Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of (a) the impact on the UK lime industry of adopting the EU ETS Phase IV benchmark for lime, (b) the applicability and effectiveness of that EU benchmark for the UK lime industry, and (c) whether carbon reduction to meet that benchmark is achievable with currently available technology.
As stated in the Government Response to the Consultation on The Future of UK Carbon Pricing, initially the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) will use Phase IV EU ETS benchmarks. This ensures continuity for participants for the 2021 launch, ensures that benchmarks are based on sufficiently broad sets of data, and ensures free allocation is awarded on a comparable basis to EU counterparts.
As part of the Free Allocation Review, we will be looking at possible future changes to benchmarks used within the UK ETS. The Review will consider which benchmarks could be best suited for the UK ETS.
A call for evidence was launched on 17 March as part of the review and is currently live.