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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what weighting he plans to give to the potential regional economic benefits of a project for domestic and industrial heat decarbonisation in the selection of track one and phase one carbon capture and storage projects.

Phase-1 of the Government’s Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCUS) Cluster Sequencing Process aims to sequence industrial clusters for decarbonisation over the next decade. The focus of the process will be in identifying those clusters most suited for deployment of CCUS from the mid-2020s, whilst also delivering wider benefits such as economic benefits and learnings that will enable the CCUS to be deployed at scale in the future. The Department is finalising the evaluation criteria and weightings, building on the weighting ranges that were set out in our recent consultation.