Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the effect on the Scottish economy of developing carbon capture and storage infrastructure in the north east of Scotland.

The Government welcomes the development of carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) proposals from across the UK. We are investing in supporting the technology and have invested over £365 million in CCUS since 2011.

This includes supporting a potential CCUS project in the North East of Scotland, where Government has allocated £1.3 million in funding to Project Acorn in St. Fergus, Aberdeenshire, through the Accelerating Carbon Technologies Research Programme. In addition, the UK Government jointly funded, with the Scottish Government, the now completed feasibility work on the proposed Caledonia Clean Energy Project in Grangemouth, Scotland.