Asked by: Mark Menzies (Independent - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of using low-carbon aircraft to support regional airports.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Airlines determine the routes they operate based on their own assessment of whether routes are commercially viable.
The Budget confirmed that the Government’s support for the development of new low and zero carbon emission aircraft in the UK will continue with an additional £975m of funding between 2025 and 2030.
In addition, the Government is supporting the development of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) by introducing a SAF Mandate from 1 January 2025 and the consultation on revenue certainty options to support investment in a UK SAF production industry.
Asked by: Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of financially incentivising the use of sustainable aviation fuel.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
On 25 April 2024, the government’s response to the second consultation on the UK SAF Mandate was published. This confirmed the final design of the scheme which, subject to parliamentary approval, will come into force on 1 January 2025.
The SAF Mandate builds upon the success of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RFTO), providing a long-term incentive to supply sustainable aviation fuel through a guaranteed level of demand.
As part of the SAF Mandate’s design, the government has published Cost Benefit Analysis documents that comprehensively present the possible costs and benefits of the scheme.
Asked by: Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 22 April 2024 to Question 22401 on Aviation: Fuel, if he will detail the sums allocated to each of the 13 SAF projects.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Company/Project | Project Location | Advanced Fuels Fund Award |
Alfanar Energy Ltd (Lighthouse Green Fuels) | Teesside | Window 1: £11,001,000 Window 2: £8,664,000 |
Fulcrum BioEnergy Ltd (NorthPoint) | Ellesmere Port, Cheshire | £16,764,000 |
Lanzatech UK Ltd (DRAGON) | South Wales | £24,960,843 |
Velocys plc (Altalto) | Immingham, Lincolnshire | £27,000,000 |
Velocys plc (e-Alto) | TBC | £2,523,094 |
Abundia Biomass-to-Liquids (Jet – AB2L) | Teesside | £4,484,000 |
Arcadia e-Fuels (NABOO) | Teesside | £12,341,000 |
Carbon Neutral Fuels (ASAP-DAC) | TBC | £1,376,000 |
Esso Petroleum Company (Solent SAF) | Solent | £6,065,000 |
Nova Pangaea Technologies (Project Speedbird) | Wilton at Teesside | £9,063,015 |
OXCCU Tech (OXEFUEL BIOGENIC) | Sheffield’s Translational Energy Research Centre | £2,814,000 |
Willis Sustainable Fuels (Carbonshift PtL) | Teesside | Award: £4,721,000 |
Zero Petroleum (PMZ.2) | Orkney | £3,492,100 |
Asked by: Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, pursuant to the Answer of 25 March 2024 to Question 19719 on INEOS: Belgium, whether the Ineos project will be capable of processing sustainable aviation fuel.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The INEOS Olefins project is a petrochemical plant being built to produce a range of petrochemicals products rather than burnable fuels. Therefore it neither processes nor produces any form of aviation fuel.
Asked by: Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 22 April 2024 to Question 22401 on Aviation: Fuels, if he will detail the firms and locations of the 13 SAF projects.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Company/Project | Project Location |
Abundia Biomass-to-Liquids | Teesside |
Alfanar Energy Ltd | Teesside |
Fulcrum BioEnergy Ltd | Ellesmere Port, Cheshire |
Lanzatech UK Ltd | South Wales |
Velocys plc | Immingham, Lincolnshire |
Velocys plc | TBC |
Arcadia e-Fuels (NABOO) | Teesside |
Carbon Neutral Fuels | TBC |
Esso Petroleum Company | Solent |
Nova Pangaea Technologies | Wilton at Teesside |
OXCCU Tech | Sheffield’s Translational Energy Research Centre |
Willis Sustainable Fuels | Teesside |
Zero Petroleum | Orkney |
Asked by: Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department is taking steps to help support the development of (a) hydrotreating kerosene and (b) other cleaner aviation fuels.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
In July 2022, Government confirmed that a SAF Mandate would be introduced in 2025 requiring at least 10% (around 1.5 billion litres) of jet fuel to be made from sustainable feedstocks by 2030.
In the second SAF mandate consultation, it was proposed that increasing targets be set out in legislation from 2025-2040. The levels of these targets will be confirmed in a Government response to the consultation due to be published in Spring 2024.
The SAF mandate will support SAF produced using a range of feedstocks and technologies including biofuels from waste materials via the hydrotreated ester fatty acids process.
Our £135m Advanced Fuels Fund is supporting 13 different SAF projects reach commercial scale in the UK. These cover a range of technologies to drive innovation and diversity of supply. Once operational, these projects are expected to collectively produce over 700 kilo tonnes of SAF and reduce CO2 emissions by 2.7 million each year.
In September 2023, the Government also committed to introduce a revenue certainty mechanism to support SAF production in the UK. The intention is that it will be industry funded. The mechanism will provide revenue certainty for SAF production, supporting investor confidence in UK SAF projects.
Asked by: Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has targets for the commercial use of sustainable aviation fuel.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
In July 2022, Government confirmed that a SAF Mandate would be introduced in 2025 requiring at least 10% (around 1.5 billion litres) of jet fuel to be made from sustainable feedstocks by 2030.
In the second SAF mandate consultation, it was proposed that increasing targets be set out in legislation from 2025-2040. The levels of these targets will be confirmed in a Government response to the consultation due to be published in Spring 2024.
The SAF mandate will support SAF produced using a range of feedstocks and technologies including biofuels from waste materials via the hydrotreated ester fatty acids process.
Our £135m Advanced Fuels Fund is supporting 13 different SAF projects reach commercial scale in the UK. These cover a range of technologies to drive innovation and diversity of supply. Once operational, these projects are expected to collectively produce over 700 kilo tonnes of SAF and reduce CO2 emissions by 2.7 million each year.
In September 2023, the Government also committed to introduce a revenue certainty mechanism to support SAF production in the UK. The intention is that it will be industry funded. The mechanism will provide revenue certainty for SAF production, supporting investor confidence in UK SAF projects.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps the Government is taking to support the use of renewable liquid fuels following the removal of renewable liquid fuel import tariffs from the US in February 2023.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government supports the use of renewable fuels in several ways. Regulations generate demand for them in the UK and provide a signal for future investments. The Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) scheme continues to support renewable fuels, which are primarily deployed in road transport, and delivers a third of transport’s carbon savings under carbon budget 4. The Government will introduce a similar mandate scheme to drive the deployment of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in 2025. We also have a track record of supporting UK production of advanced renewable fuels through grant funding programmes. Most recently the Advanced Fuels Fund (AFF) has allocated over £135 million of capital funding to 13 projects to support the development of a UK SAF industry.
Asked by: Gavin Newlands (Scottish National Party - Paisley and Renfrewshire North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to section 158 of the Energy Act 2023, what his Department's timescale is for a public consultation on the options for designing and implementing a sustainable aviation fuel revenue certainty scheme.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government put forward a provision in the Energy Act that commits to publishing a consultation on the options for designing and implementing a revenue certainty scheme for sustainable aviation fuel within six months of the Act receiving Royal Assent, which happened on 26 October.
Asked by: Louise Haigh (Labour - Sheffield, Heeley)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to page 73 of the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021, which policy areas will receive funding from the £1.8 billion allocated to core net zero spend relating to the Department for Transport for the 2024-25 financial year; and how much funding as been issued to each of those policy areas for the 2024-25 financial year.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The £1.8 billion allocated to the Department for Transport for the financial year 2024-25 in the 2021 Spending Review supports net zero policies across zero emission vehicles (including buses) and electric vehicle charging infrastructure, the bus transformation funding to support local authority Bus Service Improvement Plans, air quality improvement measures, active travel policies, City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements, Nexus Metrofleet in Newcastle, rail electrification, and the UK’s production of sustainable aviation fuel.
£333 million of the £1.8 billion was reallocated to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, (now the Department for Business and Trade), for the electrification of UK vehicle manufacturing and their supply chains, including through the Automotive Transformation Fund Programme.
The Department’s business planning process for 2024-25 financial year remains ongoing and final plans will be published in due course as per standard practice.