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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much his Department has spent in each of the last 10 financial years on assessing carbon capture and storage as a future UK energy source.

As part of the Government’s CCS Commercialisation Programme (2011-15), a £125 million R&D programme was established with investment from central Government, the Research Councils (the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Centre (EPSRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)), Innovate UK and the Energy Technologies Institute.

Between 2008 and 2015, the Government invested £168 million in supporting the CCS Demonstration Programme (£68 million) and the CCS Commercialisation Programme (£100 million).

The Clean Growth Strategy, published in October 2017, stated that a further £162 million on innovation for Business and Industry will be invested over the current Spending Review period, of which BEIS has allocated £100 million for Industry and CCUS Innovation from the £505 million BEIS Energy Innovation Programme.