11:00 Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)

Of course, a chance to develop opportunities for people in Teesside has been lost in the past few days with the Government’s ditching of £1 billion of support for carbon capture and storage. A major industry could be developed from that, with major benefits for Teesside. The first industrial CCS project was on the stocks, but now we find out that the Government have withdrawn all funding from it. I hope the Minister will address what the Government’s hopes are for that industry, although that may not be her particular responsibility.

I thank my hon. Friend for going into that point—I was not going to raise it. Stan Higgins, who works for the North East of England Process Industry Cluster, has said that that project is still on track and private investors are still interested, but when the number of programmes was cut from four to one the Chancellor never gave any budget detail about the capital requirement. There was always £100 million floating around, rather than the £1 billion that was promised. Now we know, because of a statement given to the stock exchange at 3 o’clock during the comprehensive spending review speech last week, that all public funding for CCS has been withdrawn.

I think we are missing a huge opportunity. I do not think that Teesside should have the project—I think we should have more than one. CCS is a clear solution for fossil fuel-intensive energy production, and it is acutely needed for manufacturing. If we are going to compete with our European competitors, as well as at least trying to make a fist of it against Chinese imports in any processing industry, we need to be able to provide cheap energy and remove the problems that green taxes and green costs are applying. Ultimately, the biggest point is that CCS provides the manufacturing industry with a solution to carbon dioxide emissions. The UK as a whole—never mind Teesside—is missing a huge opportunity to take hold of that technology and become a world leader in it.

This coming Saturday, I suspect we will all be supporting the Small Business Saturday initiative. It is more vital than ever that small businesses in my constituency are supported, because they need to grow and provide more employment opportunities for my constituents. Creating a mixed economy will require risks to be taken. However, to support and develop our existing process industries on Teesside, we need Government commitment to supporting developing projects such as the Teesside Collective so that it becomes the go-to location for future clean industrial development and Europe’s first CCS-equipped industrial zone. We need our area to be seen and developed as a prime location for the use of Durham coalfield gas—a non-conventional gas that is 50% cheaper than conventional gas—via gasification, so that we can address green costs and taxes for industry and ensure a cheap, indigenous energy supply.

My hon. Friend makes the case perfectly, as ever. Furthermore, if we had a CCS plant alongside our own supply of cheaper, higher quality gas, that would be an industrial strategy in and of itself, and private investment would flock there. I hope Lord Heseltine will report that back to higher levels of Government.

[Source]

11:20 The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise (Anna Soubry)

On the comments by the Secretary of State for Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I will take that up—I cannot comment now because I genuinely do not know anything about that. I hear what the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland said about CCS. May I also say that we have changed the procurement rules? This is really important. Our new directive—our new rules on procurement—basically say that there are now no excuses for not buying British. It really is a big shift, not in Government policy but in the whole attitude and approach. We are making sure that people really do not have any excuses when it comes to procurement—they should buy British.

[Source]