Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Recommendation 21
Sixth Report - Hydrogen and carbon capture in Scotland
Published 10 Mar 2023
Paragraph 106
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 cooperative approach between the UK and Scottish Governments on skills training and jobs continues, not least because of the mixture of reserved and devolved competencies when it comes to energy, education and skills. On at least a biannual basis, the UK and Scottish Governments should jointly set out work they are undertaking to ensure that colleges, training providers and businesses within the hydrogen and CCUS sectors are able to offer appropriate routes into employment and training, and providing this information should be viewed as a priority. Incorporated into this analysis, both the UK and Scottish Governments should also provide regular updates on progress against their estimated jobs forecasts in the medium term.
From: Scottish Affairs Committee, Sixth Report - Hydrogen and carbon capture in Scotland (HC 83), paragraph 106, 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".