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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the role carbon capture and storage technology can play in decarbonising the transport sector.

The Government believes that carbon capture, usage & storage (CCUS) has a potentially important role to play in meeting the UK’s climate targets and supporting our Industrial Strategy. CCUS can add value to the economy and help tackle hard to decarbonise sectors.

This includes supporting the decarbonisation of the transport sector, including through enabling the production of low carbon electricity or hydrogen, which could power zero emission vehicles.

On 27 June we announced that nine companies have secured £26 million of government funding, in addition to industry backing, to advance the rollout of carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) in the UK - a crucial step towards the UK’s net zero emissions and the end of the UK’s contribution to global warming. It is the next milestone for the Government’s ambition for the UK to be a world-leader in the field as laid out in the Clean Growth Strategy and the CCUS Action Plan.

One company, Tata Chemicals is being awarded £4.2m toward the construction of a facility to capture and utilise 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year – the equivalent of 22,000 cars.