Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Recommendation 13
Sixth Report - Hydrogen and carbon capture in Scotland
Published 10 Mar 2023
Paragraph 69
Addressed to Scotland Office
Scottish Affairs Committee Hydrogen and carbon capture in Scotland All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We recommend that the UK and Scottish Governments work more closely to ensure the achievability of their respective ambitions for hydrogen exports, and that the economic benefits are realised. In its response to this report, the UK Government should continue to update this committee on progress over its timeframe for securing an export market and current progress in assessing the opportunities and risks, as well as addressing the challenges we have described, including around infrastructure and balance between export and domestic consumption. As international trade is reserved, we recommend that the UK Government outlines what it is doing to make hydrogen export more commercially attractive and how the UK Government plans to bring in investors while engaging with the Scottish Government and hydrogen industry.
From: Scottish Affairs Committee, Sixth Report - Hydrogen and carbon capture in Scotland (HC 83), paragraph 69, 10 March 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 8 June 2023 (deadline 1 June 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees that the UK and Scottish Governments have clear hydrogen strategies and that close joint working matters on exports, while setting out its own delivery plans and declining to comment on recommendations addressed to the Scottish Government on devolved matters.
- On targets, the government calls up to 10GW of low carbon hydrogen by 2030, "subject to affordability and value for money", "a stretching but deliverable ambition". It says the Scottish 5GW ambition "does not have a formal relationship" to the UK-wide figure.
- It commits to a hydrogen production delivery roadmap, "to be published by the end of the year", and plans a second electrolytic allocation round "later in 2023".
- On carbon capture, it describes CCUS as "a priority" and says it intends to "provide an update on next steps for Track-2 in the summer". It reports over £40m of development funding allocated to the Scottish cluster.
- On hydrogen storage, it commits to designing a storage business model "by 2025". On hydrogen-ready boilers, it is analysing consultation responses on a 2026 requirement and "will issue the Government response in due course".