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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what consideration he has given to placing all hydrogen production projects under Track-1 of the Cluster Sequencing Process.

The Cluster Sequencing process will bring forward the UK’s first full-chain carbon capture and storage proposals. The Track-1 decision has identified the HyNet and East Coast Cluster proposals as those with the potential to pioneer this technology in the UK, including through the deployment of CCS-enabled low carbon hydrogen capacity. Phase-2 of this process, which opened in November, focuses on individual projects. It is open to submissions from any hydrogen production project based in the UK provided they can demonstrate they have a CO2 transport solution, access to a Track-1 or reserve cluster CO2 store and meet the eligibility criteria.