Contribution
I congratulate the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth) on securing the debate and on her work gathering her constituents’ views. I genuinely welcome the tone that she has taken. As a personal reflection, I miss the fact that a great many subjects that we used to debate in this place used to be debated in that tone, with a genuine desire to get the right outcome, with a bit less heat and a bit more substance. I hope that we can get back to that in debates about the energy sector.
I will come to the points raised by the hon. Lady in a moment. I recognise that the project she mentioned has a lot of interest from her constituents, as well as those in neighbouring constituencies, but it is part of the wider carbon capture industry in the UK, so before I come to those specific points, I will take a moment to explain our wider position on carbon capture.
Carbon capture, usage and storage will decarbonise industry and power in a way that drives economic growth and supports jobs, as well as our climate goals. Through CCUS we can produce flexible, low-carbon power, displacing the use of unabated gas when renewable energy sources such as solar and wind are not available. CCUS will be critical. I welcome the hon. Lady’s recognition that our pathway to reducing our carbon emission matters, and that the route we take to get there matters as well. In our view, carbon capture plays a part in that.
I was reflecting on the commitment by previous Governments to this. The shadow Energy Secretary, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), put it very well in December 2023, when she was the Energy Secretary:
“Thanks to the UK’s geology, skills and infrastructure, we are in a unique position to lead the way on carbon capture technologies.”
I welcome those comments because they set out the right approach to take, but I think there are now some new ideas among Conservative Front Benchers.
CCUS at home is one part of the story, but the story is also about how we export that technology and expertise abroad. McKinsey recently forecast that the global investment in the industry could be worth up to £135 billion by 2035. We want the UK to be at the forefront of that and to capture as much of that potential as possible. We have several advantages that make us well placed to take that forward. Our first clusters in the UK are projected to support an average of 4,800 direct jobs, while the sector as a whole can deliver up to 50,000 jobs and £2.8 billion of gross value added by 2050, and includes jobs included in north-west England and north Wales.
The question of how we reduce emissions from cement has been referenced. The HyNet cluster, which I visited a few months ago, and Padeswood cement works are examples of projects that are moving forward where carbon capture technology not only reduces our emissions and creates jobs in the process, but protects jobs at the cement works that have been rooted in that community for decades. This is about protecting our industrial base as well as building what we need for the future. Although I welcome the hon. Lady’s important point about low-carbon cement, this is not an either/or situation. There should be a place for innovation. Where we see technological solutions coming forward, we should support them as much as possible. I agree with her point about prevention being better that cure, but we also need to protect the industries that we have and the jobs that go with them. I hope that we can do both.
I welcome the chance to talk about the specifics of the Peak Cluster project, which the hon. Lady particularly wants to talk about. I also welcome the conversations that I have had with a number of other hon. Members over the past few months on this issue. My hon. Friends the Members for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper), for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders), for Derbyshire Dales (John Whitby), for High Peak (Jon Pearce), for Wirral West (Matthew Patrick), who joins me on the Front Bench, and the Mayor of the East Midlands, Claire Ward, have all raised questions, some very similar to those raised by the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury. They are legitimate questions about how we ensure that safety is a paramount consideration—