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 the potential merits for Wrexham in relation to (a) job creation, (b) investment in the local economy and (c) trading opportunities of the Government's HyNet North West Hydrogen energy project.

Last month, the Government announced that HyNet has been sequenced onto ‘Track-1’ under the CCUS Cluster Sequencing process, for deployment in the mid-2020s. Amongst other things, this decision considered the cluster’s potential to deliver benefits to the regional economy, including through the development of the hydrogen economy in both North Wales – including Wrexham – and the North West of England.

The Government estimates that CCUS could support up to 50,000 green jobs by 2030, along with over 9,000 supported by low carbon hydrogen. These jobs are set to be concentrated in the UK’s industrial heartlands, including in North Wales.