Hydrogen Energy

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I would be very interested in speaking to the noble Baroness’s contact in heat batteries; I have also met a number of heat battery manufacturers. For those who have not come across it, it is a great growth industry in the UK and a fantastic technology. There is one particularly good company up in Scotland that I visited recently. I am not sure what extra clarification we could provide that would help her contact. We have said—indeed, I said it in my Answer—that heat pumps, heat networks and electrification will be by far the vast majority of the decarbonisation of home heating in the UK. If hydrogen plays any role at all, it will be only a very tiny one.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My noble friend just stated that hydrogen is going to play a very minor role. How is it that, on the continent, hydrogen is playing an increasing role in the domestic markets there? Is he not aware that British Gas has done extensive testing, with varying mixes of hydrogen, and that so far all has gone well with those tests? Why now are His Majesty’s Government kicking hydrogen into the long grass and telling the British consumer that it is basically heat pumps or maybe electrification?