Oral question asked in the House of Commons, by Mike Weir (Scottish National Party). It was answered on Thursday, 7 June 2007 on behalf of the Department of Trade and Industry.

Carbon Capture and Storage

Question: That last point is exactly why it is so important to make progress with CCS. The point about Peterhead is that it was years ahead of any other project in this country. The White Paper says that a competition will be launched this year and the full chain will start to be demonstrated at some point between 2011 and 2014. Can the Secretary of State give us some idea of when any new project from that competition will reach the stage that BP had already reached at Peterhead?

Answer: The hon. Gentleman knows that although BP had done a lot of preliminary work and spent quite a bit of money, it was still in the foothills of development of the whole process. Other companies were doing exactly the same work. I understand why the hon. Gentleman, representing the constituency that he does, and the leader of his party, as the local MP, were keen to see BP proceed, and I am sorry that it has withdrawn. However, as I said yesterday, it is not open to the Government to hand over a contract of this value without being satisfied that we have considered all the possibilities. That is what we are doing and that is the right way to proceed.

Secondary information