Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department will offer support to local authorities replacing conventional diesel with HVO fuel to run their vehicle fleet.

The Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) certificate trading scheme is successfully supporting a market for low carbon fuels in the UK, including biodiesel. Hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) is a type of biodiesel. Those supplying HVO for use in road vehicles in the UK, and which meets sustainability criteria, are eligible for reward under the RTFO scheme.

There is no funding programme specifically for local authorities switching to fuel their existing fleets with HVO, and there are no current plans to introduce such a programme. The primary support for the wider deployment of HVO is the RTFO scheme, which provides a competitive market for a broad range of low carbon fuels.

Local authorities are well placed to determine how best to decarbonise their vehicle fleets. The Department is supporting this through a grant provided by the Energy Savings Trust. This provides tailored outreach advice to local authorities in support of the development and implementation of their own transport decarbonisation strategies, including advice on the decarbonisation of their own vehicle fleets. Later this year the Department will also publish a transport decarbonisation toolkit for local authorities, which will provide guidance to support local areas to deliver more sustainable transport measures including decarbonising their own fleets.