Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the outcomes of funding awards provided by the Future Flight Challenge to date.

The Future Flight challenge has to date supported 48 ambitious R&D projects, committing £32m of funding, most of which is supporting smaller businesses. The evaluation is underway, and we are seeing promising signs such as high levels of industrial support, the creation of skilled jobs and several industry ‘firsts’ being delivered.