Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of providing further support to the building of hydrogen re-fuelling sites.

Hydrogen is likely to be fundamental to achieving the full decarbonisation of UK transport. The UK already has one of the largest hydrogen refuelling station networks in Europe with fourteen publicly accessible stations that provide hydrogen suitable for use by cars, vans, trucks and buses.

The Government’s £23m Hydrogen for Transport Programme is already supporting the deployment of hundreds of new hydrogen vehicles and growing the refuelling network by delivering new refuelling stations and upgrading some existing stations.

The £3m Tees Valley Hydrogen Transport Hub is supporting hydrogen fuel cell vehicle deployments in the region and infrastructure investments by co-locating transport end-users with hydrogen production and refuelling.

In addition, the Department for Transport’s £20m Zero Emission Road Freight Trials will support UK industry to develop cost-effective, zero-emission HGVs and their refuelling infrastructure in the UK, and aim to demonstrate multiple potential technologies for decarbonising the largest road freight vehicles such as hydrogen, so that by the end of the decade we are able to start providing the necessary infrastructure for HGVs to meet our net zero targets.

The Zero Emission Road Freight Trials and the Government’s 4,000 zero emission buses commitment may also provide the potential for an increase in hydrogen refuelling stations within the UK, subject to future years spending.