15:00 Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)

I have been clear that we need a multifaceted approach to decarbonising our economy and meeting our net zero goal. One technology alone will simply not be enough. Instead, we must move to a model where we use the best renewable fuel or technology for the job at hand. By advocating for our hydrogen future, I am in no way detracting from electric vehicles, biofuels or carbon capture and storage, among other central aspects of the matter. I believe that those must be used in conjunction with hydrogen to ensure that we do not have any gaps or holes in our decarbonisation efforts. Hydrogen, however, presents a unique opportunity for us to corner the market and become a world leader in hydrogen use and production, in a way that we simply do not with electric vehicle batteries or in the wind farm supply chain.

The UK is the perfect place to be a hydrogen power, because of expertise, home-grown companies, North sea assets and our developed infrastructure. Our wind farms provide clean renewable energy to produce hydrogen, and underwater pipelines can in theory ferry that hydrogen to and from the continent. I have reiterated time and again that a strong UK hydrogen industry will create thousands of jobs across the country, cut our carbon emissions dramatically and boost our post-covid and post-Brexit economy.

I am particularly impressed by Wrightbus, which is building 3,000 hydrogen buses in the UK for use across the country by 2024—the equivalent of taking 107,000 cars off the road. I have highlighted that if the 4,000 zero-emission buses announced in February had been hydrogen buses, the economies of scale would have revolutionised the transport sector, helping to achieve cost parity between hydrogen and diesel buses. We need that to happen as soon as possible.

I have been very active in discussing the hydrogen transport sector, but I am also greatly enthused by hydrogen’s potential across the UK economy. Home heating currently accounts for around 23% of national emissions, with the UK well known for having the oldest and least energy efficient homes in Europe. It has become clear to industry, and to parliamentarians, that decarbonising our gas grid is of the utmost importance if we are to meet our net zero target. Hydrogen in the gas grid will play a key role in reducing the cost of the decarbonisation of heat. Its high energy density enables it to be stored cost-effectively at scale, providing system resilience. Furthermore, hydrogen heating can be implemented at minimal disruption to the consumer, and the UK holds world-class advantages in hydrogen production, distribution and application.

Hydrogen behaves in much the same way as natural gas, and is therefore ideally placed to be utilised in existing gas pipe infrastructure. The UK is different from most European countries in terms of the number of properties connected to the gas grid and the readiness of our distribution network. In fact, 85% of homes in the UK are connected to the gas grid. Therefore, repurposing the gas grid to run off green gases has to be a vital part of the solution as we decarbonise our existing buildings.

I am pleased to note that the Government have helped initiate a number of projects that have demonstrated the technical and economic viability of hydrogen as a pathway to decarbonising the gas grid. I have been privileged to learn about many of them since my election, although hon. Members will agree that the preference for similar-sounding names is quite the tongue twister. They include the Hy4Heat programme, the HyDeploy project run by ITM Power, Cadent and the Northern Gas Networks, the H21 project led by the Northern Gas Networks, National Grid’s HyNTS Hy Street experiment, and SGN’s H100 Fife project.

The Net Zero Teesside and HyNet large-scale projects are crucial to stimulate the mass production of hydrogen so that we can move from theory to reality when it comes to home heating. Those projects are a firm demonstration of the Government’s interest in and commitment to hydrogen as a technology to help us achieve net zero. They have also provided evidence of the technical and economic viability of hydrogen as a pathway to low-carbon heat, and have helped us address some of the inherent challenges of rolling out technology. In addition, the geographical spread of the projects across the United Kingdom—many are in left-behind areas—shows that hydrogen can play an important part in the Government’s levelling-up agenda.

Having addressed hydrogen transport and home heating, I now turn to hydrogen’s potential for use in industry. That is of great importance to constituencies in the former red wall such as mine, Rother Valley. Traditionally, my area has relied on energy-intensive industrial processes. Sheffield is, of course, famous for steel making. It is vital that we decarbonise our industry and provide our factories with renewable energy that is powerful, in ready supply and affordable. Rother Valley bore the brunt of British coal’s lost competitiveness compared with cheaper foreign imports, and the high cost of energy and the struggling industry has been the narrative ever since. We now have a chance to ensure energy sustainability for generations. In doing so, we will turbocharge our national industries in the post-Brexit world.

In the light of that, I warmly welcome National Grid’s ambitions to build a hydrogen transmission backbone consisting of pipelines connecting major industrial hubs across the UK. Such hubs exist in Humberside, Teesside, south Wales, Grangemouth in Scotland, Merseyside and the Isle of Grain in Kent. The concept is that significant volumes of hydrogen will enable the build-out of 100% hydrogen pipelines to decarbonise early adopters in industry and transport. Cadent is planning a similar idea of piping 100% hydrogen by Pilkington’s glassworks in Ellesmere Port so that the factory can reduce its costs and stay open to save jobs.

Members will know that I am always keen to focus on my region of Yorkshire and the Humber in this House, which is why Zero Carbon Humber is of such relevance to me and to industry in and around my constituency. Humberside is currently the UK’s largest carbon emitting industrial area, but Zero Carbon Humber aims to make it the world’s first net zero carbon industrial cluster. It is a wonderful example of the Government working hand in hand with the private sector to fund an ambitious endeavour. It is a staggering statistic that H2H Saltend in Zero Carbon Humber can produce more than half the Government’s planned 1 GW of hydrogen by 2025, and is one of the few places in the world where hydrogen, carbon capture and offshore wind congregate to create a “super place”. The towns and villages around Zero Carbon Humber offer opportunities for hydrogen neighbourhood heating trials, essential for decarbonising the heat networks I spoke about earlier.

I envisage the Zero Carbon Humber project being recreated in Rother Valley, tying in with my plans for a hydrogen valley in my constituency. My hydrogen valley will create high-skilled jobs for my constituents, attract investment and new industries to the area, and decarbonise the towns and cities of South Yorkshire.

ITM has already acted, building the world’s largest electrolyser factory on the border of my constituency and expressing its desire to build large hydrogen refuelling stations across our nation. In that vein, the Government must encourage the development of net zero industrial clusters across the UK. That is a crucial way to revitalise left-behind areas, protect and create jobs, decarbonise polluting industry and help our manufacturers adapt, to ensure that they not only avoid closure but thrive in our green future.

I have so far addressed the UK’s hydrogen economy by sector, demonstrating that we can use hydrogen to decarbonise transport, the gas network and industry. What are the benefits to the British economy of such a hydrogen economy? The Hydrogen Taskforce believes that hydrogen can add up to £18 billion in gross value added by 2035 and support 75,000 additional jobs in every part of the United Kingdom, many of them in the north of England.

For transport, we must aim for at least some of the 4,000 zero-emission buses to be hydrogen buses. Most importantly, we must reform the RTFO to allow renewable energy from all sources to be eligible. We must introduce changes to the bus service operators grant to stop discrimination in favour of diesel vehicles, and the Department for Transport must build on the University of Birmingham’s hydrogen train success, by supporting hydrogen train fleet development. Additionally, we must support the opening of 100 hydrogen refuelling stations by 2025, to support the roll-out of hydrogen transport.

For the gas network and home heating, we must support the roll-out of hydrogen-ready boilers for existing homes by 2025 at the latest; outline in detail how the vision for hydrogen towns can be delivered; set out how the gas grid can be repurposed to enable the safe distribution of hydrogen; enable hydrogen to be blended into the gas network; and ensure that the heat and buildings decarbonisation strategy promotes a technology-neutral approach. We must also provide clarity on the business models that underpin hydrogen—for example, carbon capture and storage, pricing and demand mechanisms.

As I draw to a close, I reiterate that I believe the hydrogen economy will be transformative for the UK. Not only can it decarbonise across all sectors, ensuring that we achieve our net zero target, but it protects industry and retools it for our green future. The hydrogen economy will create skilled jobs in left-behind areas, such as Rother Valley, revitalising parts of the UK that have suffered the grim effects of deindustrialisation.

In a brave new decade with many unknowns, we do know that decarbonising our economy is important for environmental, economic, security and health reasons. Hydrogen can be one part of our energy solution, used in conjunction with other technologies, if we take action now to ensure that the UK’s hydrogen economy works for everyone, and we confirm our place as the hydrogen kingdom.

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15:23 Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)

To reach the Government’s goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and to honour the Scottish Government’s commitment to achieve the same goal by 2045, we will need to maximise the use of all potential options for decarbonisation. Until this point, hydrogen has been a massively underused option, but it is one that should be prioritised in Government planning and funding in the future. In particular, we need to be aware of the fact that, while electric cars, wind turbines and solar panels are widely accepted by the public—and their imaginations—right across the United Kingdom, the concept of hydrogen as a potential low-carbon secondary energy source is still alien to most of them. Therefore, I first urge the Minister to consider what steps the Government can take to maximise public understanding of hydrogen as a vital asset in combating climate change.

I welcome the Government’s White Paper, which outlined their aim to increase the UK’s low-carbon hydrogen production capacity to 5 GW by 2030 and committed them to publishing a more detailed report in 2021 focusing on the UK’s hydrogen strategy. I urge them to publish the report without delay. Hydrogen is one of the key concepts of the future that will take us towards our climate goals.

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15:29 Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)

The piece of the jigsaw that I shall concentrate on is Suffolk and Norfolk—including the Waveney constituency —in East Anglia. While we do not possess any significant industrial clusters, there is an opportunity to harness hydrogen across a large geographical area to create a blueprint for how it can be deployed at scale to decarbonise our energy, transport and heating systems and to revolutionise the way in which we do business, thereby bringing prosperity to the region. I shall briefly outline the opportunities available.

There is the opportunity to decarbonise portside operations and shipping activities at the east coast ports of Harwich, Felixstowe, Ipswich, Lowestoft, Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn. From those ports, one would also seek to decarbonise road and rail freight. To turn to the rail network, the east Suffolk line, which runs from Ipswich to Lowestoft, is a vital link for the Waveney area to the rest of the country, but it does need to be improved with faster journey times. For that, we could use hydrogen-powered trains.

As we heard, the hydrogen strategy must be published as soon as possible. There must be a public endorsement of hydrogen as a central component in the transition to net zero, supported by a target percentage for hydrogen in the UK’s energy rates. There should be a support programme for the manufacture and deployment of UK fuel cell technologies, which matches world-class technology with investors of scale. There should be a move away from promoting competitions between regions and towards funding for well-managed, joined-up and collaborative initiatives. Finally, there should be clarity on the role of the UK’s regulatory framework with regard to hydrogen.

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15:36 Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)

The exciting opportunities that we have in Cheshire and Warrington will give us the chance to drive forward a new hydrogen economy at pace. Industry is at the forefront of proposals that are deliverable quickly, and which will protect and support high-value employment and can create thousands of green jobs in the local economy. One of the main projects is HyNet, which could start capturing industrial carbon dioxide emissions as early as 2025, if the Government make speedy decisions on the industrial decarbonisation challenge programme.

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15:43 Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)

Despite that, hydrogen is certainly the future of our long-term energy needs as we head towards net zero. We have a lot of opportunities in Warrington, Cheshire and the wider north-west to drive forward a new hydrogen economy at pace. I say that because, as the hon. Member for City of Chester indicated, energy is in our DNA in Warrington, certainly with nuclear, but with hydrogen development too.

By 2050, our energy system will look very different from today. One of the most advanced schemes that will contribute to that is HyNet, which could start capturing industrial carbon dioxide emissions as early as 2025—just five years away—if the Government make speedy decisions on the industrial decarbonisation challenge programme, which is my key ask for the Minister today. By the mid-2030s, HyNet could be capturing more than 25 million tonnes of CO 2 per annum, which is two and a half times the national target that the Government hope to achieve by 2030. The north-west can really contribute to that target.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) on his work as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on hydrogen. I hope that he will not mind me saying that in the north-west, we have that deep manufacturing history. The project will play a critical role in our fight against climate change by producing, storing and distributing hydrogen to decarbonise the north of England and north Wales.

In short, HyNet is a game changer that will provide a bedrock to level up across the north-west. It will create about 6,000 permanent highly-skilled green jobs and deliver clean hydrogen energy into our local network to heat our homes. Businesses and investors need to be confident that their investments will deliver a reasonable return for risk, and consumers need to be confident in upgrading their heating systems with potentially costly and disruptive net zero solutions.

To conclude, I look forward to seeing the UK’s hydrogen strategy in spring 2021, which should set out the UK’s business models and revenue mechanisms, and the Government need to secure the private sector investment that is needed to ensure we can get the most out of hydrogen production as we head towards net zero.

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15:57 Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) on securing this important debate. Climate breakdown is not a distant threat; it is happening here and now. The World Meteorological Organisation found that the 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years. Human-caused climate change has already been proven to increase the risk of floods and extreme rainfall, heatwaves and wildfires, with dire implications for humans, animals and the environment. It is true to say that without immediate Government intervention, the urgent action required to preserve a habitable planet will be too slow. This will cause unimaginable disruption and could cost millions of lives, most immediately and sharply in global south countries, which have contributed the least to climate change.

The production of green hydrogen through electrolysis is currently much more expensive. I challenge the Minister and the Government to commit to and focus their investment on making this cleaner form of hydrogen cheaper and more widely accessible. Otherwise, we risk the same fossil fuel companies that have profited from the climate crisis continuing to dominate and possibly even hampering our move towards renewable.

It is particularly vital that we introduce a zero-carbon homes standard for all new homes as part of heat decarbonisation. We must urgently roll out technologies such as heat pumps, solar, hot water and hydrogen and invest in district heat networks, using waste heat—

Okay. The green industrial revolution on which I was elected would have upgraded almost all of the UK’s 27 million homes to the highest energy efficiency standards, reducing the average bills by £417 per household per year by 2030 and eliminating fuel poverty. That speaks to the fact that, in any green industrial revolution, it is vital that the protection of all workers and communities is guaranteed during the transition to renewable energies and a socially just economy. The climate crisis is clearly a class crisis and it must be the big polluters and corporate giants who bear the cost, not ordinary people.

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16:02 Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)

Because of time constraints, I will not pay tribute to everybody who has spoken, except to say that it has been a very good debate. I agree with pretty much all the contributions. The hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) said it is not a competition, but then made a very valiant plug for East Anglia. Everybody else said that it is not really a competition, but we have to be careful. The way some of the system is set up by the Government at the moment, with picking clusters ahead of others, makes it very much a competition. I would like to see a greater commitment from the Government on taking out carbon emissions, particularly through CCS, and on giving the go-ahead for five or more clusters rather than a couple at a time.

Germany published its hydrogen strategy in June 2020, so if we do not watch, the UK is going to be a year behind Germany. As we know, it has committed €9 billion. The £240 million net zero hydrogen fund may be welcome, but over a 10-year period, it looks quite paltry compared with Germany’s €9 billion. The UK plan target of 5 GW of low-carbon hydrogen production by 2030 is welcome, but it is the same as Germany’s. Could greater ambition be shown, to get ahead of the game?

When it comes to hydrogen business models, the UK Government are again behind the curve. The proposal to finalise those models in 2022 should and could be speeded up. We know the contract for difference process has worked well in bringing down the costs for renewables, although there are issues about the supply chain, but CfD could still be looked at for hydrogen production. Meanwhile, the effort—I am repeating myself on this point—that has gone into plugging nuclear is beyond belief. Let us put that effort into hydrogen and CCS and other low-carbon technologies.

Again, although the UK has made good progress in decarbonisation, 27 million homes are still reliant on fossil fuels for heating, and transport is still a huge contributor. In both those sectors, hydrogen will be pivotal, as has been said. On heating, we still need to see the buildings and heating decarbonisation strategy, and a future homes strategy is required. As the hon. Member for Rother Valley said, we need to look at a whole mix of options for our decarbonisation. Heat pumps, for example, are welcome, but we need a clear strategy and technology selection framework for that to develop and go forward. The way in which those measures will be paid for also needs to be evaluated, because there is a limit to what can be passed on to consumer bills. We already have too much fuel poverty in the UK; we cannot risk any more.

When looking at the 27 million homes that are still reliant on fossil fuel heating systems, and others that are reliant on electrification, it is impossible not to see hydrogen as the only large-scale conversion approach. Even so, the full large-scale roll-out of hydrogen would be in 2030, which means that every week for some 20 years, 27,000 homes will need their heat sources decarbonised. That is a huge task that requires much planning, and perhaps even an independent body to oversee it—like the switch from town gas, it will require a massive effort. Manufacturers in the UK already make hydrogen-compliant boilers, so will the Government mandate the sale and installation of hydrogen-ready boilers by 2025? That is an industry ask.

On transport, hydrogen needs to play a major role in the reduction of shipping and aviation emissions. Again, for joined-up thinking, I urge the UK Government to include those measures in the 2050 net zero target. Those international emissions must be included if we are really serious about net zero. The Scottish Government have included those emissions in their 2045 net zero plans to drive innovation and industry. Other welcome initiatives include the world’s first hydrogen-powered crane—I welcome the Department for Transport’s £400,000 grant for that—and the setting-up of the Jet Zero Council, as well as the Airbus plans for ZEROe.

I cannot mention hydrogen production without mentioning Peterhead and St Fergus. The UK Government need to make up for the betrayal on that project and include it within the first CCS cluster to be given the go-ahead. I hope the Minister can confirm that while the White Paper shows only Grangemouth on the map of the UK, it will look at the overall project that links with St Fergus in the north and the hydrogen production facility. We also need the oil and gas transition deal to be signed off.

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16:11 Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)

I do not need to reprise too much of that content, because we agree that the potential for the hydrogen economy in this country is not only bright but essential in our drive to net zero. We heard about how hydrogen will play a substantial role in the decarbonisation of heat and the efficiency of energy going into homes. We heard that it is more than possible to inject hydrogen into the system—after all, town gas used to be about 50% hydrogen before natural gas was introduced into the system, so it is not a new thing, but it could aid us enormously in getting down to net zero in our heating. Beyond 20%, we can envisage hydrogen towns, hydrogen islands and a whole range of hydrogen-heated areas. I was slightly disappointed to see in the energy White Paper how the Government are only thinking about consulting on hydrogen-ready boilers for the future. We need to get on with that now. Let us mandate hydrogen-ready boilers across the country tomorrow so that they are ready and we have the proper equipment to make it work when these things come to pass.

It is essential that we invest early in green hydrogen to get the hydrogen economy going properly. I have seen the very interesting minutes of the meeting that the Minister got together in June to discuss those points further; that was very much an element of the Council for Science and Technology briefing that he took part in. I hope he has firmly taken the message on board about future hydrogen production. Hydrogen has a bright future, but we have to create it in the right way to make it as bright as it can be. If we get it wrong at this stage, we will regret it severely, in terms of our net-zero carbon ambitions.

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16:20 The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Kwasi Kwarteng)

This has been an extremely busy time for the energy industry. The Government have had the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan, the second point of which was all about hydrogen. It outlined our ambition for a 5 GW capacity. Subsequent points in the 10-point plan referred to the use of renewables and decarbonised sources of fuel in jet propulsion and marine transport. A number of Members mentioned the role of hydrogen in transportation. It is absolutely right that we should be focusing on HGVs, for which it is particularly suited.

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