Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what assessment his Department has made of the potential benefits to local economies in which there will be deep gas winning and underground coal gasification operations.

Gas produced by underground coal gasification has the potential to provide benefits to the UK including new jobs as well as decreasing our reliance on foreign energy imports. The Department has established a working group to examine, amongst other things, the research and feasibility work carried out to date in the UK related to underground coal gasification.