Powering Up Britain

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

It was my great pleasure to be hosted by the hon. Gentleman at Strangford lough and to hear all about the potential strengths of the tides. I am delighted to see the growth of tidal energy. For offshore wind, it took quite a while to build up what was a nascent market. People said that we would never be able to lower costs offshore, yet we did. I think that tidal is on that pathway. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will welcome the ringfence, our continued support and our flexibility on budget as and when projects come through. We seek to drive the cost curves down so that, ultimately, we are technology neutral but support and nurse new technologies such as that, which have great potential.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

There is much to welcome in my right hon. Friend’s statement, particularly in the Humber region, as he will recognise. He referenced a £160 million fund for port infrastructure. Clearly, improvements will be needed to cope with many of these projects. Can he indicate when that is likely to come forward? I presume there will be a bidding process. Will that be open fairly soon?

[Graham Stuart]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Let me follow up with him to talk about more of the details, but I welcome, as he does, the success of the Gigastack Phillips 66 project, the initial hydrogen project. We are leading the world and, having met with Phillips 66, I know that that type of refinery of the future has a real opportunity to play an important part in delivering the green transition on a number of fronts. It is fantastic to see it successful in today’s announcements.