning applications for full-scale fracking are also set be decided this week, with Lancashire county councillors to begin deliberations on Wednesday – having already been advised to refuse the proposals by planning officials.

David Cameron has said the government is “going all out” for shale gas in the UK, claiming it would create thousands of jobs, benefit community investment and cut reliance on imports. But opponents argue that high-pressure fracturing of rocks to release gas risks health and environmental impacts and will undermine the country’s climate change goals.

In Osborne’s six-page letter, dated 24 September, to the high-level cabinet committee on economic affairs, the chancellor demands “rapid progress” on “reducing risks and delays to drilling” from Ed Davey, Eric Pickles, Vince Cable, Liz Truss and other ministers.

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Top of the list is to “respond to the asks from Cuadrilla”, the company intending to frack in Lancashire. The “asks” include contacting the Health and Safety Executive and Lancashire county council about planning applications, and the Ministry of Defence over granting Cuadrilla trucks access to military land. In his preamble, the chancellor writes: “I expect to see rapid progress” on the recommendations.

The letter, leaked to Friends of the Earth and seen by the Guardian, also includes moves to enable full shale gas production in future, such as ensuring that Pickles, whose communities department oversees planning, can “at his discretion” take the power to overrule planning decisions.

Osborne asks for improvement in public relations by, for example, building on an “existing network of neutral academic experts available to provide credible evidence-based views”. He has already committed £5m of taxpayer funding to providing independent advice to the public. Osborne also envisages “demonstrating the concept” of safe fracking by “focusing on a small number of sites in less contentious locations” including “public sector land (particularly MOD owned)”.

Friends of the Earth campaigner Tony Bosworth said: “This letter shows government and industry working hand-in-glove to make sure fracking happens. Such collusion with a highly unpopular industry will just make fracking an even more politically toxic issue. The government should follow other countries and call a halt so we can assess the risks to the environment, people’s health and our climate.”

Tom Greatrex, Labour’s shadow energy minister, said: “Cameron and Osborne have repeatedly ignored genuine and legitimate environmental concerns – they seem prepared to accept shale gas at any cost, and this letter demonstrates that to be the case. Osborne’s shale gas wishlist reveals a Tory government that wants to halve the number of public consultations, turning the government into an unabashed cheerleader for fracking rather than adopting a robust and evidence-led approach.”

A Treasury spokeswoman said: “The Treasury and government speak with a wide range of stakeholders to inform policy.”

The government’s all-out drive to kick-start shale gas exploration received a significant blow on Monday from an influential cross-party committee of MPs, which published a report demanding a halt to all fracking. Joan Walley, chair of the environmental audit committee (EAC), said: “Fracking cannot be compatible with our long-term commitments to cut climate changing emissions unless full-scale carbon capture and storage technology is rolled out rapidly, which currently looks unlikely. There are also huge uncertainties around the impact that fracking could have on water supplies, air quality and public health.”

Walley, former Tory environment secretary Caroline Spelman, and six other EAC members will attempt to instigate a moratorium during Monday’s votein the Commons. Walley also criticised ministers’ plans to allow fracking in nature reserves and to change trespass laws to allow companies to frack under people’s homes without permission. “This is profoundly undemocratic,” she said.

A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: “We disagree with the conclusion of the EAC report. We have one of the most robust regulatory regimes for shale gas. UK shale development is compatible with our goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions and does not detract from our support for renewables, in fact it could support development of intermittent renewables.”

The EAC report was criticised as “rushed” by Ken Cronin, chief executive of industry body UK Onshore Oil and Gas. “Calling for a moratorium achieves only one thing – increasing the gas coming from outside the UK at a substantially higher environmental cost and with significant economic consequences,” he said.

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The Labour party will also attempt to block all fracking unless 13 regulatory “loopholes” it has specified are closed, including allowing companies to drill in areas where drinking water collects and to inject “any substance” into the ground.

Greatrex said: “The potential [energy security] benefit cannot come at the expense of robust environmental protections or our climate change commitments. Labour will force a vote on Monday to prevent shale gas developments in the UK unless these loopholes are closed.”

Professor Jim Watson, research director of the UK Energy Research Centre, said: “Public trust in regulations is absolutely essential if shale is to play any significant role in the UK. This may not require a blanket moratorium, but it may mean delays to licensed shale gas activities to allow monitoring to be carried out.”

Climate scientist Prof Kevin Anderson, at the University of Manchester, said: “With unequivocal scientific evidence that burning fossil fuels is the principal cause of [climate change], the EAC’s conclusions are a beacon of light in a sea of expedient half truths.”

But petroleum engineer Prof Quentin Fisher at the University of Leeds, said: “It is disappointing to see a government committee putting the ill-informed views of anti-fracking groups ahead of evidence-based scientific studies.”