Luke Myer

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Betts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) on securing the debate and my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Tom Collins) on opening it so well. The Teesside region already produces much of the UK’s hydrogen, in an economy built on the legacy of ICI, and it continues today with BOC’s Teesside hydrogen carbon capture, usage and storage project. We have the pipelines, the port and the skills, and now the prospect of a new £4 billion net zero Teesside CCUS project linked to the Endurance saline aquifer beneath the North sea. With projects across our industrial cluster, we are well equipped to deliver perhaps a quarter of the Government’s 2030 target. The potential is huge, representing thousands of construction jobs in the short term, with long-term roles in energy, transport and manufacturing, and the chance to give our young people skilled work close to home. This is about livelihoods and whether young people in Middlesbrough, Redcar, Cleveland, Stockton—my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald) is in his place—Hartlepool and Darlington can find skilled, unionised work in the industries of the future, rather than having to leave home to find opportunity elsewhere. That shift will not happen by accident and needs Government to back British supply chains, to ensure that we build the infrastructure and elements we need here, not overseas. It means putting in specific sector support for industries such as steel manufacturing and construction to adopt hydrogen where it is needed—for example, hydrogen for direct reduced iron. It means ensuring that contracts come with conditions on fair pay, skills and apprenticeships. And it means putting local communities in the driving seat, devolving power and investment so that the people of regions such as Teesside can shape this transition, not just watch it happen from the sidelines. Given the outsized role the north of England is already playing through the three major clusters, the Government should perhaps establish a regional body—an acceleration forum—to draw together existing work and drive hydrogen development in the north. In any case, pioneering businesses, research partners and regional governments are driving the work forward, and co-ordinating that investment and innovation is important. I am slightly more cautious about domestic heating, which has been touched on in the debate. That is purely because our region saw the unsuccessful trial in Redcar in 2023, when the public opposed the project in the end. It is important that people are brought along in the process. That is not to say these things are not safe or possible—there are areas of the country where blending works well—but it is about doing this with communities.