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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the development of Drax into the world’s first carbon neutral industrial cluster on (1) safeguarding existing jobs, and (2) creating new green skilled jobs, in Yorkshire and the Humber.

In November 2020, the Government published the Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution, which set out the government’s ambition to have two operational industrial clusters by the mid-2020s and a further two clusters operational by 2030. The CCUS programme will contribute to the creation of high skilled, high wage and sustainable jobs in every part of the UK, with the expectation of supporting up to 50,000 jobs in 2030[1]. The Net Zero Strategy outlined an ambition to deploy at least 5MtCO₂/yr of engineered removals by 2030, in line with CCC and National Infrastructure Commission assessments. Our long-term approach to engineered GGR technologies, which includes technologies used by Drax, is to have a market-driven and technology-neutral competitive framework. We intend to assess jobs, the type scale and CO2 emission reduction potential, as part of the evaluation and selection process of GGR projects.

[1] Net Zero Strategy: Build Back Greener; Green Jobs Taskforce