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 progress on the carbon capture and storage project announced in November 2018.

The Government believes that carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) has the potential to play an important role in meeting the UK’s climate targets. CCUS can add value to the economy and help tackle hard to decarbonise sectors.

The Government published its CCUS Action Plan in November 2018, designed to progress CCUS in the UK, including enabling the UK’s first CCUS facility to be operational from the mid-2020s. We have also announced £50m of innovation funding to drive down the cost of CCUS.

I welcome the progress being made on the range of CCUS projects in the UK, including those that were announced in November 2018. Officials from the Department are engaging with these and all other CCUS projects in the UK.