Dr Julian Lewis:  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to encourage airlines with unused supplies of oxygen to make those supplies available to the NHS to help meet reported shortfalls in NHS resources of oxygen to treat patients with covid-19.  [144583]

[Due for Answer on 1 February.]

ANSWER

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Aviation and Maritime (Robert Courts): The Department for Transport has not been approached by the Department of Health and Social Care regarding the use of any unused oxygen in the aviation sector. DfT Ministers and officials maintain regular contact with their counterparts in DHSC, and with stakeholders in the aviation sector, and were any such approach be made, we would act upon it swiftly.