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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to encourage environmentally-friendly industry and manufacturing in the (a) Wolverhampton South West constituency and (b) UK.

Achieving Net Zero remains a priority and the Government will consider how transitioning to a carbon neutral economy, creating new sources of competitive advantage in green manufacturing and sustainable business, will feature in a post-COVID-19 economy. We recognise that policies and measures to support low carbon technologies can be drivers of economic growth and new jobs in the Wolverhampton South constituency and across the UK, for example electric vehicle manufacturing in the Midlands.

The Government has just launched the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund, a scheme set up to help businesses with high energy use to reduce energy bills and cut carbon emissions. This scheme will support businesses to invest in energy efficient, low carbon technologies and in doing so help to place industry on a path to a low carbon future.

The Industrial Clusters Mission will establish the world’s first net-zero carbon industrial cluster by 2040 and at least one low-carbon cluster by 2030. To kick start the Mission, we will be investing up to £170 million via the Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge (IDC) fund to support the deployment of low-carbon technologies and enabling infrastructure in one or more clusters.

The Made Smarter Review found that greater adoption and innovation of industrial digital technology in UK manufacturing could deliver a 4.5% reduction in CO2 emissions and over £10 billion in reduced resource costs. Through our Made Smarter programme, we are investing up to £167 million to support digitalisation in UK manufacturing and through which we are already seeing examples of the role digital technology plays in increasing the resilience of firms in the sector.

Finally, the BEIS Local Energy Programme is designed to maximise local contribution to clean growth, decarbonisation, and to help reach net zero targets. The programme works with Local Enterprise Partnerships, Local Authorities and Communities in England to drive development of clean growth as a key part of Local Industrial Strategies and support local clean growth investment. The key focus is mobilisation of green finance to support projects at local level that wouldn’t otherwise happen. The Local Energy Programme, which includes the Midlands Energy Hub, addresses barriers to clean growth activity and equips areas to drive private sector investment into clean growth across a pipeline of local projects.