Deeply controversial plans to 'fast track' shale gas fracking ought to be put on hold, because the intensive energy extraction is incompatible with the UK's climate change targets and could carry "significant" environmental and public health risks, according to an influential committee of MPs.

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The EAC report follows recommendations made by Lancashire County Councillors not to grant energy company Caudrilla permission to sink new wells in the county. The recommendations were made to the council's Development Control Committee. On Wednesday, Council officials meeting to discuss the proposed drilling opted to defer the decision after Caudrilla submitted new plans. The council decision will be delayed for at least two months.

Lancashire is at the forefront of the battle over fracking in the UK; late last year farmers on tractors descended on Preston County Hall to demonstrate against the government's drive for shale gas, which this week saw changes made to trespass law to allow companies access under landowners' properties without their permission. Though there were over 40,000 registered objections to the change, the controversial Infrastructure Bill was passed last year.

On Tuesday, Lib Dem MP Tessa Munt resigned as a parliamentary aide to Business Secretary Vince Cable over after having defied the party line and voted to suspend fracking in the country. Munt voted for a moratorium on shale gas, but she and her fellow rebel MPs were defeated by a large margin in Parliament.

Speaking ahead of the vote, Environmental Audit Committee Chair Joan Walley said the changes to trespass law which were passed in Parliament could "Allow companies to frack under people's homes without permission." She lambasted the government's legislative changes as "Profoundly undemocratic" and added that the "Are not supported by the public."

The Committee said that only a small fraction of shale gas can be burnt if leaders hope to keep rising global temperatures within a two degree range. MPs added that there are "Considerable uncertainties" about the hazards fracking poses to groundwater, airy quality, human health and biodiversity.

Though the government has repeatedly downplayed these concerns, communities near sites earmarked for fracking have fought hard to oppose drilling. Tony Holden, a farmer's son and agricultural engineer from Lancashire, expressed concerns over dangerous elements, which could be released from shale formations, as well as the proximity of Lancashire's wells to the Fylde Aquifer – the second most important underground reservoir in the country. He told Farming Online, "If the politicians now pushing for shale gas were held liable [for the potential ill effects], then fracking would simply not happen in this country."

Earlier this week, EAC chair Joan Walley said, "Ultimately fracking cannot be compatible with our long-term commitments to cut climate changing emissions unless full-scale carbon capture and storage technology is rolled out rapidly, which currently looks unlikely. There are also huge uncertainties around the impact[s] that fracking could have on water supplies, air quality and public health." 

Touching on the latest licensing round in July – in which the government green-lighted shale gas prospecting across huge swathes of the country, including under ten of England's 13 National Parks – Walley continued, "We cannot allow Britain's national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty to be developed into oil and gas fields. Even if a national moratorium on shale drilling in the UK is not accepted there should be an outright ban on fracking in such special sites."

The EAC rejected as "unacceptable" the government's current plans to allow fracking companies to handle the safety monitoring for their own wells and said that, if fracking goes ahead, companies must be made to disclose all the chemicals contained in the fracking fluid used in the process, and the risks they pose. Currently the fluid is protected as a trade secret.