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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what policies his Department (a) has proposed and (b) plans to propose to help the Government meet the 2050 net zero target. ​

My Rt. Hon. Friemd the Prime Minister has set out his Ten Point Plan for the UK to lead the world into a Green Industrial Revolution. This innovative programme sets out ambitious policies and £12 billion government investment to support up to 250,000 green jobs, accelerate our path to reaching net zero by 2050 and lay the foundations for our green recovery by building back greener from COVID-19.

The Energy White Paper sets out our plans for the transformation of our energy system, including actions to fully decarbonise electricity generation by 2050. This drives forward the Ten Point Plan commitments, reaffirming how clean energy means jobs and economic growth for the whole country, moving on from COVID-19 to build back better, support green jobs, and accelerate our path to net zero.

In March this year we published the Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy, the first by a major economy which sets out how industry can decarbonise in line with net zero while remaining competitive and without pushing emissions abroad. The strategy includes ambitions and expectations such as emissions in industry needing to fall by around two thirds by 2035, as well as policy priorities for the next ten years and seeks to provide industry with the long-term certainty it needs to invest in decarbonisation. We also recently published the Transport Decarbonisation Plan – the first such Plan in the world – setting transport on the path to net zero by 2050.

Through the above plans, we have set out the concrete steps that we will take to build back greener from the pandemic and reach net zero emissions by 2050. Ahead of COP26, we will bring forward further bold proposals, including a Net Zero Strategy, to cut emissions and create new jobs and industries across the whole country.

We are also publishing a number of sector strategies this year, as well as the Net Zero Strategy, including the Heat and Buildings Strategy and a Hydrogen Strategy.