Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent discussions he has had with British Airways on greenhouse gas emissions; and what steps he is taking to promote more fuel efficient aircraft.

The Government is working with the aviation and aerospace sectors on a range of measures to support the decarbonisation of aviation.

The Government is investing £1.95bn in aerospace R&D between 2013 to 2026 through the ATI programme. In addition, we have recently launched the ‘Green Fuels, Green Skies’ competition, which will provide £15m to support the early development of first-of-a-kind production plants, with the aim of producing sustainable aviation fuel at scale in the UK.

British Airways are a member of the Jet Zero Council, the Plenary of which met again on 16 March 2021. The Jet Zero Council was established to take decisive action on our commitments to achieve net zero aviation with the aim of delivering zero-emission transatlantic flight within a generation.

In the coming months, we will be consulting on our strategy on net zero aviation, setting out the steps we will take to achieve our net zero commitment.