Jet Zero Strategy

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am grateful to be able to report that I have had no lobbying at all from anybody who is not in favour of net zero. As the noble Lord clearly knows, it is the law and we will be setting intermediate carbon budgets as we are required to do by law.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My noble friend will be aware that in the United States, United Airlines is buying zero-emission electric aeroplanes for commercial flights from 2026. Even if that slips, and it is only for very short-distance hopping, what about the vision for this country? Do the Government have a view on when we can see zero-emission flights, either domestically or internationally, in this country?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Government remain technology-agnostic when it comes to aircraft. It will be up to the airlines to decide which aircraft best suits their need, based not only on the duration of the flight but on the infrastructure. But my noble friend is absolutely right that there are some fairly rapid developments in aircraft at the moment, and both Airbus and Boeing are looking very seriously at how to decarbonise longer-haul aircraft. From the department’s perspective, we will shortly be doing a consultation on how we get to net-zero domestic flights by 2040.