To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment he made of requiring the structural steel used in the Net Zero Teesside carbon capture, utilisation and storage project to be (a) produced and (b) fabricated in the UK.

The Government knows it is important to communities across the country that we use UK-made steel. We are ambitious about increasing the use of UK made steel in UK energy and infrastructure projects where possible.

Net Zero Teesside is not a public procurement (so public procurement guidelines do not apply) but we have spoken to the project developer to understand more about the use of UK and non-UK steel, as well as the wider use of UK local content, in the project. They confirmed their voluntary commitment to achieve more than 50% UK content across the value chain, with around £1.5 billion UK-based sub-contracts already awarded.

We want to champion UK steelmaking and our steel communities now and for generations to come and my colleagues at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero are looking at how greater UK content will be used in future projects.