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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that infrastructure projects support the Government’s commitment to bring greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.

The Government is committed to reduce UK greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. Reaching this target will end the UK’s contribution to global warming.

Our decisions on infrastructure will help us to deliver net zero. At the Spring Budget we announced an ambitious support package worth over £2bn for low carbon infrastructure, including £800m fund for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and £1bn in support for ultra-low emission vehicles. In addition, my Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime Minister recently announced plans for 4,000 new zero-emission buses and a new plan for cycleways as part of upgrades to transport infrastructure.

The replacement of traditional gas and electricity meters with smart meters is a vital national infrastructure upgrade that will enable a more flexible energy system, without which modelling for the Committee on Climate Change estimates the costs of delivering net zero emissions by 2050 could be up to £16 billion higher each year. We have been working with industry to re-mobilise smart meter installations after the disruption caused by COVID-19, and last month confirmed a new four-year policy framework which will take effect from 2021 to drive a market-wide rollout of smart meters across Great Britain.