ONE of the region’s MPs clashed with David Cameron yesterday, when she said her constituents were “worried” about fracking for shale gas.

Anne McIntosh, the Thirsk and Malton MP, called for tougher regulations before wells are dug in North Yorkshire and elsewhere – warning of “all sort of potential dangers”.

But the Prime Minister argued fracking was safe and instead called for “myth busting”, telling his fellow Conservative: “Arguably, we are making it too complicated.”

When Miss McIntosh said people were being asked to “take an awful lot on trust”, an irritated Mr Cameron hit back, saying: “No, I’m not asking them to take it on trust.”

That prompted the North Yorkshire MP to say: “With the greatest respect Prime Minister, it’s not coming to Witney anytime soon.” But Mr Cameron replied: “I would be quite happy if it did.”

The clash came as Miss McIntosh, who has been deselected by her constituency party, grilled the Prime Minister as chairwoman of the Commons environment committee.

The Government is impatient for rapid progress on fracking - confident that opposition will fall away when the first wells are up and running, probably next year.

But Miss McIntosh – whose constituency contains many of the dozen licences for possible fracking already issued to gas companies in this region – raised the alarm over:

* Self-monitoring by fracking companies – of earthquakes triggered, or water quality.

* Those companies digging one mile underground, entering horizontally, saying: “No-one has tested this before.”

* No firm requirement for water companies to be consulted – when they would be carrying contaminated water “by pipes that freeze in North Yorkshire”.

* A fracking report published by the department for the environment which had “63 redactions in 12 pages”.

Miss McIntosh said: “What I’m worried about, and the public is worried about, is the self-monitoring of the regulatory system.”

The MP pointed out that deep well fracking was a new technology, saying: “The only time it took place it went disastrously wrong.”

But Mr Cameron said fracking companies had to jump through an “enormous amount” of hurdles, telling the committee: “I don’t believe this is an industry in danger of under-regulation.”

He said: “This will only be won or lost when we there are wells, in Britain, carrying out unconventional gas recovery and people can see that this can be done cleanly.”

And he told Miss McIntosh: “It doesn’t sound like you’re very keen on shale gas. That’s the conclusion I’m taking - and you don’t sound very open to persuasion.”

Mr Cameron said fracking would only be allowed in national parks in “exceptional circumstances”, but admitted: “We have not really said what they are.”

Thumping the table, he also vowed a tough stance on wind farms, saying: “The public are fed up, frankly, with so many onshore wind farms being built…enough is enough.”