To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how much his Department and its predecessors have spent on the (a) research and (b) development of alternative fuel technologies for motor vehicles in each of the last five years. (256949)

The Research Councils and the Technology Strategy Board, funded through the Department's Science and Research, and Innovation Budgets respectively, support a portfolio of research into alternative fuel technologies for motor vehicles.

The Research Councils' expenditure on relevant research is as follows:

In addition, Research Councils funded the following relevant related research:

The Technology Strategy Board was established in July 2007 and at that stage inherited DTI's support for collaborative R and D projects.

Since April 2004, when the Collaborative R and D programme was established in DTI, 18 projects have been supported where the main focus is alternative fuel technologies for motor vehicles (specifically on biofuels, hybrid drive systems and fuel cells). The total cost of the projects (which did not start until early 2005) was £41 million with the public sector providing £19 million grant funding. Of this, the grant funding provided to date is approximately as follows:

The Technology Strategy Board also launched in September 2007 a £100 million Low Carbon Vehicles Innovation Platform bringing together funding from the Technology Strategy Board, Department for Transport, Engineering and Physical Science Research Council, and the Regional Development Agencies Advantage West Midlands and One North East. The Innovation Platform has recently launched competitions to support the development of low carbon vehicles, including a £10 million demonstration programme to put at least 100 ultra low carbon vehicles on the roads in the UK by the end of 2009.