Hydrogen Supply Chains

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. It is also a pleasure to take part in a debate on energy in which there is such a cross-party consensus. It is very rare in debates on energy these days to get such agreement on the way forward and on what we should invest in. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) on securing the debate and the hon. Member for Worcester (Tom Collins) for his very able opening speech. It is also rare that we actually learn something in these debates, but I have learnt quite a lot this morning, which is a surprise.

The hon. Member for Worcester talked about the vitally important part played by gas in our energy system both today and moving forward, as well as blending, which is something we need a resolution to in the very near future, as I have heard in my discussions with National Gas and others. I urge the Government to make their decision on what the future might be as quickly as they can. That would be good for everybody.

The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) spoke about hydrogen buses. He was followed by the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) in talking about Wrightbus and the issues around refuelling hydrogen buses. That is something that my constituents know about only too well. The city of Aberdeen was the first city in the United Kingdom to have a fully hydrogen bus fleet. However, it has been off the road since July 2024 because of issues with the refuelling station and the lack of available alternative supply. Although there are significant issues that need to be resolved, the future could and should be very bright indeed for hydrogen-fuelled buses.

The hon. Members for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer) and Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about the opportunities across our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. They are absolutely right: every community, I suspect, has some industry, business or body involved in the development of hydrogen as a technology and energy source of the future. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) raised the important point about ammonia and fertiliser, which is not spoken about enough in these debates. We focus far too often on the energy use of hydrogen and not its added benefits.

I often speak about my own experience of the energy industry. Coming from Aberdeenshire, I have been surrounded by those working directly or indirectly in the oil and gas industry—it is inescapable. Where I am from, the importance of supply chains and economic value to local communities is obvious: everybody knows it, sees it in their high streets and hears about it from their family and friends employed in the sector. However, the oil and gas industry has not succeeded in telling that story beyond the north east of Scotland. In reality, 200,000 jobs across the United Kingdom are reliant on the oil and gas sector and supply chains. The industry touches every constituency in the country.

All that is to say that the conversation around the significance, impact and resilience of supply chains is vital. The future of hydrogen in this country is central to our decarbonisation is central to our decarbonisation ambitions and sustainable future, as well as our industrial future, but it is also shrouded in uncertainty. The commitment and investment in using hydrogen as a solution in hard-to-abate industries, heavy manufacturing, long-distance transport and high-temperature processes began under the last Government.

When we were in government, we kick-started the world-leading hydrogen economy and launched a hydrogen strategy and a 10-point plan. We recognised the significance of hydrogen to decarbonising and the importance to the economy of the supply chain across the country. That supply chain—from utilities to manufacturers, transport, distribution and storage, and from monitoring and control to the fabricators of fuel cell components, end users and decommissioning—plays a vital role in securing a future for hydrogen in the UK and adding value to local economies. We identified attractive opportunities for the UK supply chain on electrolysis package manufacturing, electrical equipment, materials manufacturing and more, with the UK supply chain capable of attaining a market share valued between £4 billion and £5 billion.

If the UK aspires to be a world leader in green technology, as I think we in this House agree we should, we must underpin that aspiration with a strategy to bring down industrial prices. The Government—indeed, any Government—should be ambitious for UK industry, as the Government say they are, in order to make industry in the UK great. This cannot be achieved without cheap energy and energy abundance, which can be secured with hydrogen. British industry cannot be competitive with expensive electricity and with businesses and manufacturers suffering under the burden of levies, as they currently are. We should bring down industrial prices, build new nuclear, eliminate levies on manufacturers and embrace energy abundance. Let us all agree to aspire to manufacture, innovate and export technologies that will drive the world closer to global climate solutions. Hydrogen is at the heart of that.

From steelmaking to shipping, hydrogen’s versatility makes this fuel an exciting prospect and component of our future energy mix. Yet major uncertainty is hanging over the system when it comes to whether hydrogen will be used for home heating. With a decision not due until 2026, the future of hydrogen remains somewhat in limbo. Regardless of the outcome when it comes to hydrogen for domestic heating, the gas grid remains essential. It could be repurposed to transport hydrogen to industrial clusters, power stations and transport hubs. We cannot and must not abandon this vast, valuable national asset. When it comes to distribution, pipelines, road tankers and even ships will be needed to move hydrogen. The existing gas grid could play a transformative role, if it is repurposed effectively.

From production to storage and from distribution to utilisation, hydrogen in the UK heralds a wealth of opportunity. It is incumbent on this Government—and, indeed, on any Government—to create a landscape where the manufacturing industry can thrive and profit and where domestic production capacity can grow. The hydrogen supply chain does not exist in a vacuum; it builds on the legacy of the oil and gas supply chain—the infrastructure, engineering expertise and global logistics that have powered the UK for decades. With the right approach from the Government, it will do so for many decades to come.

Energy Prices: Energy-intensive Industries

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

Grangemouth, the Luton Vauxhall plant and now the Moorcroft pottery in Stoke-on-Trent—every single week, we hear of more job losses in energy-intensive industries and more British companies shutting up shop and laying off workers because of the toxic combination of high energy costs and this Chancellor’s devastating jobs tax. We have the highest industrial electricity prices in the developed world. Just this week, INEOS told us in no uncertain terms that carbon taxes and high energy costs are killing off manufacturing in the UK.

This Government have been warned by Opposition Members, by the GMB this week and by Unite. This week, they were warned by none other than Tony Blair. What was their response? Advisers in No. 10 Downing Street picked up the phone and begged him to row back on what he said. They asked him to row back on what we all know to be true—what the Minister, Morgan McSweeney, apparently, and an increasing number of the Government’s own Back Benchers know to be true: the current approach to energy and net zero is doomed to fail, and voters are being asked to make financial sacrifices when they know that the impact on global emissions is minimal. That is at the heart of this madness.

This Government are wilfully destroying British industry in oil and gas, ceramics, chemicals and metals when they know that it will not make a difference to global emissions. We will not use any less oil and gas; neither will we use any less steel, cement, bricks or chemicals. We will just import those things from abroad, at greater cost to our economy and the climate and with British job losses added to the bargain. As the Government are led by an ideological zealot, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, and by a Prime Minister too weak to rein him in, we will continue down this path, and British workers will pay the price—in Aberdeen, in Grangemouth, in Luton, and today in Stoke.

Energy is not a silo; energy costs underpin growth, prosperity, competitiveness and living standards. Without cheap energy, our industries will not survive—British manufacturers cannot remain competitive—so what will the Minister do to prevent more British jobs being lost in energy-intensive industries in this country? Will she listen to the head of Unite, who says that working-class people are losing their jobs and that this Government have no plan to replace them? Will the Government end their mad ideological plan to shut down North sea operations? What will it take for Labour Back Benchers to wake up and realise that this ideological approach is crippling this country?

[Sarah Jones]

The Conservative party is hiding behind this new-found scepticism of net zero to conceal its complete failure to support and grow our foundational and manufacturing industries on its watch. On its watch, we lost 70,000 jobs in the North sea and 1,250 jobs in the ceramics sector, chemicals manufacturing fell by 30%, and we produced only 30% of the steel that we use in this country. The Conservative party’s record on this issue is shameful.

This Government have a completely different approach. We are developing the industrial strategy, which will support those foundational industries. We are looking to make sure we can reach net zero by 2030, in order to provide the economic and energy security we need. The last cost of living crisis was caused by our reliance on global gas prices, as the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) knows, and as he occasionally says in some meetings when he flips and flops on his position on net zero. We will support manufacturing; we are developing our industrial strategy, which will be published in a few weeks’ time, and we are already providing more support to the energy-intensive industries through the energy supercharger than the previous Government did. We will act where the previous Government failed to act.

North Sea Energy

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement.

Another day, another demonstration of this Government�s total ignorance of our oil and gas industry and the north-east of Scotland, their incompetence on the economy and their disregard for the hundreds of thousands of workers in our North sea, as well as their dangerous ineptitude when it comes to our energy security. No other country in the world, especially at a time of heightened global instability and volatility, would actively choose to aggressively and at pace shut down its domestic oil and gas industry, but that is exactly what this Government and in particular this Department, led by the eco-warrior in chief, are doing.

The consultation, announced yesterday, was trumpeted by Government spinners as the beginning of the end of the energy profits levy and a brave new dawn for the North sea. It is complete and utter rubbish. It is a total joke. The energy profits levy is higher now than it was before, because of the decisions of this Labour Government. The investment allowances have almost all been scrapped by this Labour Government. Crucially, the windfall tax is now in place for far longer�until 2030�because of this Labour Government. That is five years away, but the oil and gas industry does not have five years. Investment is drying up, and work is being put on pause. Companies are literally shutting up shop.

The truth is that the high-paid, good, long-term jobs that the Minister speaks of do not yet exist in renewables in the north-east of Scotland. People are leaving in their droves for other countries, such as the USA, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Norway, where the industry does have a future. She says we owe it to the North sea�s workers and communities to come up with a proper plan for their future, but this Government�s plan for the North sea is simply to shut it down. This Government�s plan is a betrayal of those workers. This Government�s plan will devastate the communities of the north-east of Scotland.

It is said that in every oil-producing country in the world you will find an Aberdonian. It turns out that the only country in which you will not find an Aberdonian working in oil in the near future is Scotland, driven by this mad rush to clean power 2030 and the Government�s obsession with renewables at the expense of everything and everyone else. It may be �Drill, baby, drill� in the United States, but it is �Dole, baby, dole� under Labour in the United Kingdom. The Government�s decisions will cost our economy some �12 billion in lost tax revenue to the Treasury, on top of the �12 billion in lost capital investment. This makes a complete mockery of their claim to be anything like pro-growth.

It is insanity to be doing all this to our own industry while becoming increasingly reliant on imports from abroad and causing more carbon to be released into the atmosphere: more imports of liquefied natural gas, fracked in the USA, frozen and then shipped across the Atlantic on diesel-chugging ships; or more imports from Norway, a net exporter, which is drilling from the very same sea from which we could drill ourselves. It is completely nonsensical. This Government are a complete joke, overseeing the wilful deindustrialisation of our nation. If the Minister will not take my word for it, perhaps she will take the word of the GMB leader, who said:

�In the new geopolitical reality�it�s madness. If the North Sea is being prematurely closed down and we are increasing import dependence�that�s bad for jobs, economic growth and national security.�

Or perhaps she will take the word of the general secretary of Unite, who said:

�we need to resist any calls that amount to offshoring our carbon responsibilities for the sake of virtue signalling.�

May I ask the Minister whether she has personally met any oil and gas workers since taking office, in order to understand what her Government�s policy means for them and their families, and whether the Secretary of State has done so? Will the industry receive an answer on the uncertainty surrounding the calculation of scope 3 emissions and environmental impact assessments? Given the announcement of �200 million to support the 400 workers affected by the closure of Grangemouth, how much does the Minister think the Treasury might need to find to support the 200,000 workers currently supported by the oil and gas industry? Does she agree with the Climate Change Committee that we will need oil and gas until at least 2050, and has she accounted for the higher carbon emissions associated with importing liquefied natural gas instead? Finally, let me ask whether she still sees the Department as a sponsor and a champion for the industry�because the industry certainly does not trust that to be the case.

[Sarah Jones]

The shadow Minister quoted trade union representatives, having not met them or supported them in government. That is always rich. [Interruption.] He says that he did; I stand corrected, although I suspect that he did not do it often. He quoted the general secretary of the GMB, so let me quote him back. The general secretary said:

�Tory ideology has left the UK vulnerable and exposed. Our Government stood by and exported the bulk of the jobs, closed gas storage and failed to invest in new nuclear and skills.�

I thank the shadow Minister for his questions, and I will come to them shortly, but I have to say that this is a fairly familiar story from the Conservative party: no acknowledgment of their failed record on the North sea, no acknowledgment of their having presided over the worst cost of living crisis in a generation, and no answers to the future challenges that our country faces. I remind the hon. Gentleman that it was his party that lost 70,000 North sea jobs in less than a decade. His Government were content for those workers to have to go around the world to find jobs, but this Government want to keep those talents here in the UK, which is why, unlike the last Government, we have a plan.

In my statement, I said that everyone accepts that the North sea is a declining basin. I do not know whether the shadow Minister understands the basic geology, but this is a super-mature basin, and the harder it becomes to drill for oil and gas, the less likely it is that people will be successful. Only one in 10 of the licences that have been offered and granted in recent years have ultimately led to any work.

The hon. Gentleman needs to establish what his party�s view of this agenda is. The hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), who is sitting next to him, had some very peculiar things to say in Westminster Hall yesterday, and it is unclear exactly what their position is. The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) was a Minister for the grid who opposed grid infrastructure, he was a Minister for solar who opposed solar power, and here he is now, the Minister for Aberdeen, campaigning against jobs and investment in his own community.

We are getting on with a plan for the future. First, we will invest in clean power. It is ludicrous that at this time when our bills depend on what Putin chooses to do and we have to respond, the shadow Minister is suggesting that we should do more of that. Even if there were no climate change, even if there were no push to clean power, if we drilled as much oil and gas from the North sea as we possibly could, it would amount to less than 1% of the global market and would have no impact on bills whatsoever.

We will give immediate support to workers�we have explained how we will do that�and we will support Scotland more widely. We will support Great British Energy in Aberdeen. We will support Grangemouth with �200 million from the national wealth fund. Harland and Wolff in Arnish and Methil has been saved from closure. Yesterday, the Port of Cromarty Firth received �55 million through the floating offshore wind manufacturing investment scheme. Twenty per cent. of the contracts in allocation round 6 of the contracts for difference auction are going to Scotland. We have hydrogen investment in Cromarty and Ayrshire. We have the biggest budget for the Scottish Government that we have seen. This is a party that is committed to supporting the people of Scotland, not overseeing managed decline.

Draft Environmental Permitting (Electricity Generating Stations) (Amendment) Regulations 2024

Andrew Bowie Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2024 General Committees

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to be here and to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers, for yet another Delegated Legislation Committee; it seems like we spend every Tuesday morning in these Committee Rooms, doing yet another DL. I am pleased to be here. Indeed, the regulations are the result of a consultation that launched by the Conservatives when we were in government back in March. It was encouraging to see the response published in October and to see the regulations brought forward today.

As the Minister has set out, the instrument introduces requirements for new combustion plants and for those being refurbished, including regulatory requirements for a new decarbonisation readiness report as a prerequisite for environmental permitting approval. It also requires new combustion plants be built with regard to how they could be decarbonised in the future—for example, by converting to hydrogen firing or retrofit carbon capture technology, under environmental permitting regulations.

As I said, we are very supportive of the regulations. In fact, I think we are all supportive of the growth of new technologies like carbon capture, usage and storage, and their potential to cut carbon emissions. For combustion plants, where it is economically and technically viable, the implementation of such technology should be considered. I note that no impact assessment has been produced as the regulations are not expected to impose significant costs to businesses. However, it is noted in the explanatory memorandum today that they are expected to have an economic impact on small and micro businesses affected by the change to the 300 MW threshold. We all want a future where small businesses can thrive—the Chancellor herself has said that growth is her No. 1 priority —so will the Minister provide more detail of what support might be made available to the small and micro businesses that feel this new burden on them as they seek to decarbonise along with the rest of the country?

This instrument is a sensible move, although we worry and have some reservations about its impact on small and micro businesses, and would be keen to see more detail about what engagement the Department has had with the Scottish and Welsh Governments. As it says in the explanatory memorandum, this is a devolved area—but decarbonisation is a UK-wide effort.

We have no objection to the regulations, so I will draw my remarks to a close.