To be honest though.........it could because the government has realised we may not need so much fuel in the future as the Electric car seems the way we are going don’t you think?
To be honest Beddy, I don't think the present government really knows which way is up, regarding what to do energy wise. All they do know is that when they allow more offshore wind farms, it works out fine. My gut feeling is that they know the decision to shut down Fracking will be popular, and that's all. An election is coming up and nobody, bar Cuadrilla, wants Fracking. So they've made a political decision. Not an environmental one. They can always bring it back, so they are not to be trusted.
On the clean energy front, Wind [especially], Solar, Nuclear, and other clean energy tech, is pushing down prices so hard that Fracking is becoming economically unviable. Even Natural Gas is coming under fire from renewables. The UK is fast becoming the biggest producer, per capita, of wind energy in the world, such is the pace of expansion. We could quite easily provide all our electricity from wind power, but that won't happen. Days of calm see to that, and batteries can't store a whole summer of energy needs. We will need more of them.
Indeed, the battery electric vehicle is where we are heading. Anyone considering buying a new car next year, to keep for 5 years, really needs to do some sums. The 2nd hand value of any FFV will be virtually nothing, whereas the used value of a BEV will hold up extremely well. The running/maintenance costs could hardly be more different - EVs dirt cheap, FFVs huge. Then there is the growing closing down of city access for FFVs. It's all happening out there.