A cross-party group of more than 60 MPs and peers have secured a debate in the House of Lords on 17 September as part of growing calls for a “UK hydrogen strategy”.
Hydrogen Strategy Now, a cross-industry campaign group that includes Vattenfall, Siemens, Orsted and Uniper, said MPs and industry are “calling on the Government to move fast” to realise the hydrogen opportunity and “achieve the maximum economic benefit”.
Committee on Climate Change vice chair Baroness Brown and former Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling are supporting the group.
Brown said: “The hydrogen economy is set to be worth $2.5trn and create 30 million jobs globally by 2050.
“The UK has the natural resources, skilled workforce and innovative businesses required to become a global leader in this hydrogen industry.
“With other nations investing billions to develop their domestic markets, the UK must act now. The Prime Minister has committed to ‘invest massively in hydrogen’, we need to show that this is happening before the eyes of the world are on the UK at COP26 – or we’ll risk missing out.”
Alexander Stafford, Conservative MP for Rother Valley and a member of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee said: “A thriving hydrogen economy will benefit all parts of the UK.
“We stand on the verge of unlocking an industry that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, provide essential progress to steps to Net Zero and strengthen the UK’s energy security.”
Stafford added: “It is encouraging to see Government ministers becoming increasingly excited about hydrogen.
“A hydrogen economy is essential for a Green Recovery so we must, at the earliest opportunity, deliver the policies to allow private investment to flow and mass commercialisation of UK hydrogen technology to begin.”
The businesses that have formed Hydrogen Strategy Now have pledged to invest £1.5bn in UK hydrogen technologies.
The cross-industry group, which combined employs around 100,000 people, has a value of £100bn in the UK.
Hydrogen Strategy Now noted that during 2020 senior cabinet members, including Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Michael Gove, Duchy of Lancaster, Welsh Secretary Simon Hart and Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis, all visited sites of UK-made hydrogen technology.
The group said this indicated that the UK Government is “getting ready to make a major move into this policy area”.
Hydrogen Strategy Now said a UK-wide hydrogen economy will create hundreds of thousands of high-skilled, green jobs, in all parts of the country, in alignment with the Government’s ‘levelling-up’ agenda.
The group also said such a strategy will help the UK meet its 2050 net zero target and improve air quality in towns and cities, as well as attract inward investment into the UK, while unlocking export opportunities and boost the UK’s energy security.