Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what progress has been made on the Morocco-UK Power Project; and how many hours staff in his Department have spent working on the project in the last 12 months.

As the Government set out in the Energy Security Plan, we are actively exploring the potential for international projects to provide clean, affordable and secure power.  We are interested in the Xlinks Morocco-UK Power Project and are considering – without commitment – the viability and merits of the proposal to understand if it could contribute to the UK’s energy security.

We have been engaging with the developer over the past 12 months, and in January established a departmental team to assess the project through a Business Case process that is ongoing. The team has spent an estimated around 9,500 hours on this project.