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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what his Department's policy is on underground coal gasification.

The Department commissioned a report from Atkins into the greenhouse gas implications of underground coal gasification to inform Government policy about its development in the UK; this report was peer reviewed by academics and industry representatives.

The report finds that emissions from underground coal gasification would be too high to be consistent with our commitment to a low-carbon future, and would not accord with our recent ratification of the Paris Agreement. For these reasons, we are not minded to support the development of this technology in the UK.

The Atkins report can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/underground-coal-gasification-evidence-statement-of-global-warming-potential