Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment his Department has made of the potential contribution of domestic steel production to the transition to net zero.

Steel was responsible for 3% of UK emissions in 2022, 16% of UK manufacturing emissions. The majority of these emissions were due to the production of steel via the Blast Furnace route at Port Talbot and Scunthorpe. Currently the only commercially viable decarbonisation option is Electric Arc Furnaces (EAFs), which can also contribute to meeting the demand for steel required for the Net Zero transition.

UK Government and Tata Steel have agreed a transformation deal to decarbonisation Port Talbot reducing carbon emissions from the site by 85%, and UK emissions by 1.5%.

We are also open to supporting innovative technologies like hydrogen-based Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) and Carbon Capture and Storage and continue to assess their feasibility.