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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to maximise employment opportunities for UK workers from the supply chain required to increase the production and storage of hydrogen as part of the transition to a net zero carbon economy.

Low carbon hydrogen is one of a handful of critical options needed to deliver net zero and presents an opportunity to deliver against our clean growth goals – meeting our decarbonisation needs while capturing commercial opportunities for UK firms. In November 2019 we published the Energy Innovation Needs Assessment (EINA) for hydrogen and fuel cells which identified that the future market for all hydrogen technologies could yield around £5.3bn of GVA and create nearly 50,000 jobs by 2050. This document is under review to reflect increased ambition from our move to a net zero target.

We are developing new policy to help realise these opportunities, including investible business models to support deployment, announcing the £100 million Low Carbon Hydrogen Production Fund to stimulate capital investment, and investing up to £121 million (between 2015 and 2021) in hydrogen innovation across the value chain.

We intend to publish a UK hydrogen strategy the strategy early in 2021 which will set out our strategic approach to hydrogen, and how we work with industry to build a robust UK supply chain capable of delivering low carbon hydrogen at scale to meet our net zero needs.