Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the recommendations in the report by Sustainable Aviation on Sustainable Fuels UK Roadmap, published in December 2014; and if he will make a statement.

The Government agrees that sustainable biofuels have a valuable role to play in reducing carbon emissions from transport, and particularly in sectors where there are limited alternatives such as aviation.

We also recognise that we have world class research capabilities in the UK, and share the ambition in the Sustainable Aviation’s report for the UK to become a global leader in the advanced sustainable fuels market.

To that end we launched a competition on 10 December which will provide £25 million of capital funding for the construction of demonstration-scale advanced biofuel plants in the UK.

We do not currently intend to revise the current policy framework (for example to make Renewable Transport Fuel Certificates available to aviation fuel suppliers) while discussions are continuing on accounting for indirect land use change under European targets. Meanwhile, we have established a Transport Energy Taskforce of experts from the aviation industry, NGOs and the fuels and automotive industry to examine options to meet our renewable energy and greenhouse gas reduction targets, and provide greater certainty to industry. The report by Sustainable Aviation provides valuable input to this work.