The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Andrea Leadsom)

Moving to net zero greenhouse gas emissions for the UK economy requires transformation across all sectors of the economy and unprecedented levels of investment in green and low carbon technologies. The UK is a world leader in clean growth and in setting our ambitious, legally binding, target of achieving net zero emissions across the economy by 2050 we have demonstrated our commitment to maintain this position.

Today, the UK steel sector is a significant source of emissions cwwontributing 15% to industrial greenhouse gas emissions. The integrated steel works at the British Steel site in Scunthorpe and the Tata Steel UK site Port Talbot are the two largest industrial sources of emissions in the UK.

We believe the time is right to provide dedicated support to our steel industry, to help put it on a pathway to decarbonisation in line with our net zero commitments. As a signal of that support, on 29 August, Government announced a £250 million Clean Steel Fund.

There are a range of different decarbonisation options for steel production: switching to lower carbon fuels, including hydrogen; industrial carbon capture; and energy and material efficiency. In order to better understand the needs of the steel sector and which pathways best meet our objectives we issued a call for evidence alongside the fund’s announcement to inform its future design. We will work with the steel sector and other stakeholders to develop timelines for the fund and to identify how to maximise the economic and environmental benefits of these decarbonisation options.

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