Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Chris Vince and Greg Smith

Committee stage
Tuesday 15th July 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Vince]

Q Obviously, the Bill is trying to make it easier for us to produce SAF in this country, which is really important. I gather—if this is correct—that part of your role is to source SAF around the world. Do you feel there will be a greater need, and therefore a strong argument that we should be pushing ahead with SAF and producing it here in Britain? Although you said you cannot commit to where you will buy your SAF because of cost, would you say you will be in a place where you need more and more—and so it is very likely that you will have to source SAF from Britain, because you will need as many sources as possible?

Ruben van Grinsven: Especially for the second and third generation, SAF needs to develop. I think the consensus is that HEFA-based SAF is, at this moment, the most mature and affordable, so it is a great option. However, we also all believe that we are going to run out of feedstock at a certain time.

If you want to continue decarbonising aviation, you need additional forms of SAF—and that is where the second and third generations come in. We need to start developing those now, to learn how it is done and establish the technology and the fundamentals behind it. Starting that now is essential, and doing it in the UK could potentially give you a head start. If you do this before everybody else, you would have a technological and commercial head start, which could be an advantage.

[Greg Smith]

Q If the Bill becomes an Act, Shell will find itself in a peculiar place given that it will be both a levy payer, as a fossil fuel producer, and a developer of SAF potentially looking to benefit from the strike price. The Government put an analysis in the public domain on Second Reading: they suggested that the ultimate cost to the end user, such as somebody getting a flight—there will be a different calculation for those using air freight—will be plus or minus £1.50. Witnesses earlier suggested that that might be a “conservative” estimate—in their own words. Where would Shell see the ultimate cost pass on to the end user?

Ruben van Grinsven: The principle makes sense: at the end of the day, additional cost will find its way to the end user. We do not have enough information at this point in time to calculate what the cost is going to be because a lot of the details of the Bill are unknown. We would like to better understand how this is going to work, what the volumes are, what the timing is going to be, and how we will organise the contracts between the supplier and the off-taker. There are a lot of things that we do not know at this point, and therefore it is difficult to model what the final cost of the levy is going to be for the end consumer. I do not know; it is difficult to answer.

On top of that, I think it is going to change over time. Over time, if the market is short and the prices are high, money might flow towards the levy, so it would be like a negative levy but then it might turn into a positive levy. It is very difficult to assess that and put a number on it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Smith]

Q This is my final question before we get to go through the Bill in detail on Thursday and next Tuesday. Accepting the agnostic position, has anything you have heard today from the various companies who have given evidence, be that global giants such as Shell, UK-based innovators such as Zero Petroleum or the companies developing SAFs from waste, changed your thinking on whether there might be emerging winners and losers, given some of the challenges that we have heard about—not least the municipal waste challenges?

Mike Kane: As the Minister leading on the Bill, I would say, “My kingdom for a chemistry degree.” Actually, Mark said something that I thought was very pertinent towards the end: we just have to allow the technology to emerge. That way, as we get to the power-to-liquids and the harder piece to do, in five, 10 or 15 years, there will be a market for it. The beauty of the Bill is that we can let contracts over five or 10 years.

Personally, even though Exxon has reservations about this measure, the only emotion I would convey to Exxon is thanks for producing this fuel now, in this country. Exxon is happy about the SAF mandate; its issue is with the revenue certainty mechanism. That is an area where, once the market is established, the Government have an exit strategy; once the market begins to work, the then Secretary of State will have ways out of it, because Government will not need to be in it once we have established it.

[Chris Vince]

Q The evidence session has been very positive—I think you would agree—with a lot of positive evidence about the Bill and sustainable aviation fuel in general. I have the same question that I have asked a number of those giving evidence today: will you elaborate on what you think would be the risks and potential disadvantages to the UK, if we were to stall on the Bill and not pass it on Third Reading?

Mike Kane: First, I thank you, Chris—you have been a great advocate for aviation since you came to Westminster in 2024, with Stansted airport near your constituency. The No. 1 risk is not doing this—that is the risk. I think Matt from Heathrow and Rob from Airlines UK said that in our approach to getting to net zero by 2050, we have a number of Government policies—airspace modernisation, leadership at CORSIA, the emissions trading scheme, the £2.3 billion investment in the Aerospace Technology Institute and hydrogen regulatory development—but that 40% of that pathway is the Bill. If we do not pass it, we are in serious trouble about decarbonising the industry. That is the key risk.

Terms and Conditions of Employment

Debate between Chris Vince and Greg Smith

Tuesday 11th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

I welcome the opportunity to contribute on behalf of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, and I welcome the introduction of these two statutory instruments, which have been a long time coming. In 2019, the Conservatives made a manifesto commitment to introduce neonatal care leave. It was a shame that in that election, and in the most recent, no such commitment was made by the Labour party, now in government. That is no surprise, however; just like with all their good ideas, it usually turns out that they were ours.

Our commitment to introducing neonatal care leave led to our support of the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023, which was stewarded by the former Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, Stuart C McDonald and Baroness Wyld. That Act is the reason why the Government are introducing these statutory instruments today.

I am pleased that, with reservations, we will support the measures, so that we can continue to build on the sensible improvements to workers’ rights that we, as Conservatives, introduced in government. We introduced shared parental leave, giving more choice and flexibility to families, and carers leave, giving employees more time off to give or arrange care for their families. We supported flexible working, giving employers and employees more flexibility over working practices, and we achieved all that while increasing employment and wages, a thing that the Government are now realising is no easy feat.

The result of our reforms to workers’ rights is that Britain has some of the most generous maternity and paternity leave globally, meaning families are able to spend more time with their newborns. Those achievements were reached by working with businesses and employees. We worked with businesses not just out of courtesy, but because we know that without consulting businesses and taking on board their concerns, no progress will be made, no matter how good the intention. That is not something this Government have done, which is why their Employment Rights Bill is driving up unemployment before it has even been passed.

In the plan to make work pay, the Government committed to rights from an employee’s first day, but for neonatal care pay, that is not the case. Will the Minister confirm whether this is the first step in rolling back on day one rights? Under the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023, the right to neonatal care leave and pay will come into force in less than two months. Why have the Government waited to introduce the instruments until now, leaving businesses less than eight weeks to prepare and plan? We have heard that the Prime Minister has requested a growth test on all policies. Has the Minister conducted a growth test on this policy? If not, why not?

More generally, this Government’s record on health, in particular women’s health, has been disappointing. At the end of last month, the Health Secretary dropped women’s health targets and those for women’s health hubs. That decision will impact 600,000 women on waiting lists, lead to preventable disease progression and lead to more women attending A&E, unable to work, care or live a fulfilled life. The Labour manifesto made a commitment to prioritise women’s health, but this Government are making a habit of taking with one hand to give with the other. Will the Minister confirm whether he raised his concerns over the cancellation of health targets, which have an impact on these measures, with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care?

[Chris Vince]

The shadow Minister talks about targets, but was it not his own Government that got rid of the targets for A&E waiting times, and then failed to meet their lowered targets?

[Greg Smith]

It is a brave Labour politician who talks about health targets when, for so long, the NHS in Wales was performing, and continues to perform, worse than in England when it was run by the Conservatives.

To conclude, we will support these statutory instruments because they will support the 40,000 families who faced the incredibly difficult and worrisome experience of having a child in neonatal care. The instruments will build on our achievements that made the UK one of the best places in the world to be the parents of a newborn, and I hope the Government can continue to make progress.

I end by again thanking the former Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East and Baroness Wyld. I also thank Bliss and the Smallest Things for their consistent work that has kept neonatal care pay and leave at the top of all of our agendas.