Aviation: Sustainable Fuel

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, of course I would not agree with the noble Lord, as no doubt the House would acknowledge. Sadly, the British Airways Solena project has not progressed, though it is still live and discussions are ongoing between Ministers and British Airways on this issue. As I said earlier, three projects won the advanced biofuels demonstration competition, dividing up a fund of £25 million. One is in Swindon, producing methane for HGV vehicles. The noble Lord is right that we want to look further at the problems relating to aviation fuel. Unfortunately, in the initial competition, there was only one application from an aviation fuel project. I hope there will be another competition in the near future which will include some more.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Rotherwick (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt. It is actually the turn of the Liberal Democrats, as we have not heard from them yet on this Question.

[Baroness Randerson]

Does the Minister accept that we need to work with international partners in order to develop the use of sustainable aviation fuels? Does he accept the importance of the European Union as one of our international partners, so it is important for us to remain a member of the European Union?