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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to the Climate Change Committee's 2020 report, Policies for the Sixth Carbon Budget and Net Zero, whether his Department plans to implement the recommendation in that report on the establishment of a funding mechanism to enable electrification in manufacturing.

Encouraging industry to switch to low carbon fuels such as electricity is a major aspect of the Government’s Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy. The Government recognises that the main barrier to industrial electrification is that electricity is significantly more expensive than gas.

The Government already has a range of policies in place to support industrial electrification, including the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund and Industrial Fuel Switching Competition. The UK Emissions Trading Scheme acts as a cross-cutting policy lever to drive market-based abatement, incentivising industries to find the most cost-effective solutions to decarbonise.

The Government will publish a Fairness and Affordability Call for Evidence to set out the options for energy levies and obligations to help rebalance electricity and gas prices to support the transition to net zero, with a view to taking decisions in 2022.