Peak Cluster Pipeline and Project

Instead, the Government, in ignorance or in full-throttle support, are pushing ahead with the project. In fact, they have deemed it a nationally significant infrastructure project, which means that the local authorities cannot either approve or reject it, despite significant objections from local constituents; rather, it falls for sign-off to the Government. The storage of the carbon dioxide beneath the seabed will require approval from the North Sea Transition Authority, another Government quango—wholly owned by the UK Government—which has responsibility for offshore carbon dioxide storage.

There are huge concerns about the cost-effectiveness of the technology, too. Last year, the Public Accounts Committee warned of a “high degree of uncertainty” over whether carbon capture projects would deliver value for money, so I can see why the Government are ducking away and not doing anything. The chief executive of Octopus Energy also questioned whether carbon capture represents a worthwhile use of taxpayers’ money. Surely, the Department responsible for energy infrastructure did a value-for-money assessment before committing public money to the project. If so, what is that assessment?

Residents I have spoken to are rightly and understandably concerned about the health and safety hazards, too. What if a leak were to happen? What emergency procedures are in place? What assessments have been made of the risks to nearby communities and to the maritime environment? The project could cause untold damage to agricultural land, sites of scientific interest and some of our towns and villages. It is ironic that the Government consider this to be an environmental project when it could very well destroy—and is already destroying—the environment. This would be laughable if it were not so serious. Have I received any reassurances on those health and safety matters? No, I have not. Have the Government even taken this into account? They cannot wash their hands of this project. If something goes wrong, the public will want answers.

Another claim by the Government, and by some of the people who might be getting tenders from them, paid for by the taxpayer, is that the project will support around 3,500 jobs. What will those jobs be? How many will be permanent rather than temporary construction roles? How many will go to local people, and how many will require specialist contractors to be brought in from overseas? Regarding the future of the project, how long is the infrastructure guaranteed for? I hear that the pipes are only guaranteed for 30 years. Can the Minister confirm or deny that?

The north-west should not be a dumping ground for carbon dioxide from not only elsewhere in the country, but elsewhere in the world. Although the project says it will initially be used to store carbon dioxide captured from Derbyshire and Staffordshire, it has been reported that the infrastructure will be designed to allow it to import and transport carbon dioxide from other countries in future. Can the Minister confirm whether those reports are correct? What additional approval would the Government require to grant those permissions?

All that the project will do is store up problems for future generations to tackle and pay for. The physicists and scientists who have contacted me mock the Government’s ignorance on this matter, saying that carbon dioxide is needed, and that if the Government really wanted to do something, they could just plant some trees. I am afraid that the Government have been suckered into a multibillion-pound waste of a project about which, as we know, they have no business acumen or know-how.

Before the Minister rises and dismisses my questions, as he did last week on the Floor of the House, saying that the Government have nothing to do with this project, I remind him—I ask him to reflect on this point—that the Peak Cluster project has deep, direct, structural and financial links to the Government, with the final sign-off coming via a development consent order by the Energy Secretary. The Government are a stakeholder in Peak Cluster Ltd, the private company the Minister referred to. Local authorities cannot object to the project, as the Government have deemed it a nationally significant infrastructure project. The money invested in it comes from the National Wealth Fund, wholly owned by the Government.

With that in mind, will the Government and the Minister kindly give some meaningful answers? If he cannot do so today and needs to go away to do some homework, I will happily accept a written response, but the Government cannot keep using obfuscation and excuses to try to hoodwink the public. The public demand answers today.

The challenge we have is future-proofing the industry. A number of businesses now want to buy low-carbon cement to construct their projects, but low-carbon cement is produced elsewhere in the world, so it is important to find ways to be competitive in that market. As I said in the Adjournment debate, other technologies for creating low-carbon cement exist, but they are not yet at a stage where they can be deployed at scale. Carbon capture is important, and there is no route to net zero that does not involve this technology.

I want to remind the right hon. Member for Tatton why net zero is important, although I know that not everyone will agree. Given that we are living through climate change on such a scale, we as a country should be taking our responsibility seriously to do everything we can, and this is an important part of how we tackle it. This is also an economic opportunity that not only creates thousands of jobs in carbon capture but protects thousands of jobs in the heavy industry that we do not want to see leaving this country to go elsewhere. It plays a strategically important part, along with our economic growth and industrial strategy, in how we will broadly deliver net zero.

Before I address some of the right hon. Lady’s points on the Peak Cluster, I want to repeat a point I made in the Adjournment debate about the voice of local communities, which is one that she also rightly made. She made a point about the nationally significant infrastructure project regime, which I want to clarify. Perhaps I misunderstood, but I think she was trying to suggest that the Government have somehow contrived for the Secretary of State to make a decision on a particular project. The NSIP regime exists—indeed, it existed under the previous Conservative Government—to recognise that there are some projects of such a scale that local councils cannot individually decide on them, so they should be decided on at a national level.

That is a process that has been undertaken for many years. I want to be really clear, however, that that recognition does not suggest, in any way, that there will be a particular outcome from the process. Not only has there been no decision from Government on this project, but it has not even been submitted for a decision at this stage. It is a long way from that process.