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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the potential for large-scale hydrogen conversion projects to support the UK to meet its de-carbonisation targets.

The Government recognises the significant potential of hydrogen in meeting our long-term decarbonisation targets.

We are currently undertaking work to strengthen and assess the evidence on the range of potential approaches to decarbonising heat, including the possibility of large scale conversion of the gas network to hydrogen, and will set out further detail on this work later this year.

In support of this work we are investing in hydrogen innovation, with up to £65 million supporting projects addressing the fundamental challenges of large-scale hydrogen conversion, such as establishing the safety case and reducing production costs.