Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government what action they are taking to meet their ambition for aviation energy efficiency to increase by 2 per cent per year; and what assessment they have made of the reasons why the current level of improvements to aviation energy efficiency is below the ambition at 1.4 per cent per year.

In July 2022, the Government published the Jet Zero Strategy, setting out our approach to achieving net zero aviation by 2050.

The Strategy set out an emissions reduction trajectory and committed to the ‘high ambition’ scenario, which included an average annual fuel efficiency improvement of 2% per annum between 2025 and 2050. Whilst the average annual improvement figure is 2%, we expect the pace of progress to vary by year depending on technological development and adoption.

The Government is supporting the development of new low and zero-carbon emission aircraft technology through the Aerospace Technology Institute with £685m of funding over three years. The Government published a Call for Evidence for airport operations in England to be zero emission by 2040 in February 2023, and is supporting airspace modernisation by providing £9.2m of funding between 2020-2023.

In July 2023 we published the Jet Zero Strategy One Year On document which sets out the progress and achievements since July 2022 and the key challenges ahead in meeting Jet Zero. We have committed to reviewing progress against our emissions reduction trajectory annually from 2025 and to with a full review of the Strategy every 5 years.