Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the potential effect on the UK’s net greenhouse gas emissions of the aviation sector adopting sustainable aviation fuel.

Sustainable aviation fuels, alongside other methods such as carbon capture and storage, will play an important role in decarbonising aviation and helping us on the way to reaching net zero by 2050.

In line with the Prime Minister’s 10 Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution, the Government is currently consulting on a SAF blending mandate to reduce GHG emissions from this sector. This consultation was published in July and is open to responses until 19 September. The consultation contains estimates of the GHG emission reductions that can be achieved by using SAF under a range of scenarios. For example, with low ambition and a low uptake of SAF the UK could expect to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation by 10 percent by 2050, but with a high ambition and higher uptake of SAF, we could reduce emissions by around 50 percent within the same time frame.