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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will estimate (a) the value to the economy of the carbon fibre industry and (b) how many people the carbon fibre industry employs; and if he will make a statement.

Government statistics are not collected at a sufficiently detailed level to estimate the value to the economy of specific materials such as carbon fibre. However the UK composites product market, which includes carbon fibre, glass and aramid reinforced plastics, is estimated to be worth £2.3bn currently, and is seeing significant growth.^[i] The UK has considerable strengths already in the development of composite materials arising from their use in our aerospace industry as well as Formula 1, and we have world-class research and development facilities at centres such as the National Composites Centre (part of our High Value Manufacturing Catapult).

[i] UKTI commissioned study on fibre-reinforced polymer composite materials, National Composites Centre