Miatta Fahnbulleh

We are keen to work with Members across the House, and with local and regional government. We have set ourselves a challenging set of ambitions, so we are clear that we need to work with anyone that can unlock and bring forward investment opportunities, so as to realise those over the course of the Parliament. It would be remiss of me if I did not say that we recognise that for all the opportunities, there are still challenges faced by industry to secure the necessary investment. As a result, as the hon. Member said, few deep geothermal projects in the UK are financially viable without Government support, unlike what we see on the continent and in other countries. The hon. Member mentioned the role of Great British Energy. We are clear that it will provide further opportunities for investment in clean energy. The Great British Energy Bill sets out that “‘clean energy’ means energy produced from sources other than fossil fuels”, including geothermal, so let me reassure him that it is within scope. Great British Energy is an independent organisation, but we will give it clear direction that it should be looking at all the opportunities that could be exploited across the country and at different technologies, such as geothermal. Deployment at scale is also unlikely unless there is a demonstrable pathway to bringing down the cost of geothermal heat to make it comparable to other renewable technologies. We know that. It is why we have been working with stakeholders to improve our knowledge and understanding in this area. In 2024, we commissioned a costs research project, to which the hon. Member referred. We intend to publish that this year. I am asking my officials to work at pace to do that, but I reassure him that we will be engaging with industry prior to publication, and he has my assurance that I will facilitate that to ensure that it happens. My hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) commended the British Geological Survey, and I share his enthusiasm for it. We have commissioned work from it on open access tools that show the technically viable opportunities for geothermal projects in the UK, and we will continue to work with it. The UK is also an active member of the International Energy Agency technology collaboration programme on geothermal energy—that was a mouthful—which has enabled us to gather further learning and to learn from other international examples. All that is to say that we see the opportunity and we are trying to build the evidence base. We want to work with industry to think about how we unlock geothermal, because we see it as a viable route to the expansion of heat networks and to delivering the objective of warmer homes and cheaper bills. In conclusion, we are absolutely committed to the project and to delivering warm homes. We know that we need a range of technologies to do that. We cannot do this sprint on our own, so we will always want to work with industry to enable us to get there. I thank the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle again for securing this debate, and I thank my hon. Friends who are here for being such avid champions of geothermal. My Department is keen to work with them, and I look forward to meeting in due course. Question put and agreed to.