Aviation: Sustainable Fuel

Lord Rotherwick Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, as I said earlier, the consultation will start later this year. I do not have any information on when it will conclude but I have read out the areas that we shall be looking at. Of course, I will write to the noble Lord if there is any more information that I can give him.

[Lord Rotherwick]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that producing sustainable fuels with high levels of ethanol is not the problem? General aviation has a problem with combustion engines, which do not deal well with high levels of ethanol in the fuel, as the hoses, the filters and the seals are incompatible with these high levels.

[The Earl of Courtown]

My noble friend is a lot more expert on hoses, seals and other aspects of aircraft engines. He makes some good points and I am sorry that I cannot comment any further.