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Net zero-emission aviation is one step closer today (16 March 2021) following the launch of a new competition to support the development of cutting-edge facilities capable of turning everyday waste into jet fuel.
The Green Fuel, Green Skies competition, which is part of the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan, will support UK companies as they pioneer new technologies to convert household rubbish, waste wood and excess electricity into sustainable aviation fuel.
Offering emissions savings of more than 70% compared to conventional jet fuel, these trailblazing projects will help put flying onto a more sustainable path while helping to create up to 11,500 jobs over the coming decades.
Companies will be able to bid for a share of £15 million to kickstart the development of first-of-a-kind production plants in the UK to produce these fuels at scale.
This comes as the government’s second Jet Zero Council meeting is attended by new CEO Emma Gilthorpe, chief operating officer at Heathrow Airport. Promoting the vision of the group, Emma will increase its reach with key stakeholders across the sector helping drive forward decarbonisation of aviation.
Joining the distinguished roster of industry and environmental experts, new additions from the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) will bring a breadth of knowledge and experience to the council, energising the charge to reduce emissions and deliver clean growth in the sector.
Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, said:
As the aviation sector emerges out of the pandemic and looks towards recovery over the coming months, we must put our environmental commitments at the centre of everything we do – so not only do we build back better, we also build back greener.
That’s why we’re stepping up our work on the Council, recruiting new members and launching pioneering efforts to ensure that we continue to lead the world by example and deliver on our ambitious net-zero targets.
Business Secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, said:
Today’s meeting of the Jet Zero Council demonstrates the vital collaboration between government and industry that will make zero-emission flights a reality.
Britain’s aerospace sector is at the centre of our plans to build back greener from the pandemic. We are committed to supporting its recovery and investing in green tech to take us closer to zero carbon take-off.
Through the Future Flight Challenge, the government has committed £125 million of funding over 4 years. This has been matched by £175 million from industry to develop greener ways to fly, such as all-electric aircraft and deliveries by drone, by advancing electric and autonomous flight technologies.
Just this week, Project 2ZERO announced plans to use its share of £2.4 million through this fund to demonstrate flights of 6- and 19-seat hybrid-electric planes.
The project will demonstrate the use of electric and hybrid aircraft on regional routes, showing the potential to decarbonise aviation while supporting regional connectivity.
The government has put in place one of the most comprehensive packages of business support in the world, pledging around £7 billion since the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
It was in September last year that I felt the first stirrings of optimism about the coronavirus vaccine. I was at the Edward Jenner institute in Oxford, standing behind a scientist as she looked at some magnified blood samples.
There were two sets of slides — one from subjects who had been given the vaccine prototype, and one from a control group. The slides from the control group were more or less blank, whereas the slides from the vaccinated group were full of dots — lots of dots. The dots were antibodies. I could tell from the excitement of the scientists that this was promising and that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine looked as though it would work.
After exhaustive tests, so it has proved. That vaccine is safe and works extremely well, and now, only six months later, it is being made in multiple places from India to the US, as well as Britain, and it is being used around the world.
It is relatively easy to distribute, since it can be kept in an ordinary fridge, and under the terms of the deal struck between Oxford and the UK government it is being dispensed at cost. You may wonder why we have done it that way, or why the taxpayer has already spent hundreds of millions of pounds, through Covax and other schemes, to put jabs in the arms of other populations.
The answer is blindingly obvious — the principle of enlightened self-interest that underlies the integrated review of UK security, defence, development and foreign policy that is published today.
Successful as the UK vaccination programme may be, there is little point in achieving some isolated national immunity. We need the whole world to be protected. We need the whole world to have the confidence to open up for trade and travel and holidays and business, all the things that drive jobs and improve our lives at home.
The objective of Global Britain is not to swagger or strike attitudes on the world stage. It is to use the full spectrum of our abilities, now amplified by record spending on both defence and science, to engage with and help the rest of the world. That is how we serve the British interest, and I mean the economic interest of people up and down the country. And as the vaccine programme begins to inspire a new global hope, we want to use this moment to heal, both literally and figuratively.
The UK is using its G7 presidency to foster ideas for a new world treaty on pandemic preparedness so that next time humanity avoids the sauve qui peut squabbling that has disfigured the last 12 months. There is work to be done on the sharing of data, on the tracking of zoonotic diseases, on quarantine protocols and how to marshal drugs and personal protective equipment.
It is obvious from our experience that this would be good for Britain as much as the rest of the world. As we prepare to build back better, we are working with the World Trade Organisation and its new director-general, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, not only to revive world trade but to address the stagnation that pre-dated the pandemic.
At the Cop26 summit in Glasgow the UK is leading the world in the campaign to reduce CO2 emissions and arrest the overheating of the planet. Britain was the first major western country to commit to the goal of net zero by 2050 and it is wonderful — and moving — to see how other countries are now pledging themselves to the same goal.
Those pledges will be hollow, however, without serious commitments, mainly to the use of new technology, that will make those reductions happen. Again, we in the UK are taking those big and bold steps, not only because it is good for the world but because these green technologies, from wind to hydrogen to carbon capture, have the potential to create hundreds of thousands of high-wage, high-skill jobs in Britain.
It is thanks to our history and geography that the UK is already in many ways more global than our comparators. We have a vast diaspora of people, perhaps five or six million, living abroad, far more as a proportion than most others in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. We may have only 1 per cent of the world’s population, but we are the fifth biggest exporter of goods and services.
And we have a third invisible diaspora, far more important and more fruitful even than people or goods, and that is the vast dispersal of British ideas, and British values, puffed around the world like the seeds of some giant pollinating tree. I mean everything from habeas corpus and parliamentary democracy to freedom of speech and gender equality. Sometimes these ideas have flourished, and put forth great roots and branches. Sometimes, frankly, they still fall on stony ground.
So under this integrated review we will work ever harder, and give ourselves all the tools we need, to co-ordinate with like-minded democracies in the US, in Europe and around the world to protect and advance those ideas and beliefs against those who oppose them. These values are not uncontested. They are far from universal. That is why the world needs Global Britain more than ever and, to be truly prosperous and successful, Britain needs to be global.
Today the Prime Minister will set out the conclusions of his Integrated Review of security, defence, development and foreign policy. The review, which has been conducted over the last year, is the most comprehensive articulation of a foreign policy and national security approach published by a British Government in decades.
The 100-page document addresses national security, foreign policy and our approach to the global economy together, setting out the PM’s vision for the UK in 2030 and how we will use the full range of our international policy to achieve it.
It comes during a crucial year for the UK’s international leadership, as we hold the Presidency of the G7 and prepare to host the COP26 Summit.
Setting out the conclusions of the Integrated Review, the Prime Minister will say:
I am profoundly optimistic about the UK’s place in the world and our ability to seize the opportunities ahead.
The ingenuity of our citizens and the strength of our Union will combine with our international partnerships, modernised Armed Forces and a new green agenda, enabling us to look forward with confidence as we shape the world of the future.
The Review addresses the challenges and opportunities the UK faces in a more competitive world, where new powers are using all the tools at their disposal to redefine the international order and – in some cases – undermine the open and liberal international system that emerged in the wake of the Cold War.
As a nation the UK is uniquely international in its outlook and interests. Whether it’s the millions of British jobs created by global trade, the sheer number of Brits who live and work overseas or the importance of our international alliances for keeping us safe – particularly NATO, which is the bedrock of defence and security in the Euro-Atlantic.
The Integrated Review will make it clear that the UK cannot rely solely on an increasingly outdated international system to protect our interests and promote our values. Instead, it will establish a new government foreign policy of increased international activism and a UK that works, alongside our allies and using all the tools at our disposal, to shape a more open international order in which democracies flourish.
In November, the Prime Minister announced the first outcome of the IR: the biggest programme of investment in defence since the end of the Cold War. This commitment typifies the wholescale shift in thinking and drive toward modernisation contained in the Integrated Review.
Just as other nations are investing in cutting-edge technology and using all the instruments available to them to achieve their goals, so too must the UK.
The Review sets out how the whole of government, as well as our extensive capabilities and international partnerships, will be brought together to shape the international order and protect and champion the UK’s interests and values.
This drive towards integration has already informed decisions such as the creation of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Today the Prime Minister will announce the creation of two new cross-government hubs:
A Situation Centre, based in the Cabinet Office, which will build on the lessons of the Covid pandemic to improve our use of data to anticipate and respond to future crises.
A Counter-Terrorism Operations Centre, which will significantly improve our ability to thwart terrorists, while also dealing with the actions of hostile states. It will bring together CT police, the intelligence agencies and the criminal justice system to coordinate the Government’s expertise and resources in a state-of-the-art facility to improve our speed of response to terrorist incidents.
As we champion an international order which works for the people of the UK we will harness the fundamentals of the British approach to foreign policy and national security: a defence of democracy and human rights; the importance of our relationship with the US; our constant work to keep the people of the UK safe from terrorism and serious organised crime; and our leadership on international development – as we continue to be one of the largest aid contributors in the OECD.
But the Integrated Review will also set out some shifts, such as a tilt to the Indo-Pacific – increasingly the geopolitical centre of the world. This year the Queen Elizabeth Carrier will undertake its first operational deployment to the region, the UK is applying for partner status at the Association of South East Asian nations and at the end of April the Prime Minister will travel to India on his first major international visit following our departure from the EU.
The Integrated Review will also establish tackling climate change and preserving biodiversity as the UK’s number one international priority in the decade ahead. The UK was the first major economy to legislate to achieve Net Zero and all our future aid spending will be aligned with the Paris Agreement.
This, and our other objectives, will be bolstered by the drive towards a more science-led approach to the problems we face. The Prime Minister has stated his ambition to make the UK a Science and Technology superpower. To help achieve this we will increase economy-wide Research & Development to 2.4% of GDP by 2027 and invest £14.6 billion in R&D across government in the next year. And we will take a more active approach to science and technology, using it to both shape and bolster our policy ambitions and to influence the design and use of new technologies in line with democratic values.
Following a meeting of the Criminal Justice Taskforce, chaired by the Prime Minister, the Government is taking immediate steps to provide further reassurance for women and girls.
This includes doubling the size of the Safer Streets fund, which provides neighbourhood measures such as better lighting and CCTV. This will bring the funding for these local projects to £45million, alongside a commitment from the Government to work with police forces and Police and Crime Commissioners to ensure these target areas of potential concern for women and girls and are now more focussed on preventing sexual violence.
This could include targeting parks and alleyways, and routes from bars, restaurants and nightclubs as we see a return to the night-time economy, in line with the lifting of coronavirus restrictions.
To further support this, and help women feel safer in the night-time economy as we build back from the pandemic, the Government will also roll-out pilots of ‘Project Vigilant’ across the country. This is an internationally award winning-approach taken by Thames Valley Police where both uniformed and plain clothes officers identify predatory and suspicious offenders in the night time economy. This can involve officers attending areas around clubs and bars undercover to better ensure women are safe in these locations, and increased patrols as people leave at closing time.
These steps have been taken in response to the outpouring of experiences and concerns following the death of Sarah Everard. They will complement existing action being taken to address violence against women and girls and keep them safe. This includes toughening sentences for serious violence and sexual assaults through the Police Crime and Sentencing Bill and measures in the Domestic Abuse Bill to improve protections for victims and create news offences, such as non-fatal strangulation.
The Prime Minister Boris Johnson said:
The horrific case of Sarah Everard has unleashed a wave of feeling about women not feeling safe at night.
We must do everything we can to ensure our streets are safe, and we are bringing in landmark legislation to toughen sentences and put more police on the streets.
We are also now taking further steps to provide greater reassurance, such as providing better lighting and greater use of CCTV in parks and routes women may take on their walks home.
Ultimately, we must drive out violence against women and girls and make every part of the criminal justice system work to better protect and defend them.
Safeguarding Minister Victoria Atkins will continue to lead on this work, alongside the Home Secretary and Women and Equalities Minister Liz Truss.
The Policing Minister Kit Malthouse will also hold a summit in the coming weeks with police and industry representatives from the night-time economy on preparations to protect women as pandemic restrictions lift.
Further steps agreed in the meeting include plans to consult on the Government’s intended Victims Law this Summer and £11million in funding to provide for more Independent Sexual Violence Advisors (ISVAs) to support victims through the criminal justice process.