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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to (a) develop carbon capture and storage technology and (b) retrain and redeploy oil and gas sector workers in low-carbon industries.

We are committed to deploying carbon capture and storage (CCS) this decade as we work towards Net Zero by 2050 and see an opportunity for the UK to become a global leader in CCS.

That’s why we announced a new CCS Infrastructure Fund which will enhance long-term competitiveness of UK’s industrial regions by providing at least £800million to establish CCS in at least two UK clusters, one by the mid-2020s and another by 2030, contributing to our net zero targets and levelling up the economy.

In parallel, we are investing over £40 million between 2016 and 2021in innovation funding carbon capture, usage and storage. United Kingdom Research and Innovation has also recently announced the allocation of the first phase of funding for the Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge, in which we expect carbon capture and storage to play an important role.

The upstream oil and gas sector remains an important sector in its own right. However, as we transition to a low carbon economy we expect the oil and gas sector, including its supply chain, to have a key role in delivering this transformation. We are already seeing this happening as the supply chain uses its existing skills and capabilities to diversify into low-carbon sectors such as offshore wind. We are working with the sector on our manifesto commitment to deliver a transformational oil and gas Sector Deal which we expect to focus around the energy transition.