Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, by what date he expects the substance tetraethyllead to be banned from use by all sectors of the UK aviation industry.

Annex 14 of UK REACH (the Authorisation List) lists substances of very high concern that cannot be used after a specified ‘sunset date’ unless an authorisation has been applied for and been granted. As part of its recent draft recommendation for substances that are a priority for adding to Annex 14, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) recommended that no action on tetraethyllead is needed under UK REACH at the moment. The HSE set out that it may be appropriate to revisit the regulatory approach to tetraethyllead when technical evaluations of potential alternatives are completed, as none are currently available. This is expected to happen by the mid-2020s. As the process for recommending substances for Annex 14 prioritisation is a regular one, the regulatory approach to tetraethyllead will be reassessed in future prioritisation rounds.

The Department for Transport is working to encourage industry to transfer to cleaner aviation fuels where possible. In December 2020, the Secretary of State for Transport asked officials to speed up work on encouraging the aviation sector to use unleaded fuels such as UL91 which it is believed a significant proportion of the piston engine aviation fleet can use.