Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the effect on levels of investment in the production of non fossil fuels for transport in the UK of removing derogation c from paragraph 6.84 of the 2018 RTFO Carbon and Sustainability Guidance in the updated guidance published in January 2020; what steps he is taking to incentivise the production of non fossil fuels for transport in the UK; and what commitments he has made to the decarbonisation of the public transport network.

The Department’s Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation Guidance version 2020, Part One and Part Two, still provides that “derogation c.” applies. The Department has no current plans to remove the derogation, but it is now in Part One, paragraph 3.43, of the guidance.

Non-fossil fuels, including renewable hydrogen, are incentivised under the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), a certificate trading scheme. Renewable hydrogen is categorised as a development fuel, which potentially benefits from a higher tradeable certificate value.

At the end of March, we published a document “Decarbonising Transport: Setting the Challenge”, kicking off our work on preparing a Transport Decarbonisation Plan. This holistic and cross-modal approach to decarbonising the entire transport system, including public transport, will set out a credible and ambitious pathway to delivering transport’s contribution to carbon budgets and meet net zero by 2050.