Boris Johnson is facing a Tory revolt over the Government’s ban on fracking, with Lord Frost among more than 30 MPs and peers declaring the policy unconservative and stating that shale gas production would allow Britain to avoid future energy crises.

In a joint letter to the Prime Minister, the former Cabinet Office minister joined 29 MPs, including John Whittingdale, the former culture secretary, and Bob Blackman, the 1922 committee executive secretary, insisting that it is “time to reverse this moratorium”, which has prohibited the mining of shale gas since 2019.

The intervention comes after it emerged that Cuadrilla, the energy company, had been ordered to seal up two of England’s only viable shale gas wells, despite the energy crisis and ministers’ insistence on the need for Britain to rely less on gas imports from abroad.

Writing in The Telegraph, below, Francis Egan, the company’s chief executive, said: “Using domestic shale gas should be a no-brainer.”

On Saturday night, Lord Frost, Mr Johnson’s former Brexit negotiator, declared that reversing the ban would herald a “British energy renaissance”, telling The Telegraph: “If our economy is to boom after Brexit, British industry needs a competitive and reliable source of energy which we hold in our own hands and brings investment into this country. Shale gas production achieves all this and more.

“If we don’t produce it here, as we have seen, all we do is import gas from elsewhere, and push up overall carbon emissions too. So let’s reverse the moratorium on shale gas and let a British energy renaissance begin.”