Paloma Faith, Dame Vivienne Westwood and other celebrities have snapped pictures of themselves with questions they want answered on fracking.
Musicians Duffy, Jools Holland and Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, chef Mark Hix and double Olympic gold medallist rower Andrew Triggs Hodge have also joined the campaign demanding concerns over fracking are addressed by politicians.
The pictures of the celebrities with their questions over the controversial process for extracting shale gas mark the launch of MyFrackingQuestions.org, a website which will allow the public to address questions to Energy Minister Matthew Hancock.
In her picture, Paloma Faith asks: “How can you be sure that our health will not be put at risk by fracking?” while Duffy asks Mr Hancock to attend a debate to address the public’s concerns on the issue.
Duffy said: “I would like to call for a national moratorium. A ’stop the clock’. No more intrusive fracking until we, as a country, can assess whether this is the most sustainable, economic and safest source of energy.”
The website is being launched by Talk Fracking, a campaign spearheaded by Dame Vivienne and her son, businessman Joe Corre, to raise awareness of fracking and the Government’s bid to push ahead with shale gas exploration.
Dame Vivienne said: “MyFrackingQuestions.org is asking the key questions that the public has told us they want answered definitively by the current government.
“We are acting now to empower the next generation, preventing them from having to deal with the potentially devastating effects of fracking should it go ahead in this country – from watching the economy crash to house prices nose-diving by 25%.
“This debate belongs to the British people but, without any solid and reliable information, they cannot take part in this most critical of conversations.
“Until these questions are answered and until there is open public debate, there can be no social licence and no democratic mandate.”
The Government has committed to going “all out for shale”, claiming development of the gas and oil resource is needed to improve energy security, boost jobs and the economy and bring down energy prices.
But opponents say it causes disruption and damaging development in the countryside, can cause minor earthquakes and the risk of water pollution, and that exploiting new oil and gas resources is not compatible with tackling climate change.