UK Shipping Office for Reducing Emissions
Keir Mather Excerpts(5 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)
In March 2025, the Department for Transport published the maritime decarbonisation strategy, which set out the pathway for our domestic maritime sector to reach zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and included policies and regulations to drive emissions reductions. Research and development is needed to ensure that clean maritime technologies are available at scale as early as possible at an affordable price for the sector to adopt. Supporting UK R&D builds on UK expertise and innovation—a guiding principle of the MDS.
Since 2022, the UK Shipping Office for Reducing Emissions—UK SHORE—programme in the DfT has allocated £240 million R&D funding to develop clean maritime technologies. UK SHORE has funded more than 200 projects leveraging over £110 million direct private investment. This funding has benefited all UK nations and regions, supporting over 500 organisations including over 250 SMEs. UK SHORE has enabled the sector to develop electric and efficiency solutions for various vessel types, like ferries, cargo vessels and offshore wind vessels, and progressed zero and near zero greenhouse gas emission solutions, such as hydrogen, ammonia and methanol. Further R&D is required to develop solutions to maturity and increase commercial viability.
That is why I am pleased to announce that we intend to fund £448 million of R&D investment for UK SHORE between 2026 and 2030. Building on the successes to date, the second phase of UK SHORE will further accelerate the technologies necessary to decarbonise the UK maritime sector and meet MDS aims through R&D, and capture economic growth opportunities by cementing the UK as a place for maritime innovation. Subject to business case approval, this will unlock innovation and investment potential in UK technologies, in UK businesses, at UK ports and in UK shipyards.
Today, I am providing our proposed outline of the future UK SHORE programme to allow industry to plan the next five years of clean maritime innovation. In collaboration with Innovate UK as a delivery partner, UK SHORE will:
Accelerate the commercialisation of developed technologies, including through a future round of the zero emission vessels and infrastructure competition—ZEVI2—to be launched in 2026. This will fund the build and commercial trial of clean maritime solutions.
Develop emerging technologies through to being ready for market, including through a seventh round of the clean maritime demonstration competition—CMDC7—to be launched in 2026, focusing on real-world demonstration projects concluding in 2030. This will be followed by two more rounds to be launched between 2027 and 2029.
Support early scientific research of novel technologies through the ongoing work of the Clean Maritime Research Hub until at least 2028 in collaboration with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
Enable development of whole system solutions and penetration of international markets through international R&D. This includes participation in the global Eureka research programme to conduct pre-deployment trials.
We will also focus efforts on tackling the barriers to the scale up of the technologies and companies supported through this funding, working with Innovate UK, across Government, the National Wealth Fund and the British Business Bank.
Through supporting UK businesses to accelerate technologies through to market-readiness, UK SHORE will advance competitive advantage in clean maritime solutions while complementing wider UK strengths in R&D like automotive, battery systems and hydrogen propulsion. The work to scale up UK technologies and penetrate international markets will strengthen the UK supply chain, increase exports and bolster international leadership. Finally, UK SHORE will aim to continue investment in each devolved Administration and all regions of the UK, supporting growth in coastal communities and manufacturing heartlands.
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Civil Aviation Authority Annual Progress Report
Keir Mather Excerpts(5 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)
This Government are committed to accelerating the airspace modernisation programme, as a key enabler to unlocking economic growth through expanding the aviation sector.
The impacts of our outdated airspace are felt by both the sector and passengers, and it is vital that we deliver modernisation of UK airspace to reduce flight times, improve reliability of services, and deliver on our climate and environmental obligations. Modernisation does not stop at conventional passenger aircraft but will also enable the integration of emerging aviation technologies, future-proofing our skies for the next generation of aircraft and making meaningful contributions towards our net zero targets.
Since the start of this Government, we have seen considerable progress on a number of elements within the airspace modernisation strategy. Some of our most significant developments include:
The announcement of the formation of the UK airspace design service, which will deliver holistic and modernised airspace design for the complex London terminal airspace by taking forward airports’ airspace change proposals in a co-ordinated manner.
The successful conclusion of the consultation on the scope and funding model for the UKADS. This will help deliver a step change in how airspace change is delivered, and work is under way to establish the UKADS so it can be operational this year.
The intent to create a new UK airspace design support fund to cover relevant costs of the sponsors of eligible UK airport ACPs that are outside the scope of UKADS.
Progress being made by the 20 airports advancing their ACPs as part of the terminal airspace redesign element, with almost all of the London airports now progressing on to stage 3 of the process, including Heathrow and Gatwick.
The deployment of Pairwise at Heathrow, which has enabled an innovative new way to safely reduce the separation of aircraft upon landing, improving efficiency and reducing delays at Britain’s busiest airport.
Work progressing well on enabling the full integration of UK airspace, including supporting the safe integration of new airspace users, like drones. Following the completion of extensive research projects and stakeholder engagement, the development of an electronic conspicuity concept of operations, outlining the requirements to enable integration, is complete and under review.
The publication of part 3 of the strategy, consisting of the deployment plan, in July 2024, outlining the delivery milestones for the projects in progress or due to commence over the next 7 years.
The airspace modernisation annual progress report, produced by the Civil Aviation Authority, is a requirement by the Secretary of State for Transport and provides details of the progress made within the programme, as well as the policy development work carried out by the CAA against each of the AMS’s elements. This report covers the period from January to December 2024.
It provides a clear overview of the progress that has been delivered across the nine delivery elements and the multiple projects within each one. It also illustrates areas of delay or concern, and what mitigations and measures are in place to reduce them. The full report is available on the CAA website.
This annual progress report, as with previous ones, will be filed in the Library of each House as a record of the work conducted by the CAA during the period of 1 January to 31 December 2024.
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Oral Answers to Questions
Keir Mather Excerpts(5 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.
This year, our Department will publish the integrated national transport strategy outlining our long-term vision for transport in England. It will set out how the transport sector, Government and local leaders should work together to improve people’s everyday journeys however they choose to travel, including how people access ports and airports. We look forward to providing more information in due course.
Joe Robertson
I welcome the new maritime Minister to his place—it comes to something when Isle of Wight ferry company Red Funnel is operating ferries that are older than the new Minister. Will he speak to his new colleague in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Minister responsible for English devolution, to ensure that the new Mayor for Hampshire and the Solent actually has regulatory or licensing powers over transport across the Solent? If the Government create a new local leader without any powers over integrating the island that I represent, as the Member for Isle of Wight East, into the mainland, they will have failed to deliver any form of genuine integrated local transport for my constituents.
Keir Mather
The hon. Member speaks with passion about the state of ferry services in his constituency. It is an issue that I am keen to engage with him on further; I know the former maritime Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), was very engaged in this work, too. I am looking to meet the hon. Gentleman next week, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley), to take this conversation forward. On stakeholder engagement with the ferry operator itself, that local engagement is something I will be taking part in through the Department. I look forward to engaging with the hon. Gentleman as I take that process forward.
Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)
Alan Gemmell (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)
Our airports are gateways to the world for the British people and for investment into the UK from across the globe. The Government are committed to supporting the aviation sector as a central part of our growth mission. We are progressing airport planning decisions and modernising airspace; we invited and received proposals for Heathrow expansion, encouraging billions in investment; and to support sustainable growth we have introduced the sustainable aviation fuel mandate and the Bill on revenue certainty.
Alan Gemmell
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on his new position. I spent the weekend in the bonny town of Ayr for the Ayr show, celebrating the aviation sector’s contribution to my constituency and the wider west of Scotland economy. That contribution includes companies such as BAE, Collins Aerospace, GE Caledonian, NATS, Spirit AeroSystems and Woodward, the turnaround of Prestwick airport, and the commitment of defence scale-up Aeralis to build the first British-built jet in 50 years at Prestwick. Does the Minister agree that we need to continue to support our aviation sector to create well-paying jobs at Prestwick and across the UK?
Keir Mather
My hon. Friend has championed Prestwick airport and the aviation sector in his constituency, and I agree with him that aviation is vital to the UK’s industrial and regional prosperity. In 2022, air transport and aerospace supported around 240,000 jobs nationwide. The Government remain committed to backing the sector to deliver high-quality, well-paid jobs from Prestwick to communities across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)
The Government are supporting the UK’s sustainable aviation fuel industry through the SAF mandate, the advanced fuels fund and new legislation introducing a revenue certainty mechanism. We are working with industry to cut emissions, to boost UK production, to create high-quality green jobs and to attract investment while ensuring value for money.
David Davis
I congratulate my parliamentary neighbour on his accession. It is good to see his talents recognised.
Much of the technology currently used in sustainable aviation fuel is of foreign origin. Part of the reason for that is that no Government body directly supports the development of core technologies used for that, supporting only the development of production facilities. The Aerospace Technology Institute, for example, should be able to invest in research and development programmes to develop sustainable fuel, but is currently not permitted to do so. Will the Minister look at allowing that, so we can accelerate the development of our own technology in this area?
Keir Mather
The right hon. Gentleman will know that through the ATI programme, the Department for Business and Trade co-invests with industry in research and technology development in the UK to maintain and grow the UK’s competitive position in civil aerospace. In addition, we fund the UK SAF Clearing House to help fuel producers navigate the testing and approval requirements for non-fossil fuel-based jet fuel. It co-ordinates testing and qualifications of SAF, helping to remove barriers to new fuels coming to market. Plus, the advanced fuels fund has allocated £198 million, with a core aim of overcoming technological risk for early-stage projects to support UK SAF production. If the right hon. Member wishes to discuss any other aspects of this policy, I will be very glad to meet him.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
On the subject of aviation, the beautiful Isle of Barra airport in my constituency has had to cancel 14% of its flights in the last year on the beautiful beach runway. This is not, on the whole, due to bad weather or tides, but because the Brexiteering Tories withdrew us from the European satellite navigation system, which allows flights to land in low visibility and bad weather. Will the new Minister celebrate his role by meeting me on the beach to discuss rejoining—perhaps not the European Union but at least the European geostationary navigation overlay service, EGNOS?
Keir Mather
What an attractive proposition from my hon. Friend—and so early in my tenure in this position. He raises an incredibly important matter, and it would be remiss of me not to give it the full attention it deserves, and therefore I will respond to his specific questions further in writing.
Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)
Road Safety: North Yorkshire
Keir Mather Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Keir Mather (Selby and Ainsty) (Lab)
I am pleased to have the opportunity to use the first Adjournment debate that I have secured to speak about the crucial issue of road safety in North Yorkshire.
I have now been in Parliament for seven months, and some of the most transformative change that I have witnessed in this place has happened when Members have responded to genuinely pressing local need, using every mechanism available to them to fight for their constituents. This is one such case. In my rural constituency, dangerous drivers and inadequate speed-calming measures mean that residents in the communities I represent live in fear. Sadly, according to data provided by the House of Commons Library, there were 36 fatal casualties in Selby and Ainsty between 2018 and 2022. That is second only to the figure in Skipton and Ripon, where 46 fatal casualties occurred during the same period.
The root causes of the issues in my area are clear. Selby and Ainsty has numerous arterial, high-speed roads that pass through village communities with inadequate traffic-calming measures, and rural lanes and streets that were never designed for the motor traffic that we see today. When those infrastructure challenges are combined with the actions of dangerous and reckless drivers, they can have truly lethal consequences.
In the village of Hambleton last month, a person tragically lost their life in a very serious collision. They were attempting to cross the A63, a dangerous main road through the village on which cars travel at unsafe speeds, even though it is surrounded by residential new-build estates and very close to a local school. This was not an isolated incident—there have been numerous accidents on this specific stretch of road—but despite the work of local residents who have set up a road safety action group, the danger remains. I should be grateful if the Minister could provide some advice about what measures are at the community’s disposal and can be pushed so that action is taken—action that I will certainly continue to fight for in this House.
I want to make something very clear: in North Yorkshire, too much of the debate on road safety has been wrongly co-opted into a wasteful, irresponsible and distracting culture war by the Conservative party. It holds a majority on North Yorkshire Council and the executive position for highways, and has 10 of the county’s 12 MPs. If the Conservatives wanted to do something about road safety in my constituency and across the county, they could do so. Instead, they have spent recent months jumping at shadows, fighting anti-motorist policies that do not exist and opposing 20 mph blanket bans that have never been proposed.
All the while, communities in the Selby district are crying out for political representatives who will take the issue of road safety seriously. What is too often forgotten is that when motorists step out of their cars in a village like Cawood or a town like Sherburn in Elmet, they are local people who want to enjoy their communities in safety and with their family. Rather than fomenting divisions that do not exist, the Government and North Yorkshire Council need to sit up, get serious and listen to the concerns of local residents in my area, who cannot wait another day for action to be taken.
The Minister could forgive residents across North Yorkshire for their confusion over the mixed messages they have received from the Conservative party, which has meant that common-sense ways to limit dangerous driving have not been taken. In a piece of literature sent recently to local people in my area, both the local Conservative candidate and the party’s candidate for North Yorkshire Mayor registered their opposition to Welsh-style blanket 20 mph limits, which, to my knowledge, not a single representative of either main party in the county has proposed. In September, however, the very same mayoral candidate, in his role as executive member for highways and transportation on North Yorkshire Council, praised the
“most significant 20 mph zone the council has ever introduced”
in Harrogate. I agree and applaud those efforts, but I ask why there can be a grown-up discussion about road safety in Harrogate, with seven schools having new 20 mph zones placed around them, but in the Selby district we have to deal with unsafe roads and suffer under a Conservative party that is distracted by waging a culture war that simply does not exist.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing his first Adjournment debate. I have to say that I do not recognise his characterisation of the way the local council approaches road safety issues. He gave the example of Harrogate. That particular campaign was started by two residents, Hazel Peacock and Jenny Marks, and it led to a broader community campaign. The issue of 20 mph zones around schools is fairly uncontroversial, particularly when they are adopted alongside such measures as crossings or barriers along the roadside. I have found that introducing simple measures like those has brought communities together, and it might be a way to help the hon. Gentleman in Selby and Ainsty.
Keir Mather
To an extent, I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s sentiment: it is uncontroversial to have common-sense measures such as 20 mph limits in villages, outside schools and in urban areas. I wish the debate was tret with the seriousness it deserves in my part of North Yorkshire by the council’s executive member for highways, who has been able to achieve that work in Harrogate.
By attempting to turn sensible measures, such as 20 mph zones where they are necessary, into wedge issues in my part of North Yorkshire, the local Conservative party disregards the concerns of local residents. Meanwhile, the council is not taking action in villages such as Lumby, Monk Fryston and Hambleton, where the immediate safety concerns are acute and are badly damaging communities. People want their council to get on with making their villages and towns safe. In some cases, the excuses for inaction just do not add up.
I return to the community of Hambleton, where a local person tragically lost their life. The A63, which bisects the village, is a long, straight stretch of road used by parents with prams, elderly residents and large groups of schoolchildren. It is crying out for pedestrian islands, but North Yorkshire Council has argued that footfall on the road is insufficient, using data from a study that was taken during a school holiday. Although I am pleased that the council has committed to reassessing the area due to the fatality that occurred, an accident should not have had to happen for people to realise that action needed to be taken.
In Monk Fryston, over 800 local residents petitioned for a pedestrian crossing on the A64, and they continue to have my full support. North Yorkshire Council has acknowledged, in my correspondence with it, that speeds are excessive on the road, but it has refused to implement the crossing because it says that there is not a suitable location. I know that the installation of traffic-calming measures is a complicated business, but this road is the key link between Selby and Leeds, providing people with access to the A1. Again, the A64 bisects the village, leaving residents on the other side with no access to local amenities. I ask the Minister to join me in putting the case to North Yorkshire Council that Monk Fryston cannot be held back and disregarded any longer in its campaign for common-sense traffic-calming measures.
I now turn to the wider issue of speeding, which I know is of concern to all our constituents. In Brayton, which lies just to the south of Selby, there has been consistent and widespread concern about speeding along Barff Lane. I am glad that by working with local agencies such as North Yorkshire police, residents’ concerns have been heard and measures have been taken to tackle the chronic problem of speeding on Barff Lane. There is now a speed-activated warning sign along the road and North Yorkshire police are in the process of identifying a suitable location for camera van sites, which will do much to ensure that drivers along the road follows the speed limits and will ultimately save lives in Brayton.
Regrettably, speeding is also seen in other places in my constituency, including Cawood, an extremely rural village whose roads are not fit for the amount of traffic that it sees or for cars going at the speed that they do. I recently held a drop-in event for the community there, and a significant number of residents raised the issue of speeding and dangerous driving on Sherburn Street. I want to make it clear that the safety of residents in Cawood should be a top priority for both North Yorkshire Council and North Yorkshire police. Although I have been assured by the council that there are several existing traffic-calming measures in Sherburn Street, they are in reality having a minimal impact on speeding in Cawood. I would greatly appreciate any support the Minister can give me and local residents in working with North Yorkshire Council and the police to push for measures that will provide a lasting solution to this issue.
It is clear that we have a lot to do, both in Selby and Ainsty and across North Yorkshire, to improve road safety. Every single injury and road death in our communities is one too many, and we must all work together to prevent this debate from being reduced to meaningless, wasteful and distracting culture wars when our constituents are crying out for common-sense change. We need to ensure that local families and the communities in which they live are protected across the length and breadth of our great county, and I look forward to working with anyone who is willing to make this a reality.