Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, how many fossil fuel projects UK Export Finance has planned for 2021; and where these projects will be located.

At the UK-Africa Investment Summit in January we announced an end to HMG support for thermal coal mining and coal power plant overseas, and we continue to keep our approach to other fossil fuel investments and financing overseas under review.

UK Export Finance (UKEF) is obliged to consider all requests for its support. These requests can be made, and subsequently withdrawn, at any time.

When considering a request for support, UKEF conducts extensive due diligence, including environmental, social, and human rights due diligence and consideration of climate change, to understand the risk it is being asked to take. There are various reasons why an application to UKEF might not result in support being provided, or, if support is offered, why delays in providing that support might arise. All these factors make determining when UKEF support may, or even will be provided difficult and imprecise.

UKEF is currently considering requests for support for 7 projects involving fossil fuels (none of which are coal-related, in line with government policy) which may be supported in 2021. UKEF has also received a further 10 applications for trade finance cover in the sector. It is possible that not all these transactions will be concluded
in 2021, or indeed in subsequent years.

Those projects are in the following countries: