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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the potential timescale for all UK internal flights to be able to be powered through (a) electric-battery, (b) hydrogen and (c) other such sustainable sources of energy; and if he will make a statement.

The Government has a wide range of programmes and challenges that can support research and technology on electric and hydrogen powered flight. These include the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) Programme (£1.95 billion public funding commitment, 2013 to 2026); Future Flight Challenge (£125 million public funding); Faraday Challenge (£246 million); and Driving the Electric Revolution Challenge (£80 million).

Our ATI progamme is supporting electric and hydrogen power flight projects, and our publicly funded FlyZero initiative, announced on 20 July, will bring together experts from across the aviation and aerospace sector to tackle issues in designing and building a commercially successful zero-emission aircraft.