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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what discussions he has had with the floating wind industry on the potential economic benefits of setting a target of 16GW of floating wind by 2040.

One of the key priorities of this Government is putting in place policies to support a significant growth of offshore wind to 2030 and beyond. Within this, we are committed to supporting the development of floating offshore wind, as reflected by our ambitious target of 1GW of floating wind by 2030.

The Department has regular discussions with members of the floating offshore wind sector. Floating offshore wind projects will be eligible to bid in the next Contract for Difference allocation round, which will open in December 2021. This approach will provide the foundation for investment in a sustainable, competitive UK based supply chain from which we will learn to help plan our future approach and the feasible scale of ramp up of deployment.