Transport Decarbonisation

Lord Oates Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, as I said, the Government do not want to set a demand cap because it sends entirely the wrong signal. We are anti-emission, not anti-flying. We believe there will be a rapid development of technology. The more we can set out our stall as to what our expectations are, the more we expect that development to increase.

[Lord Oates (LD) [V]]

My Lords, what assessment have the Government made of the potential for green hydrogen in decarbonising the maritime sector?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Lord is quite right. Hydrogen will have many uses, mostly where batteries simply cannot reach. That will include heavy road freight, maritime and aviation. Therefore, we are looking very closely at what we can do for the hydrogen sector as a whole. We are funding the refuelling network and demonstration trials. I would have thought that some of the £20 million for the clean maritime demonstration competition might well go to hydrogen projects. It is really important that we remain technology agnostic. We believe that hydrogen could have a key role to play.