The Committee on Climate Change has made it clear that CCS is an essential part of the matters that we have to address if we are to meet our statutory responsibilities. I doubt if anyone on any side of the House would not agree with that, and I thought it generous of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, to say what she said about the past history of CCS.
That has been a pretty universal thing; we have not got it right. It is very difficult to get right, and I would not blame the Government for the difficulties. However, we have to solve those difficulties, and this amendment is a most useful way of making it that much more certain for the industry. If we want to use the resources that may be at our disposal—fracked gas, for example—we have to have CCS to meet our 2050 demands.
In a sense, that is less important to the British picture than to the world picture. The biggest contribution that we could make to the world picture is in the
development of CCS because that would break through in a series of countries—the mechanism by which we can have the energy we need as well as protecting ourselves against dangerous climate change.
I hope my noble friend the Minister will understand that for us this is a central area, and if the Government are not able to agree to this perhaps they will come forward with some alternative mechanism to make sure that the ends put forward here will be met. I am sue that he will want to know that this issue has been widely tweeted, because it is seen as so important by so many different people across the field. It is very important that we give a proper response to the noble Baroness’s request.