UK energy and climate change secretary Ed Davey says fracking can resume “subject to new controls to mitigate the risks of seismic activity”.

The controversial process was halted in 2011 after minor earthquakes in the northwest of England.

UK finance minister George Osborne is a robust supporter of a gas-friendly policy in the country's coalition government, a stance that has brought him into conflict with Davey’s own Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

The