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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what additional (a) support and (b) funding the Government plans to provide to the manufacturing industry sector to help that sector achieve carbon neutral status.

While we are rightly focusing on taking action to tackle the immediate Covid-19 crisis, we continue to prioritise efforts to deal with the serious challenges of climate change.

The Government remains committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. We will continue backing this objective by funding programmes that accelerate the shift to electrification. For example, the Faraday Challenge is providing £274 million to ensure the UK leads the world in the design, development, and manufacture of batteries for the electrification of vehicles.

The 2017 Made Smarter Review highlighted the economic and environmental opportunities for the UK’s manufacturing sector until 2027. This includes £455 billion Gross Value Added, the creation of 175,000 jobs, and a 4.5% reduction in CO2 emissions. The development of low carbon technologies will benefit the UK economy, as well as reduce carbon emissions, including through the creation of new jobs.

We will establish the world’s first net zero carbon industrial cluster by 2040 and at least one low carbon cluster by 2030. This is the second mission under the Clean Growth Grand Challenge, launched in December 2018, and is the most relevant to those manufacturing industries that often co-locate in clusters. UK Research & Innovation is delivering up to £170 million to support the deployment of low carbon technologies in one or more clusters.