Carbon Capture and Storage

Peter Gibson Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) on securing and leading this important debate, shining a spotlight on the exciting prospects posed by carbon capture. This new technology will play a vital role in tackling climate change and reaching our net zero target by 2050.

The Government have already invested heavily in ensuring that carbon capture is used across the country. That is abundantly clear in Tees Valley, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) for welcoming the Government’s steps there. Only yesterday, it was announced that the east coast cluster has been selected by Ministers to develop carbon capture facilities. I was delighted to learn that Net Zero Teesside, which will be based at Teesworks, will receive a share of the £1 billion carbon capture and storage infrastructure fund. That will enable the creation of the new common infrastructure needed to transport CO₂ from industrial plants across Teesside to secure offshore storage in the southern North sea.

Championed by our phenomenal local mayor, Ben Houchen, and spearheaded by local industry, the carbon capture cluster will remove 50% of the UK’s industrial cluster CO₂ emissions and support our national energy transition to achieve our net zero target. The project will capture 10 million tonnes of carbon—the equivalent of that produced by 3 million homes, while creating 25,000 skilled jobs by 2050 in a variety of sectors from construction to low-carbon technology. It is essential that the Government continue to invest in exciting technology to achieve their 2050 net zero target, and I welcome the steps already being taken in Teesside.

The support of the Government is immense and I am grateful for it. However, we cannot ignore the vital role that the private sector will play in assisting our energy transition. In Darlington, we have the excellent Cummins engine manufacturer, which will continue to build on Darlington’s proud engineering history as it develops a hydrogen engine. With £14.6 million of Government-backed funding through the Brunel project, the carbon-free engine will revolutionise our road haulage sector and stop 11 million tonnes of carbon going into the atmosphere.

[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.