Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to support decarbonisation of British ports.

UK ports and the UK maritime sector that rely on our ports, are covered by the Net Zero 2050 target and our national carbon budgets under the Climate Change Act. As part of the implementation of the Transport Decarbonisation Plan, we are accelerating the development of zero emission technology and infrastructure in the UK via a £23m Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition.

Building on the success of this programme, the Net Zero Strategy announced our intention to extend this to a multi-year programme, delivering real-world demonstrations and technology trials of clean maritime vessels and infrastructure to decarbonise the maritime sector. This is part of our commitment to a UK Shipping Office for Reducing Emissions.

We also support UK ports through other ways, including through the Freeports programme, which is already seeing green investments – for example, GE Renewables is locating its new offshore wind blade manufacturing plant in the Teesside Freeport, and Siemens Gamesa is investing £186m to expand its offshore wind manufacturing in the Humber Freeport.