Carbon Capture and Storage

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) on securing this extremely important debate. I was trying to find something to disagree with him on, and I struggled to do so.

I am absolutely delighted, with my Teesside and Humber colleagues, that we will be at the forefront of Britain’s carbon capture, utilisation and storage plans as part of the east coast cluster. I have long made the case that Teesside should be the home of the first cluster, because it offers the best opportunity to decarbonise industry of anywhere in the UK. With the east coast cluster, as everybody now knows, almost 50% of the carbon emissions in the UK could be removed.

I set up the all-party parliamentary group on carbon capture, utilisation and storage about seven years ago, when it was not exactly fashionable to talk about it. We wanted to ensure that the Government recognised the importance of CCUS in achieving net zero. To her credit, the former Energy Minister Claire Perry got on board, but she was badly let down by her Government and the then Chancellor, George Osborne, who at the stroke of a pen the night before Budget day set the industry back several years. Had he not stripped away £1 billion pounds of funding that dark day, we would already have a maturing carbon capture and storage industry and a much cleaner environment.

However, we are where we are, and we need to get on with the job. The east coast cluster will make huge inroads in cutting emissions, and I am extremely pleased about the economic possibilities that the cluster presents for our area. We cannot afford for the Government to let us down again; we must ensure that this time we get the project over the line. There is simply no time left. Industries are already struggling and if further action is not taken soon, they will be unable to continue and we will fail to meet our environmental targets.

Earlier today I attended an energy-intensive industries roundtable on energy prices and listened to Debbie Baker from CF Fertilisers—the company in my constituency that found itself at the centre of the recent carbon dioxide crisis. It has huge energy costs, huge gas transportation costs and huge carbon costs as well. It desperately needs the Government to take action in those areas. I hope that the Minister will recognise that it will take a wee while before we get the CCUS infrastructure in place, so it is critical that other action is taken in the shorter term to ensure that we do not lose companies such as CF Fertilisers and those in other energy-intensive industries in my area and across the country.

The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire talked about keeping calm and carrying on, and that is critical. He covered the issue of spending and the need for the right funding regime, and I agree with him on that. I hope that the Minister will take some time to outline how the funding mechanism will work to give us that clarity. I am pleased with what the Government are doing. I will not get many pats on the back from some colleagues for saying that, but I am pleased because it will make a difference for Teesside. I hope that the Government will ensure they deliver on that this time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. My father worked for the Cummins engine company for 40-odd years. That was almost next door to the Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company, which has now gone to the wall. Does he agree that that was a great sadness, and that the Government let the company down?

[Peter Gibson]

I am grateful for that intervention. Having worked extensively with the administrators, local government and the unions in respect of Cleveland Bridge, I assure the hon. Gentleman that every step that could have been taken to save that business was taken.

In conclusion, Darlington and the wider Tees Valley were there at the beginning of the first industrial revolution. Once again, we are centre stage in the clean, green revolution as we stride towards net zero, which carbon capture is central to.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Hands]

I will deal with the points raised by the hon. Members for the Scottish National party before taking further interventions. As I say, this was a transparent process. We looked at the five criteria: deliverability, emissions reduction potential, economic benefits, cost considerations, and learning and innovation. Scoring was informed by robust, expert-led scrutiny of the cluster submissions, and the clusters selected to be sequenced as track 1 were those with the highest combined weighted score across the criteria.

Turning to the points raised during the debate, I praise my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire, first of all for his excellent introduction. I know he likes his history and his science, and he gave us a masterclass in both. He has been combining the two from the first time he took a call on this topic while on The Times news desk. He is right about the potential for the UK to be a CCUS superpower, given the UK’s geology, geography and economy, and the interaction between those three things. I also thank him for praising this Government for being more committed than any other.

We had a collection of fantastic contributions from Teesside to South Yorkshire. My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) praised the proposal and the role of the private sector. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Jill Mortimer); my very first ministerial visit in this new job was to Hartlepool. We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge, who I have already mentioned.

The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) has been full of praise for the Government decision. He is right that Teesside is delighted. Other Members have referred to Ben Houchen, the Teesside Mayor, who said:

“This project would create thousands of jobs and put Teesside at the forefront of the new green industrial revolution.”

May I correct the hon. Gentleman on one thing, though? It is popular in UK politics to kick George Osborne, but I have to correct the hon. Gentleman, who said that Claire Perry’s proposal was thwarted by George Osborne. I checked back, and Claire Perry became Energy Minister on 12 June 2017, a full year after George Osborne ceased to be Chancellor of the Exchequer.

[Alex Cunningham]

Will the Minister give way?

[Greg Hands]

I will not. It was also four days after George Osborne left the House of Commons.

[Alex Cunningham]

You are wrong.

[Greg Hands]

I can check back, and I can check with George, but I think the hon. Gentleman’s dates are not correct.

On the points raised by the Scottish National party Members, there was quite a bit of heat about this yesterday, and I really dislike the implication that the UK is making a political decision to favour one place in this country as compared with any other. This has been a transparent process, and we set out the criteria. They called it an arbitrary decision, and it definitely was not. We have been full of praise for the Acorn Project and we remain absolutely committed to track 2. The commitment is to two such projects by the mid-2020s and four by 2030.

Finally, the Carbon Capture and Storage Association called yesterday’s announcement “amazing news”.