By Enda Brady, Sky News Correspondent
Anti-fracking campaigners are calling on the Government to listen to concerns over environmental risks and climate change associated with the controversial technique, highlighted in a new report published today.
The cross-party Environmental Audit Committee warned that extensive production of unconventional shale gas, extracted by fracking or fracturing the rock with high-pressured jets of water and chemicals, is not compatible with the UK's goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The Committee has called for a moratorium on fracking and for it to be "prohibited outright" in protected areas such as national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty and ancient woodlands.
The report was welcomed by campaign groups fighting against fracking.
"It's critical that Westminster acts upon the wishes of the people who voted them in," Matt Bryan from Frack Free Dee told Sky News from their protest camp at Upton, near Chester.
"The evidence is clear and it's substantiated and politicians need to start listening to the evidence that's on the table and not the evidence that's pushed for a corporate agenda."
The Government has said it is going "all out" for developing a shale industry in the UK, claiming it would create jobs and growth, not to mention much-needed energy.
"We have one of the most robust regulatory regimes for shale gas," said a statement from the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
"UK shale development is compatible with our goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions and does not detract from our support for renewables."
Government adviser Professor Peter Styles added: "It's fairly understandable that nobody actually wants any disruption near their house, but I will ask them if you are not prepared to engage in the process of providing energy are you entitled to engage in the process of consuming it?"
Supporters of exploiting the unconventional gas also claim it could be a "transition" fuel helping move the UK from the most polluting fossil fuel, coal, towards a cleaner energy supply.
But the committee's chairwoman, Labour MP Joan Walley, said fracking could not be compatible with long-term commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions unless full-scale technology which captures and permanently stores carbon was rolled out rapidly - something which looked unlikely.
"There are also huge uncertainties around the impact that fracking could have on water supplies, air quality and public health," she said.
"We cannot allow Britain's national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty to be developed into oil and gas fields."
The report is published ahead of MPs debating and voting on the Infrastructure Bill, which includes measures to make it easier for energy companies to drill under people's homes without their permission and allows them to leave "any substance" deep underground.
To coincide with the final debate of the bill, which has seen a number of amendments on fracking tabled, a protest will be held outside Parliament, with speeches by Vivienne Westwood, Bianca Jagger, and former UK climate envoy John Ashton.
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