Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill.
15:00 Greg Smith (Conservative)
When the Bill first came before the House, the Conservatives were clear that we support the innovation that underpins sustainable aviation fuel. Aviation matters enormously to this country: for families, for trade, for connectivity and for our standing as a global hub. The challenge has never been whether to decarbonise aviation, but how we do so without damaging competitiveness or pricing ordinary passengers out of flying.
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15:07 Greg Smith (Conservative)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, not least for his kind birthday wishes. We do support the SAF mandate. We do support the decarbonisation of air travel, as well as other means of travel, but it has to be done in a way that is economically viable not just to the industry but to all of us who ultimately pay to fly—or to go on a train or a ship, or whatever it might be—through the fares we pay. That is why the Opposition have been so laser-focused on the direct impacts on fare payers, as well as on the wider industry.
The wider point, to return to the Lords amendments we are debating, is to ensure that the economic value of decarbonisation, which the British state is mandating through the legislation we pass in this Parliament, actually benefits British producers, British researchers, British engineers, and the incredible array of innovators and talent we have here in this country.
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12:39 Lee Pitcher (Labour)
DSA is ideally placed to lead on how we become a cleaner, greener aviation economy locally. It is surrounded by agricultural land and is close to the Humber, the UK’s leading hub for green energy and fuel. A domestic SAF industry means more UK manufacturing, more skilled work and more investment in the kind of modern facilities that can power regional growth. We know how important that is right now.
Taken together, the benefits are absolutely clear: for our countryside, we can improve soil and water outcomes, support more resilient farming and restore nature; for our rural communities, we can open up new opportunities, diversify incomes and improve productivity; for industry, we can build manufacturing capability and secure supply chains here at home; and for aviation, we can reduce dependence on volatile foreign oil and give the sector a credible route by which to decarbonise. Globally, we can reduce the carbon impact of air travel, which is exactly what we need to do if we are to meet our climate goals in a way that supports jobs and prosperity and secures the planet for our children and future generations. This is the right approach for an industrial strategy that is serious about delivery and an environmental strategy that is serious about our future.
If we are asking the public to help to de-risk and scale up a strategic fuel, the jobs, investment, apprenticeships and manufacturing capacity should be created right here, right now in the UK. These amendments keep the value chain onshore, strengthen British supply chains and ensure that decarbonisation supports growth in our communities, not just demand somewhere else.
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12:39 Olly Glover (Liberal Democrat)
Even taking into account the Lords amendments, we continue to welcome steps to decarbonise our aviation industry, including investment in sustainable aviation fuels. I repeat the Liberal Democrat point from Second Reading that SAF is just one step in that direction; in the longer term, it needs to complement rather than detract from investment in zero-carbon flight technology.
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15:09 Toby Perkins (Labour)
The Government have given an important commitment to meet their climate change and environmental targets at the same time as expanding airports and growing the economy, and I welcome that commitment. It is a hugely important promise, but it is also a huge challenge. Sustainable aviation fuel can deliver emissions savings compared with traditional kerosene fuel. Increasing its use is a vital piece of the puzzle in decarbonising aviation.
What assessment has the Minister made of when these SAF mandates will be achieved? Does he think that they will be achieved in the next year? If not, at what point does he expect those mandates to be met? The Government do not believe that we need to follow the advice of the Climate Change Committee and see demand management alongside a suite of other measures as one of the approaches. Instead, they believe that we can get greater amounts of sustainable aviation fuel. Will my hon. Friend tell me how important it is to see the industry achieving these early mandates if we want to give confidence that they will be achieved in much greater numbers in the future?
Finally, will the Minister reassure me that he will not allow SAF production from feedstocks, potentially undermining the environmental sustainability and the emissions savings of SAF? Has he had any discussions with the Secretary of State for Energy, Security and Net Zero around the likely needs for the very same stock as part of our energy production in the future, particularly given the potential growth of data centres? Does the Government have a collective approach on the need for both sustainable aviation fuel and biofuels servicing our energy sector? With that, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will bring my comments to a close.
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15:23 Chris Vince (Labour)
Naysayers will say that the increase of SAF production is not the answer, and that we need to decrease the number of people who fly, but we must be realistic about that. As I have said before, the expansion of Stansted airport will mean an additional 4,000 jobs for my area of the country. Aviation supports business travel and freight for millions, but SAF will also help to deliver on the green, clean energy and growth that has been so important to this Government. We know that, over its lifetime of usage, the use of SAF will reduce greenhouse gases by 70%, which is something that we can all get behind.
I know that I am expected to speak about the amendments, so I will briefly touch on Lords amendment 6. I am confident that the Secretary of State and the Minister will continue to consult those they consider appropriate ahead of any legislation. I am very reassured to hear the Minister say that he has already engaged with and got support from the devolved nations on this matter, but will he reflect on the comments by my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) about how SAF production could be part of the Government’s wider aims and the conversations he has with Energy Ministers about getting to net zero? Decreasing our carbon usage and green energy are so important to that. When I go into schools and meet the pilots, cabin crew and ground staff of the future, the No. 1 thing they bring up are their concerns about climate change.
Finally, it has been a pleasure to be part of this process and see this Bill through Parliament. The Bill is a clear sign that this Labour Government recognise the importance of our aviation sector for the future of young people and for business and international trade. It is also clear that the Government recognise the importance of green energy solutions to ensure that this country and the world have a positive future. Although I missed Third Reading—this is the joke coming—I am glad to be here for the Bill’s final descent towards Royal Assent.
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15:29 Euan Stainbank (Labour)
With airport expansion and infrastructure expansion—such as, perhaps, the Glasgow airport rail link—necessary to support growth in every corner of the United Kingdom, and given the need to decarbonise the sector without pricing the ordinary Brit out of their holiday, the Government’s approach to aviation and this Bill has been the right one. While some Opposition Members—absent from their Benches—seem keen to condemn aviation and its economic benefits to the dustbin of history, this Bill takes the right approach. It will aid the Government’s growth commitment to the aviation sector alongside the progress being made on airspace modernisation.
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15:34 Melanie Onn (Labour)
I am pleased to support the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill and the Lords amendments. The Bill is about backing a world-class aviation sector and supporting its growth in a way that meets our decarbonisation responsibilities. The fact that SAF could contribute to the 65% reduction in emissions needed by aviation to meet net zero by 2050 is a useful reminder that technological development can ensure a future for higher carbon emitters while improving our environment. That is policy in action, and it will reduce disruption to consumers—something that we also have to bear in mind.
SAF matters not just for its decarbonisation credentials, but for its clear potential to support job creation and economic growth. As my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) said, it will bring into existence a circular economy, including flooding alleviation and the development of feedstocks. That would perhaps alleviate some of the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) about the source of feedstocks.
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15:39 Tom Collins (Labour)
Although we have discussed decarbonisation a number of times in this debate, it has not been said yet that the Bill is about addressing the climate crisis. That incredibly important and urgent piece of work demands the utmost urgency and ambition. For that reason, I naturally support it and what it is trying to achieve. Similar mechanisms have been incredibly successful in developing the thriving renewables industry that we now see in the UK, which provides a lot of our energy.
It is worth while recognising that the Bill is part of a much longer journey to decarbonising aviation. I declare an interest early in my remarks: I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on hydrogen. In a very long timeframe, we can potentially see aviation using cryogenic hydrogen as a fuel source, so we should keep that in view.
It is important, as the amendments make clear, that the UK benefits from what we are doing in the Bill. I am passionate about seeing the whole UK low-carbon energy supply chain building and scaling rapidly. That includes electrons—the Government already have very ambitious goals around decarbonising electricity—as well as molecules and hydrogen. We are still awaiting the hydrogen strategy. I recently spoke to the Minister about that, and I understand that it is close. It is incredibly important that we have an ambitious and comprehensive strategy for the development of the hydrogen economy in the UK that does not just serve a small number of industrial clusters but underpins our decarbonisation of electricity, provides dispatchable power and provides an opportunity for industrial renewal as we move forward.
Hydrogen is an important feedstock for producing SAF by any route. We need a hydrogen economy, and for that we need a price. For a price, we need storage and transmission. As we fulfil our desires for SAF to be ambitious, bold and effective in decarbonising, we must also do the work as a Government to build a hydrogen economy to establish that anchoring price, as well as demand and production, so that we can see a thriving, decarbonising aviation sector, the renewal and regeneration of the whole UK industrial sector, and an absolute renaissance underpinned by low-carbon energy—both electrons and molecules.
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15:41 Keir Mather (Labour)
I thank the shadow Minister for his support for the Lords amendments and for his strong support for the principle of decarbonisation of aviation. I am starting to receive slightly mixed signals from the shadow Transport team as to how passionately they stand behind this prospect across different modes of transport. Perhaps that is one to be hashed out over a beer at his birthday celebrations. I am glad that the shadow Minister agrees with the Government amendments. He is right to point to the economic value of decarbonisation across the United Kingdom and the need to focus on value for money for taxpayers. We are committed to delivering that in the revenue certainty mechanism by controlling the scale and the number of contracts that are entered into, as well as the prices that are negotiated in each contract. I assure him that the cost of the scheme and the impact on passenger ticket prices will be kept under continual review. I do not just acknowledge his commitment to be vigilant on this issue; I actively welcome it, and I thank him for his contributions.
I turn to the remarks of my hon. Friends the Members for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn), for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) and for Doncaster Central (Sally Jameson). They were right to focus on and say that the benefits of SAF production must be felt in my home of Yorkshire as well as in Lincolnshire and across the United Kingdom. The point about Doncaster Sheffield airport is important, because the consumers who use our airports and seek to use aviation travel to connect themselves to the world also care that they can do so in a form of technology that the Government are doing their utmost to try to decarbonise. I am glad that they feel that that level of ambition is reflected both in these amendments and in the Bill as a whole. My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) also pointed to that.
The Lib Dem spokesman, the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), was right to say that SAF is only one piece of the puzzle in aviation decarbonisation. Hydrogen flight, greenhouse gas removals and airspace modernisation all require focus. Those points were also made by my hon. Friends the Members for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) and for Worcester (Tom Collins).
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