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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the potential effect on the environment of carbon capture technology.

The Government believes that carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS) has the potential to play an important role in meeting the UK’s climate targets. CCUS can add value to the economy and help tackle hard to decarbonise sectors.

Our CCUS Action Plan is designed to progress CCUS in the UK, including enabling the UK’s first CCUS facility to be operational from the mid-2020s. CCUS is also likely to play an important role in achieving our Industrial Clusters Mission, creating the world’s first net-zero industrial cluster by 2040.

In progressing CCUS, the UK has already established a robust regulatory framework for CCUS, with regulations applying to licensing, environmental inspection and CO₂ storage, operation and monitoring activities. This means that any CCUS project will need to comply with a rigorous health and safety assessment and require permits and approval from relevant environment agencies, the Health and Safety Executive and the Oil and Gas Authority.