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

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps she has taken to engage with the bidders for the carbon capture and storage competition since its cancellation.

The Department has continued to engage and meet with both bidders in the carbon capture and storage (CCS) competition – Shell and Capture Power Limited. We are clear that CCS is too expensive and costs must come down. We continue to work with wider industry to help develop CCS cost efficiency in the UK, including through the joint Government-industry CCS Development Forum, which I co-chair