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 is taking to decarbonise the UK steel industry in the Net Zero Strategy; and what plans his Department has to direct the Clean Steel Fund towards hydrogen-based steelmaking.

Decarbonising UK industry is a core part of the Government’s ambitious plan for the green industrial revolution. UK steel plays a critical role in the economy as a foundation industry and the Government remains committed to the UK steel industry and a decarbonised future, supporting local economic growth and our levelling-up agenda. The Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy, published on 17 March, commits to work with the newly constituted Steel Council to consider the implications of the recommendation of the Climate Change Committee to ‘set targets for ore-based steelmaking to reach near-zero emissions by 2035’. Hydrogen-based steelmaking is one of the technological approaches being examined as part of this process.

The Steel Council offers the forum for Government, industry and trade unions to work in partnership on the shared objective of creating an achievable, long-term plan to support the sector’s transition to a competitive, sustainable and low carbon future. In order to support these efforts, the Government has announced a £250 million Clean Steel Fund to support the UK steel sector to transition to lower carbon iron and steel production, through investment in new technologies and processes. The decarbonisation of the steel sector and industry more widely will also be supported through the £1 billion CCUS Infrastructure Fund (CIF) and £240m Net-Zero Hydrogen Fund.