Green GB Week and Clean Growth

Simon Clarke Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

Whether solar, some other form of renewable energy or just improving energy efficiency, all were set out in the clean growth strategy. One of our aims is to get new homes built off the gas grid—there are 42,000 homes off the grid in my constituency—not to have fossil fuel heating from 2025. We intend to do that not only because we want to reduce emissions but because it will boost routes to market for some of our world-leading renewable heat technology.

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Simon Clarke.

[Mr Clarke]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was looking particularly beseechingly there.

I thank the Minister for her statement. She is a great champion of growing our economy while also protecting our environment. Last week, I was proud to go to Downing Street with the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) to present a letter from 130 colleagues from across the House setting out our shared commitment to supporting the Government in the event that they decided to pursue net zero. Does the Minister recognise the strength of feeling across the Chamber that we must do everything in our power to limit the rise in global warming to 1.5° C and that net zero is the key to this?

[Claire Perry]

I thank my hon. Friend and the other MPs for that challenge and their support. Ultimately—forget the political banter—we are the House that will have to agree these policy decisions, justify the spending to our constituents and help to communicate to them the opportunities that are there. I urge him to look at the Green GB website. There are masses of events in his area over the week, for students, businesses, local authorities and the like. There is lots of good stuff we can use to spread this important message.

Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Bill

Simon Clarke Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. I think that both sides of the House have reached something of a consensus on our energy market. People on the right and left—wherever they place themselves on the political spectrum—agree that our energy market is fundamentally broken and needs to be reviewed. It is interesting that the Government put their own commission in place, under Dieter Helm, but we have had no response from them so far about the proposals it made.

I have several issues with the Bill as drafted, but I start with the fact that it does not provide any direction from the Secretary of State on his preferred level of cap, which effectively passes the buck to Ofgem. The Bill merely states:

“The Authority must exercise its functions…with a view to protecting existing and future domestic customers who pay standard variable and default rates”.

In doing so, Ofgem must consider a number of factors, including creating incentives for suppliers to improve efficiency, enabling suppliers to compete effectively, maintaining incentives to switch between suppliers, and the need to ensure that holders of supply licences who operate efficiently are able to finance activities authorised by that licence.

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

With respect, I dispute the hon. Lady’s claim that we are in accord on energy policy. The Opposition’s stated policy is to proceed with wholesale nationalisation, which Government Members strongly disagree with. Does she not accept that renationalising National Grid and the energy sector would be antithetical to driving down prices, which is what we all want?

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the Labour party’s manifesto, which clearly states that we wish to increase competition in the energy market by creating regional suppliers. We want to promote fair and transparent competition within the energy market, but unfortunately the Government do not advocate a similar position. We hope to fine-tune aspects of the Bill as it goes through the House so that competition in the energy market will be effective, fair and transparent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to make a few brief remarks in a debate that has been perhaps the most consensual in which I have participated since my election last summer. I pay tribute to the Minister, and also to my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), who has done so much to ensure that the Bill is indeed a reality. It is certainly needed. In a winter in which we have been reminded of just how bad the British weather can be, and just how much we rely on our ability to heat and light our homes, too many of our constituents are being taken for a ride by their energy suppliers. Millions of so-called sticky customers, many of them elderly and on low incomes, are stuck on poor-value default tariffs and, as a result, pay more for their energy than they need to. In a deprived constituency such as mine, the case for change is clear. In June 2016, the Competition and Markets Authority found that consumers were being overcharged by about £1.4 billion a year. That is not fair. It is bad for consumers’ finances, and it is bad for trust in the energy market. I was therefore pleased to see this measure included in our election manifesto last year.

It is important to understand how the Bill will work, and it is also important to understand what it is not. As was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), it is not the crude measure proposed by the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) in the good old days when he led the Labour party. He proposed a straight-up freeze on energy tariffs: a blunt proposal with insufficient scope to deal with natural price fluctuations. In contrast, the Bill will implement not a freeze but a cap: a cap set on standard variable and default energy tariffs.

Competition still lies at the heart of our vision for the energy market, and that must be the right way forward. However, those who are less able to switch will no longer be at the mercy of rip-off merchants. This is not a permanent solution, but it will buy time for the ambitious programme of reform that the Government are delivering to take effect. The provision of faster, cheaper and more reliable switching, backed by smart meters and simpler, clearer energy bills, is an essential step that was proposed by the Competition and Markets Authority and is now being introduced by Ofgem. In the meantime, a temporary cap must a good idea. It will promote choice while also ensuring that the energy market works for everyone.

That is an infinitely more progressive approach than the one proposed by Labour Members. The Centre for Policy Studies has shown that Labour’s plans to renationalise our energy network would cost up to £185 billion, exploding the deficit and leaving every household in our country facing a bill for thousands of pounds. Putting the cost aside, however, I challenge Labour Members to tell us where is the evidence that the state would suddenly develop the all-seeing wisdom that would enable it to know how best to price what is an immensely complex and fast-changing market. We know from the Government’s reforms of the way in which we produce our energy that it is far better for Governments to set an enabling framework, and then to let the market shape itself according to innovation and demand. If we relied on the state to direct how we generate our electricity, we would still be relying on dirty coal today, rather than enjoying subsidy-free solar and offshore wind. Of course, as we noted from their shameful early-day motion, tabled a few weeks ago, too many Labour Members would rather like that, but at best we would have a series of Hinkley Points. I will not take lessons from Labour Members about embracing the merits of outright state control and the direction of prices.

1s the Bill perfect? I must say that I wish it were not necessary. I did not come into politics to cap prices, and I do not believe that the state is generally particularly adept at doing so effectively. However, we are where we are. We have a market that is not working for some of the most vulnerable people whom we serve. I am a great believer in not making the best the enemy of the good. A price cap is what my constituents need and want, a price cap is what we promised to deliver, and a price cap is what I will vote for tonight.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Clarke Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point, which is why I agreed in a previous response to meet the campaign’s officials to see how we can work on this.

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

T9. The loss of over 200 jobs at Cleveland Potash is a heavy blow for people living in Loftus and east Cleveland, so I am grateful to the Small Business Minister for negotiating an agreement across Government to extend the same flexibilities around training granted to workers at SSI to those at Boulby. The chief executive of the taskforce has described that as critical. Will he commit that this will all be finalised before redundancies are announced in the spring, so that people leaving Cleveland Potash can have certainty?

[Mr Speaker]

I remind colleagues of the merits of the blue pencil. If you have a prepared question and it is a bit on the long side, just scratch a bit out—very useful, and the question never suffers.

Fireworks

Simon Clarke Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

I congratulate you on your smooth transformation into the Chair, Mr Hanson. It was seamlessly done.

I want to pay tribute to the large number of my constituents who encouraged me to attend today’s debate and made really passionate cases about why this issue matters and why we, as parliamentarians, should be concerned about it. I want to start by stating that I am not hostile to fireworks. Indeed, rather like the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), I have many happy memories of my own father going out bravely into the Teesside air to hammer a Catherine wheel to a tree. Memories such as those are important, and fireworks are a spectacular way of bringing people together in common celebration.

As an economic and social liberal, I did not come into politics to ban things; however, I also appreciate that when used irresponsibly and away from the main festivals, such as bonfire night and new year, fireworks can be a source of harm and distress. What my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) said about Flo is true for so many, and he amusingly and powerfully set out why we should be engaged in this and why we should think considerately about other people and our pets.

I have had lots of constituents setting out their deep concerns about fireworks and the effect that they have on the elderly, young people, military veterans and livestock. Mr Geoff Peirse from Coulby Newham, for example, wrote to me saying that his concern relates to people’s ability to use fireworks in an antisocial and sometimes criminal way. He highlighted the effect that they have on the police, hospitals and fire service. Meanwhile, Jane Dunn from Guisborough told me after Guy Fawkes night that

“it has been like a war zone... with fireworks being lit for days. My 86-year-old mum, who remembers hiding under the stairs during WWII air raids, was woken after midnight last night by an extremely loud bang,”

and in her disturbed and confused state,

“she thought it was a bomb going off. The gentle fireworks and sparklers we remember from our youth have been overtaken by bombs.”

As we know, controls on the use and sale of fireworks are already in place, and I welcome that; however, some of those controls might be extended without unreasonably diminishing the enjoyment people derive from fireworks. For example, the noise level on fireworks, as we have heard, is 120 dB. I am pleased that limit exists, but 120 dB is still extremely loud. To put it in context, a motorcycle is 100 dB and an emergency vehicle siren is 115 dB—120 dB is something more akin to a clap of thunder. In his reply, will the Minister touch on whether 120 dB really strikes the right balance—a proportionate balance—between enjoyment and relative peace for local people?

Firework-related antisocial behaviour also causes my constituents grave concern. Late last year a gang of youths sent fireworks shooting into a number of flats in central Middlesbrough. One of the rockets entered a disabled woman’s living room, filling the room with smoke and scorching her carpet. She said that the noise was so loud that she subsequently had problems with her hearing. That was one of a flurry of incidents across the town, with reports of lit fireworks being thrown at cars, people and even supermarkets in Pallister Park, Grove Hill and Coulby Newham.

I would therefore be grateful if the Minister committed today to reviewing the number of antisocial behaviour incidents linked to the use of fireworks, and set out what measures could, or indeed should, be undertaken to prevent such incidents. That information is not currently collected; instead, it is part of the general statistics classified as antisocial behaviour. We therefore have no reliable data, as we have heard, on the improper use of fireworks and no understanding of where in the country the problem is greatest or at what times of year it peaks. I think that should change.

In that regard, and in summing up, I want to pay particular tribute to my constituent Julie Wright, who came to my surgery in Guisborough earlier this month. It was she who really convinced me to come here today. She is particularly upset about the impact on her pet dog, and says:

“I have every lotion, potion, anxiety wrap, noise CD, cosy den bed known to man, but only tranquilizers will work. When fireworks go off it is a dilemma as to whether to administer them—is this a random firework, is it a full blown display, how long will it last, is it worth doping up my poor animal if it’s going to stop soon? What effect is all this medication having on my dog’s system and his lifespan?”

It is for people like her that I want to see that data collected—to understand the nature and scale of the problem we face, and to inform further debate.

Office for Students: Appointment

Simon Clarke Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson]

The Government have condemned the tweets. Mr Young has apologised for them. Any repetition of language of that kind will not be tolerated.

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

I suspect I am one of the few people in the Chamber who has been to the West London Free School. I saw there for myself the outstanding work that Toby and his team have delivered, and they have done that blind to people’s background and wealth, to the colour of their skin and to the creed that they practise. Does the Minister agree that that record deserves to be honoured and recognised? The comments were wrong, but those deeds need to be respected and they give Toby a credible platform for taking that office.

[Joseph Johnson]

My hon. Friend is right to laud Mr Young’s achievements at the West London Free School, where the 38.5% of children who receive the pupil premium have done better than the national average for pupils on the pupil premium in both this most recent year and the previous one. Mr Young has created an inclusive environment. A parent governor at the school described him as

“committed to public education, academic excellence, and greater opportunities for kids from lower incomes.”

Sector Deal for Steel

Simon Clarke Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. I was pleased to support the debate application from the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), with whom I serve on the all-party group on steel and metal related industries. He is a great advocate of the steel industry and was absolutely right to call for this debate. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting it.

Steel is part of the DNA of Teesside, and I represent the hugely impressive British Steel special profiles business at Skinningrove in my constituency. I visited the plant in my first month as an MP to meet managing director Peter Gate and see the operations for myself. It transformed whatever preconceptions I held about what a modern steelworks looks like. Simultaneously combining vast power with infinite precision, the special profiles unit has the machining capability required to manufacture special profiles. Those include unique reserved profiles that have been designed for individual customer needs and open roll profiles, which are available to all customers. Key products include bulb flats, track shoe profiles, crane rail profiles and mining components. Perhaps the most significant profiles made by British Steel at Skinningrove are those produced for the manufacture of forklift trucks, which include mast profiles, carriage bar profiles and flats for manufacturing the fork arms themselves.

The special profiles unit is co-located on the same site as Caterpillar, which is its largest single customer and is also a major employer in my constituency. These companies are great sources of not just jobs, but skilled jobs, and jobs that pay well above the median salary for people on Teesside. They are valued highly in East Cleveland, and we should celebrate that achievement.

In 2016, Caterpillar at Skinningrove passed the amazing milestone of 20 million track shoes produced at its plant, all made using profiles made by British Steel. British Steel special profiles also supplies Caterpillar operations in Brazil, the United States and China. It is a great example of how the UK steel industry remains such an asset to our economy and to our country’s standing as an industrial power.

Since my election, I have pledged my support for whatever can be done to help with what is perhaps British Steel’s foremost challenge: the cost of energy. British Steel special profiles is seeking redesignation from a high-voltage status business to extra-high-voltage status, which it calculates would reduce its energy costs by some £265,000 a year, and I have held talks with Ofgem about how that might be secured. The problem is not so much the cost of redesignation, which is estimated to be around £1 million, but the fact that British Steel would likely have to take on responsibility for the ongoing upkeep of what is already considered an unreliable electricity connection and for maintaining the easements and wayleaves across properties owned by some potentially difficult third parties. Whatever support the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy can offer British Steel on that issue would be invaluable, and I hope the Minister and her officials will follow up on that.

The purpose of this debate is to discuss the wider outlook for the steel sector. I know that the Minister, with whom I am in regular contact regarding such diverse issues as carbon capture and storage and the case for onshore wind, is absolutely committed to making a success of our industrial strategy. We have a friend in her as we seek to deliver a framework within which UK steel can thrive.

This is a critical issue for Teesside. I want to emphasise that UK Steel, the body that represents the industry, wants to convey the positivity and the optimism that also characterises this moment. This is as much about future opportunities as it is about the consolidation of existing strengths. The Government’s study on the future of the industry projects a £3.8 billion opportunity in steel demand by 2030, as the hon. Member for Aberavon said, which will need to be met by imports if we do not get this opportunity right.

With the right strategy, UK Steel estimates that the gross value added of the industry can increase from £1.2 billion today to £3 billion. That goes to the heart of the issue. Steel is an enabling technology, underpinning so many other parts of our economy. The sector places a premium upon innovation, which is what will be required if we are to continue to offer high-end products that our rivals in the world cannot easily match. That means investing not only in physical facilities but in R and D and training and skills, particularly of the next generation.

I often hear from my local employers that a big challenge on Teesside is how we address the age profile of our skilled workers, many of whom were trained in the ’70s and ’80s by the big industrial conglomerates that have predominated and contracted throughout the course of my lifetime. Those workers are now approaching retirement age. It is vital that we ensure that our education and apprenticeship models are fit for purpose, to supply young people with the skills and inspiration they need to grasp the opportunities that we all hope will be created for them. Contrary to what the hon. Gentleman said, the SSI Task Force in Redcar has had considerable success. I praise also the huge potential of the South Tees mayoral development corporation. We all know the consequences that were felt in Redcar and that obviously had massive impacts also in Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, but real, constructive action, money and hope are now flowing into our area. It is very important that we get that part of the equation on the record as well.

The key elements of the deal are clear. As the hon. Gentleman set out, that includes investment, boosting production capability, creating more jobs, employing and training more apprentices and working with the Government to create a future steel challenge fund, drawing together partners from the automotive, construction and renewables sectors. It is also vital that the Government play their part in ensuring that UK steel has the best possible chance to compete in relation to procurement options. I have already spoken to Defence Ministers about giving maximum notice when it comes to contracts for warships.

If the vision is to be realised, we need to ensure that maximum support is given regarding the cost of energy. We all know that the UK’s energy mix is undergoing a profound revolution. It is right that that is happening, so that we can not only future-proof our security of supply, but meet our carbon commitments. The market-led “test and learn” electricity strategy, set in motion under the coalition Government, has yielded startling and exciting advances in terms of moving renewable energy closer and closer to the point at which it will become competitive on a subsidy-free basis. That is great news, but our forward thinking on this issue has left the industry exposed to a competitiveness challenge. The simple fact is that it is difficult for our industry to compete when its energy costs are 55% higher than those of Germany and 51% higher than those of France. We are looking for bridging solutions that lower costs in the short to medium term while we wait for longer-term solutions to take effect. That is in effect the same principle as the Government have already accepted vis-à-vis renewable energy, so I hope that the Minister can consider it seriously, while acknowledging that this is in no way easy or straightforward.

I want to touch on the other levers within the Government’s grasp. They include supporting the proposed future challenges fund, looking at whether new plant and machinery can be exempted from business rates and ensuring that we get our post-Brexit trade framework spot on, because getting the right framework for trade remedies will be critical if we are to deal with the outrageous dumping of steel by the Chinese that has taken place recently. I urge every hon. Member present to join me after the Christmas recess in the debates on the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill, which will be the vehicle for getting that right.

I thank the Minister for her time today and thank the hon. Member for Aberavon for calling the debate. Let us move forward together, as one, with a positive mindset towards delivering the right deal for our steel sector.

Industrial Strategy

Simon Clarke Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

We do stand up for the aerospace sector. It is one of the most successful sectors in terms of joint working, both with the firms in the sector and with the Government. We have a good record of working together. As for ensuring that we obtain orders in this country, there is a big role for us all to play in spelling out the benefits to other countries of products and services that are made in and provided from this country, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will join me in doing that.

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is a great ally of Teesside, and there is so much in the strategy document that is welcome, whether it relates to steel or to the Heathrow northern logistics hub. However, I want to focus briefly on carbon capture and storage. The Teesside Collective is keen to make progress on it. When will we know how we can go about bidding for the £15 million of feed funding that we are seeking?

[Greg Clark]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he has said. I particularly commend the Mayor of Tees Valley, Ben Houchen, who was instrumental in, for instance, the proposals for the regeneration of former sites of special scientific interest that has been so well received on Teesside. I am aware that my hon. Friend initiated a successful Westminster Hall debate on this subject. As he knows, we want to get on with testing technology for carbon capture, utilisation and storage, and Teesside offers a particularly attractive environment for that because of the connections between the different users and suppliers in the area, but there needs to be a competition that can lead to an award. I know that my hon. Friend is proceeding with that, and I know that Teesside will be very well placed.

Carbon Capture and Storage

Simon Clarke Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered carbon capture and storage.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee, chaired by the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), for granting this debate, and the sponsors who helped to secure it, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and the hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley), whose support is deeply appreciated. I also thank the team at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit for their help and Sarah Tennison at the Teesside Collective for her excellent advice. I congratulate the Minister on the production of the clean growth strategy and I support its core message that there does not have to be a trade-off between green energy and economic growth.

As the Minister noted in her announcement to the House last week, since 1990 the United Kingdom has simultaneously grown its economy by almost 70% and reduced its emissions by more than 40%. I also welcome the commitment that the UK will continue to be a world leader in creating clean technologies, jobs and businesses.

Chiefly, I am delighted with the new resolution to demonstrate international leadership in carbon capture, usage and storage. The benefits of carbon capture and storage are multiple. CCS will be essential in ensuring that the UK meets its legally-binding target to reduce carbon emissions by a minimum of 80% on 1990 levels by 2050 in a cost-effective manner. That was the conclusion of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, which warned that without CCS the UK

“will not remain on the least cost path to our statutory decarbonisation”.

That has been echoed by other leading authorities. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that without CCS, the cost of meeting global climate change targets could increase by 138%. Similarly, the Committee on Climate Change believes that

“carbon capture and storage…has the potential to almost halve the cost of meeting the UK’s 2050 target.”

It warns that the additional costs of inaction on CCS for UK consumers could be £1 billion to £2 billion a year in the 2020s, rising to £4 billion to £5 billion a year in the 2040s.

The economic benefits of CCS stretch far beyond the cost-effective attainment of our carbon budgets. According to the House of Commons Library, CCS could create 60,000 jobs in the UK, not to mention the greater number of jobs that could be saved by avoiding the decline or closure of carbon-intensive industries, for which it will quickly become progressively less viable to remain in operation in the UK as levies on carbon emissions increase. Those industries emit carbon dioxide as an intrinsic part of their production methods, so regardless of how much we decarbonise our power supply, they will continue to be huge emitters. As the North East of England Process Industry Cluster, which represents the chemical industry in the north-east, warns,

“on current trends and policies, industrial emissions reduction will only be met through the closure of industry.”

That would be a totally avoidable catastrophe and we need to do everything in our power to prevent it, and that means developing CCS.

The International Energy Agency estimates that there will be a global CCUS market worth over £100 billion. With even a modest share of that market, UK gross value added could increase to between £5 billion and £9 billion per year by 2030. The wider economic benefits and opportunities presented by CCS are huge, whether in the form of increased domestic manufacturing activity, a more positive balance of trade, or the possibility that UK carbon storage sites could generate income by storing emissions from other countries.

When it comes to the location for CCS, hon. Members will be unsurprised to learn that I think there is a natural choice: Teesside. That judgment is not born of the bias of someone who was born and grew up there, and is very proud to represent it, but based on a number of unique advantages that our area has to recommend it as a prime site for CCS development.

First, Teesside is home to nearly 60% of the UK’s energy intensive industry. Regional emissions per person are almost three times the UK average. Fully rolled out, CCS on Teesside would therefore have a substantial impact on overall UK emission reductions.

Secondly, Teesside has one of the highest concentrations of industry in the UK. That includes the specific and unique mix of companies that comprise the Teesside Collective. That group has come together with the excellent Tees Valley combined authority to drive the case for CCS investment in the area. The group includes Sembcorp Utilities, the area’s leading energy supplier; SABIC, one of the world’s largest makers of chemicals, fertilisers and plastics, whose Teesside operations alone emit 1.25 million tonnes of CO₂ every year; Lotte Chemical UK, which manufactures the plastic needed for soft drinks bottles; BOC, which produces more than half the UK’s hydrogen; and CF Fertilisers, the UK’s largest ammonia fertiliser plant.

That integrated cluster is so important because the emissions from those facilities can be captured, mixed with emissions from a power station in the same area, and transported and stored together. Analysis by the Green Alliance found that this approach would reduce the cost per tonne of carbon captured by about two thirds, compared with the cost of doing it for a power station alone. The mixture of companies would also allow a test project to assess the cost of CCS when facing different levels of difficulty in the removal and extraction of carbon.

Thirdly, the cost of CCS would be further reduced by Teesside’s close proximity to North sea storage sites. A fortnight ago, I had a fascinating briefing from Professor Jon Gluyas and Simon Mathias of Durham University at Boulby potash mine in my constituency. The UK storage appraisal project, which concluded in 2013, identified some 600 storage locations on the UK continental shelf—enough to store our direct emissions for the next 130 years.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

My hon. Friend mentioned nitrogen fertiliser and the need to use carbon capture and storage to help create more fertiliser. At the moment we use a lot of natural gas to make this fertiliser. Therefore, it will be a win-win situation, because we will be reducing the amount of natural gas we use and using the carbon that is already being produced.

[Mr Clarke]

I agree with my hon. Friend that carbon utilisation is something we should look at. It is not necessarily the same as carbon capture and storage, but it is definitely a valuable mechanism to ensure we are not wasting carbon dioxide that we have to produce. Therefore I would certainly back that, as does the strategy.

Fourthly, Teesside is the prime location because developing industrial CCS would create an additional 1,200 jobs during its construction phase and help create and retain a further 5,900 jobs when in operation. That is vital in our area, where, as Opposition Members will attest, despite the huge progress that has been made, too many people are struggling to find secure and well-paid jobs. The Teesside workforce have the strong engineering skills required for CCS, largely as a result of long-standing expertise in the oil and gas, energy supply, and chemical and process sectors.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Teesside is ready to go. The Teesside Collective is ready to commence front-end engineering design—FEED—studies immediately and could be capturing and storing CO₂ in just six years. No further research or innovation is required. The Teesside Collective has already presented a cost-effective finance model to Government, which sets out an attractive business case for both Government and industry to invest in a demonstration phase.

Last week, the Minister told me that Teesside makes a very powerful case for the funding set out in the clean growth strategy, of which £100 million has been committed to support CCUS innovation and deployment in the UK. That is greatly welcomed. She said that pints would be available for myself and the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), and I think she could be included in the round as well. However, can the Minister provide clarity as to what proportion of that investment will be spent on carbon capture and storage specifically, as opposed to carbon capture and utilisation, which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish)? Although I can understand the rationale for investing in carbon utilisation, such as its relative ease of development and more direct economic gains, it does not allow us to store the same amount of carbon dioxide as carbon capture and storage, which I believe is the real prize.

In relation to CCS, specifically CCS on Teesside, I ask the Government to take three critical steps. First, just as the Government established the contracts for difference mechanism, which is the incentivised investment that led to the huge cost reductions we are witnessing in green energy, so too the Government need to come up with an incentive mechanism for industrial CCS. What would that look like in practice? There are two elements. We need a transportation and storage solution, and the Government need to state their intention to agree a financing mechanism. Stakeholders tell me that those are the two most important things they are asking for, without which there can be little practical progress on delivering CCS in the UK. The Teesside Collective very much hopes that such a model can be developed and agreed in 2018 and it has already done really impressive groundwork.

Secondly, please deliver FEED funding for a trial industrial CCS network on Teesside. The Teesside Collective has requested the relatively modest sum of £15 million to get a demonstration project under way and it hopes that that can be allocated in 2019. Government support for the deployment of such a strategic demonstration project will enable CCS to reduce costs significantly if and when it is built at commercial scale in the 2020s.

Thirdly, we need to establish the facts to show the rest of Government and the public why this matters so much. In its April 2017 report on CCS, the Public Accounts Committee stated:

“By the end of 2017, the Department should quantify and publish the impact across the whole economy of delays to getting CCS up and running, and of it not being established at all.”

Will the Minister inform us whether such analysis has been commissioned and, if so, when the Department will publish the results?

Those are my three asks, which I sincerely and deeply hope are deliverable. I have come into politics to try to help deliver many things: a stronger economy; a world that we can pass on to our children in better shape than we found it; and a change in people’s perceptions of Teesside and what it has to offer our country and our world. I am an unashamed evangelist for the latter, as are so many of the people who work there. Carbon capture and storage would allow us to deliver all those objectives. I urge the Minister, as I urge all colleagues: let us seize this opportunity, and seize it today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Aldous]

Yes, I do. I am happy to acknowledge it. We have enormous, significant expertise across the UK. I am sure that all of us in this Chamber can highlight institutions in or near our constituencies that can and should put us at the vanguard of the low-carbon economy and its global development over the next few years.

As I was saying, the UK has acquired enormous expertise and experience in the oil and gas sector, which can be used to deliver CCS, create jobs and—most importantly for the Government—generate revenue for the Exchequer. However, as the hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) highlighted, time is of the essence. We need to get on with it. As a result of the lower oil prices that have prevailed for the past three years, the North sea is going through a period of transition and restructuring. We must move quickly to use assets that otherwise might be prematurely decommissioned.

As we have heard, CCS has an important role to play in delivering growth across the whole UK and in bringing jobs to coastal communities, which in recent years have faced particular challenges with the decline of traditional industries. There are areas where clusters of energy-intensive industries are based—such as Scotland and the north-east on Teesside, as the hon. Member for Redcar highlighted—which could benefit significantly from CCS. That might not be the exact situation in my own constituency, but we have businesses in East Anglia that are part of the North sea supply chain, whether in oil and gas or in the emerging offshore wind sector, and that would benefit from the development of CCS.

The industrial strategy highlights the importance to the UK of cultivating world-leading sectors and being global pioneers in industries in which we have an advantage. CCS is one of those industries. We have the resources and the skills. It is an industry in which we can not only secure inward investment but, in due course, create significant export opportunities, building on the expertise that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson) mentioned a minute ago.

On the resources and skills required for CCS, Norway is a country with which we have a great deal in common.

[Mr Simon Clarke]

On that point, we have had disappointing news from Norway this week. I spoke to the Teesside Collective to discuss what was going on there. It is important to put it on record that although the Norwegians have retreated somewhat in the scope of their ambition for when things will happen, they have not pulled out of CCS altogether. Effectively, they have found themselves in a minority Government situation—we can perhaps empathise—and that has made certain investment decisions rather harder to achieve, so they are looking to make them on more of a case-by-case basis. That is why the news has come out of Norway in the way that it has.

[Peter Aldous]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I talked this morning to representatives of Statoil, who emphasised that they are proceeding with CCS and that the situation is, dare I say, a fact of life with minority Governments.

We have a great deal in common with Norway. The Norwegians are also taking forward CCS, and they are slightly ahead of us. However, I emphasise that it is not a question of CCS taking place either in the United Kingdom or in Norway; it should be in both. We need to collaborate between our two countries to ensure that that takes place on the best possible terms and at the lowest possible price.

On that point, cost is the elephant in the room. CCS has foundered on this particular rock in the past, and I am sure that there are some who say that it will do so again. However, I do not believe that that will be the case. The Oxburgh report showed that in the right circumstances, CCS can be delivered at £85 per megawatt-hour. It is also important to highlight what has happened in the offshore wind sector. Costs have decreased in the past three years from around £140 per megawatt-hour to just under £60. That has been achieved by the Government providing the framework for the delivery, and by the industry getting on with the job and building, rather than just talking.

With the clean growth strategy, the Government have provided a framework for CCS to develop. I look forward to more details from the Minister about the road map for turning this exciting vision into a practical reality. Doing so will not only make the world more resilient to climate change, but transform places and—most importantly —people’s lives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Simon Clarke]

It has been a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir David. This has easily been the most pleasant debate that I have experienced in my short time in this House. I hope that it marks a new era of consensus in our politics.

We have heard about the fierce urgency of “now” when it comes to seizing the moment for CCS. In a powerful speech, the hon. Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) set out her long-standing commitment to delivering this technology, rightly alluding to its potential significance after Brexit. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) made a typically thoughtful speech, welcoming the progress that has been made this year and referring in particular to the opportunities for coastal communities—including his own in East Anglia—that form part of the supply chain. The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) has made a huge contribution to the pursuit of CCS for Teesside—for our new “massive”, which may take me a while to get used to—in his role as the chair of the APPG, where I am delighted that the Minister will join us in due course.

The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry)—I hope I did not just mispronounce his constituency, or at least that I have not endangered the Union in so doing—made a passionate case for the Peterhead site for CCS, and that was echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson). I entirely agree that there must be no more false starts. This is surely the line in the sand and I think we have heard enough today to suggest that it will be.

The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mike Hill)—my mother is also from Hartlepool; she is also a monkey hanger—rightly referenced the key role his town has to play in our green revolution. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), in a very generous tribute to the work of the Teesside Collective, rightly emphasised the benefit of delivering all the viable projects, including those in Scotland. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) is a hugely informed Opposition spokesman who has done so much on this issue down the years. He rightly praised the Oxburgh review and there is a lot to learn from that.

In closing, I thank the Minister for her personal commitment to making a success of CCS. Her speech was thoughtful and really helpful. It was great to hear about the taskforce and the deployment pathway. We have a great ally in her and I look forward to working with her, and with all colleagues who were here for this debate, as we move forward in the years ahead. I think we are on the cusp of something very special.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered carbon capture and storage.

Clean Growth Strategy

Simon Clarke Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

It is not energy but caffeine that is doing this. My hon. Friend asks an important question, and I welcome the opportunity to clear this up. We see many suggestions and all sorts of ideas about how we meet our carbon budgets, but tax matters such as stamp duty are ones for our excellent Chancellor and his Budgets. It would be a brave Minister who tried to make those points at the Dispatch Box.

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

I echo what colleagues from across the House have said about this being an excellent announcement, and I congratulate the Minister on everything she has done to bring it about today. I echo what the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) said about how this will be particularly warmly welcomed on Teesside. May I invite the Minister to agree with me that Teesside is the natural starting point for CCS in the UK, owing to its concentrated and diverse industry, proximity to north-east storage sites and optionality for future low-carbon technologies, such as hydrogen?

[Claire Perry]

I hope there are many pints lined up in the bars in Teesside for both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), because Teesside makes a powerful case for exactly this sort of investment. We look forward to reviewing that, along with the other proposals that we have.