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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to expand their Industrial Clusters Mission to other regions; and what consideration they have given to the Liverpool City Region being a suitable cluster.

Industrial clusters account for just over half of the emissions by industry, which is why we committed in the Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy to delivering four low-carbon clusters by 2030 and at least one fully net zero cluster by 2040. The North West cluster already covers the Liverpool City region. The cluster’s decarbonisation plans will provide over £4bn in investment, delivering at least 33,000 jobs and abating 10m tonnes of carbon across the North West.

We have already invested over £45 million into the Hynet Project in the region, through the Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge and BEIS Hydrogen Supply and Industrial Fuel Switching competitions, to help kickstart hydrogen and carbon capture and storage.