Government pledges £22bn for carbon capture and storage technology in net zero drive
The government has pledged nearly £22bn to fund projects that capture greenhouse gases from polluting plants and store them underground, as it races to reach strict climate targets.
The plans are designed to generate private investment and jobs in Merseyside and Teesside, two industry-heavy areas that will be home to the new “carbon capture clusters”.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the move was “reigniting our industrial heartlands by investing in the industry of the future”, though there are questions about how best to use this expensive technology.
Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) has been developed to combat climate change.
It captures the planet-warming carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels or from heavy industry, and puts it to use or stores it underground.
How CCUS can work, by capturing the carbon dioxide emissions from something like a gas plant or cement factory, transporting them through existing gas pipes, and storing them in a depleted oil or gas field under the sea
It is expensive and difficult, but the UK’s climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), and United Nations scientists say it is essential to get the world to net zero, which the UK is targeting for 2050.
Net zero means cutting emissions as much as possible and offsetting or capturing the stubborn remaining ones.
Today the government has committed up to £21.7bn over 25 years, to be given in subsidies to sites in the Teesside and Merseyside “clusters” – from 2028.
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It will be split between three projects, which are capturing carbon dioxide released either from making hydrogen, generating gas power or burning waste to create energy from 2028.
The gas – up to 8.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions – will be locked away in empty gas fields in the Liverpool Bay and the North Sea.
The government hopes it will attract £8bn in private investment, create 4,000 direct jobs and support a further 50,000.
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Can carbon capture help fight climate change?
The cash will pay for fewer projects than hoped – the last government suggested a £20bn pot of money for similar projects – but the new administration says those plans weren’t properly costed, and the funding hadn’t been allocated.
The funding is to come from a mixture of Treasury money and energy bills, but the government has been coy about the split so far.
Questions on this might cause a headache for Labour, which has been complaining about an inherited £22bn budget black hole.
Sir Keir said the announcement will “give industry the certainty it needs” and “help deliver jobs, kickstart growth, and repair this country once and for all”.
Will it help jobs and business?
It hopes to fund the first large scale hydrogen production plant in the UK, and help the oil and gas sector and its transferable skills move over to green industries.
It has been welcomed by industry and the unions, coming just a week after job losses from the closures of Port Talbot Steelworks and Ratcliffe coal power station.
GMB general secretary Gary Smith said the news “shows what levelling up can really mean: good, well paid jobs reinvigorating communities”.
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Does carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) work?
CCUS has made slow progress: promised for decades but barely scaled, with just 45 commercial sites globally.
However, it began to pick up in the last few years, with 700 plants now in some stage of development around the world.
The world’s first CCUS plant has stored CO2 under Norway’s waters since 1996, though elsewhere a few concerns linger about whether some projects leak gas.
James Richardson, acting chief executive of the CCC, said: “We can’t hit the country’s targets without CCUS, so this commitment to it is very reassuring”.
How should CCUS be used?
Some believe expensive CCUS should be preserved for areas like cement or lime-production, that are very hard to clean up in any other way, rather than for sectors for which there are greener alternatives.
Greenpeace UK’s Doug Parr warned of a “risk of locking ourselves into second-rate solutions”.
The government hopes this funding for the three sites that are ready to go will lay the foundations for further CCUS projects.
Politics
University tuition fee rise branded ‘morally wrong’ – as Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson defends increase
The education secretary has said no decision has been made on whether university tuition fees will increase with inflation each year.
Bridget Phillipson has announced the maximum cap on tuition fees in England will go up in line with inflation from April 2025.
The cost of tuition will increase by £285 to £9,535 next year – the first rise in eight years.
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There will also be a rise in maximum maintenance loans to increase in line with inflation, giving an increase of £414 a year to help students with living costs.
However, the education secretary did not say if the rise would continue after that.
Speaking to Sky News’ Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge, Ms Phillipson admitted she did not know what would happen with tuition fees after April 2026.
“We’re going to look at this and the maintenance support and the sector overall as part of the reform that we intend to set out in the months to come,” she said.
“So no decision, no decision has been taken on what happens beyond this.”
She said the government will be looking at “what is required… to get our universities on a more sustainable footing… but also to deliver a better deal for students as a part of that”.
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University tuition fees to increase
The minister said she also “intends to look at” uprating the threshold at which students need to start paying tuition fees back in line with inflation.
Jo Grady, general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), said the tuition fee rise was “economically and morally wrong”.
She said: “Taking more money from debt-ridden students and handing it to overpaid underperforming vice-chancellors is ill conceived and won’t come close to addressing the sector’s core issues.”
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The National Union of Students (NUS) said students were being asked to “foot the bill” to keep the lights and heating on in their universities and to prevent their courses from closing down amid the “crisis”.
Alex Stanley, vice president for higher education of the NUS, said: “This is, and can only ever be, a sticking plaster.
“Universities cannot continue to be funded by an ever-increasing burden of debt on students.”
Universities have been making up for fees being frozen since 2017/18 by taking in international students who pay more.
However, student visa numbers have fallen after the previous government made it more difficult for them to come to the UK recently, so universities can no longer rely on the fees.
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Dame Priti Patel has made a comeback as Kemi Badenoch has appointed her shadow foreign secretary, Sky News understands.
Ms Badenoch, who became Conservative leader on Saturday, started officially appointing her shadow cabinet on Sunday evening.
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On Monday afternoon, the two biggest jobs were confirmed, with former home secretary Ms Patel being given the shadow foreign secretary role.
Former shadow work and pensions secretary Mel Stride, who ran in the Tory leadership race and is considered more of a moderate than Ms Badenoch, has been made shadow chancellor.
Robert Jenrick, who lost out to Ms Badenoch, is the new shadow justice secretary, sources told Sky News.
Earlier in the day, Laura Trott, who served as chief secretary to the Treasury under Rishi Sunak, was appointed shadow education secretary.
The new Tory leader made her first appointments on Sunday evening ahead of her new top team meeting for the first time on Tuesday.
Mel Stride was work and pensions secretary and stood to be Tory leader
Now the Conservatives are in opposition, the shadow cabinet’s role is to scrutinise the policies and actions of the government and to offer alternative policies.
Nigel Huddleston and Dominic Johnson, junior ministers under Mr Sunak, were appointed joint chairmen of the Conservative Party.
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The role involves overseeing the party’s headquarters, where staff and committee members have their offices.
Essex MP Dame Rebecca Harris was confirmed as chief whip after the interim chief whip Stuart Andrew said she was replacing him.
She will be responsible for ensuring Tory MPs attend and vote in parliament as the party leadership desires.
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Badenoch: ‘We let standards slip’
Former foreign secretary James Cleverly, who came third in the leadership race, said on Friday he would not be joining Ms Badenoch’s top team.
Ex-prime minister Mr Sunak, his former deputy Sir Oliver Dowden, ex-chancellor Jeremy Hunt and former Brexit, health, and environment secretary Steve Barclay have all said they will be joining him on the backbenches.
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