Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 29th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I commend my hon. Friend for raising that concern in the House and standing up for her constituents. I fully understand that this is a long- running issue involving several parties, including the water utility company and the housing developer. I completely share her and her constituents’ frustration. I would be delighted to ask my noble Friend the roads Minister, who deals with this, to meet her; she has already undertaken to do so.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I do not know whether the Minister has recently visited Tory-controlled Derbyshire, but I have, and the roads are in a shocking state. Plugging potholes and patching up roads in a piecemeal fashion simply does not work. What we need is a proper road maintenance programme, yet the Government have slashed funding by £375 million and are ploughing £27 billion into road expansion during a climate emergency. Does the Minister not think that it would be better for motorists, cyclists and the planet if we focused on fixing what we have got?

[Rachel Maclean]

I am delighted that the hon. Lady enjoyed her visit to Derbyshire—long may it continue to be Conservative-controlled. She is wrong to say that we are not investing in local roads. The Government announced £1.7 billion for maintenance and upgrades to tackle potholes, relieve congestion and boost connectivity.

I would like to address this allegation head-on. It is incorrect to say that we are spending £27 billion on road building or that 4,000 miles of new roads are planned. We are actually investing £27 billion in the operation, maintenance and renewal of England’s strategic road network to secure safer and more reliable journeys that have less impact on adjacent communities and places.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

We have ambitious plans to meet our target dates of phasing out the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030. At the moment, a driver is never more than 25 miles away from a rapid charge point anywhere on England’s motorways, and there are 36 rapid charge points available per 100 miles, but we obviously need to go further. We are working through our rapid charging fund and we will make further announcements very shortly on this topic.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

We know that the Government’s road-building expansion will lead to an estimated 270,000 additional tonnes of carbon entering the atmosphere by 2032. However, in an answer to a recent question, the Minister told me that she was content that the Government’s road-building expansion programme was compatible with the net zero target. Will she tell me how she reached that view when the Secretary of State overruled his own civil servants on the need to conduct an environmental review of the policy? And does she agree that if the Government are serious about reaching net zero and setting an example before COP26, that review should be carried out now?

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She will know that we are serious about decarbonising the entire transport sector. We will publish our transport decarbonisation plan in spring this year, as we have committed to do, which will set out how we will decarbonise the entire sector, including roads. I just say to her that, of course, we do need roads, but we want the vehicles driving on them to be electric, and we are investing in electric vehicles—cars, vans, buses and lorries.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

He will pay, of course.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

I am afraid that my question for the Minister might be slightly tougher to answer. As she knows, the new three-stop limit will be devastating for UK hauliers working with touring musicians or on events that involve multiple stops in EU countries. This is such an important sector for the UK, and it has already been hit so hard by covid. Can the Minister at least acknowledge today that the Government’s failure to seek an exemption during the negotiations was a massive own goal? Will the Government get back round the negotiating table and sort this out before the summer, when we all hope that the live music scene will be open once again for business?

[Rachel Maclean]

We certainly share the hon. Lady’s desire to see the live music scene open once again in this country. The trade and co-operation agreement that the Government have negotiated with the EU is an excellent deal for our hauliers that allows 95% of haulier movements to continue as they did before. All hauliers who carry out work for a commercial purpose in the EU will be subject to the provisions of the UK-EU trade and co-operation agreement. It is really important to put on the record that during negotiations with the EU, the Government proposed exemptions for specialist hauliers such as the ones she referred to due to the nature of their businesses, but unfortunately the EU did not agree to those asks. However, because we recognise the important impact that this will have, we continue our discussions.

DRIVERS' HOURS AND TACHOGRAPHS (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS 2020

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 General Committees

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Let me say at the outset that we will not oppose the regulations. The Opposition’s priority has always been to ensure that the rights and welfare of drivers are protected, and this amendment to legislation for the UK’s future outside the European Union is an important part of that.

I am pleased that the Government are applying rules regarding the monitoring and enforcement of the hours driven by haulage drivers to domestic journeys in the UK as well as international journeys. It is important to recognise that hauliers have kept this country going during the difficult times of the past year, ensuring that essential supplies of food and medicine have got through —sometimes in difficult circumstances. It is too easy to forget the contribution they make. It is vital for the safety of all of us using UK roads that those driving heavy goods vehicles are rested and can remain vigilant and drive safely. We know how terrible—I think the Minister said “catastrophic”—the consequences can be otherwise: we have all witnessed the accidents that occur sometimes because of driver error or other incidents. Limits on maximum hours driven and requiring rest breaks are the best way to keep us all safe, and it is right that they should continue to be protected in law now that the transition period is over. The regulations will help UK officials properly to enforce any breaches of the rules, so it is important that they are transferred into UK law.

However, the timing of the regulations is somewhat unfortunate, given recent developments. On 22 January, the Government extended the relaxation of enforcement for the retained EU drivers’ hours rules until 31 March. We agree that such measures may be necessary in the short term to avoid immediate chaos at our borders, but to extend the relaxations for more than two months is not exactly an expression of confidence from the Government in their own ability to address the chaotic situation.

Such emergency measures may not have been necessary had the Government negotiated a trade agreement with the EU in a timely manner rather than at the very last minute, or had they taken adequate steps to prepare, such as hiring and training the necessary number of customs agents. That reckless brinkmanship meant hauliers, importers and exporters had little time to prepare for the new customs regime, and the Government have had precious little time to communicate the new rules to them. As the Minister and I have discussed previously, that involves translation into many different languages through the haulier handbook—it is not a simple task to get the information out. As a result, we have seen regular reports of goods rotting in border facilities, UK hauliers facing a significant drop in demand for their services and predictions of shortages of goods in the coming months. In fact, the situation is predicted to get worse before it gets better, as many companies stockpiled before the end of the transition period to avoid being caught up in the chaos we now see.

The general post-Brexit watering down of workers’ rights is also relevant. Contrary to what the Government would like people to believe, being part of the EU never prevented the UK Government from raising their standards and going higher than the level playing field. The freedom we have now, about which many Government Members are so enthusiastic, is a freedom to lower standards and remove workers’ protections. That is why Labour has called an Opposition day debate today on that very topic. I hope the Minister will give the Committee some assurances that she appreciates the importance of legislative protections for drivers in the haulage sector that go above and beyond the regulations under discussion and that she will seek to uphold and, indeed, strengthen them whenever such issues cross her desk.

Draft Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations (Amendment) Order 2020

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 General Committees

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

We can all support the transition to renewable fuels across the transportation sector. As the Minister will be well aware, transport is the largest contributing sector to UK emissions, and progress in trying to decarbonise the sector has been very slow in recent years. To achieve that, we need to make the types of vehicle that we use, and the fuel they consume, more sustainable. It was disappointing to hear this week that the transport decarbonisation plan will not be published until spring 2021; we really do need an overarching strategy and coherence in policy making, as well as a greater sense of urgency.

The renewable transport fuel obligation was a key achievement of the last Labour Government. It has been a central part of encouraging the adoption of renewable fuels in transport, particularly fuels sustainably sourced from waste. I am pleased that the RTFO continues to be considered a success across the transport sector, but we must recognise that, as the climate emergency becomes more pressing and transport emissions continue to stagnate rather than reduce, it now needs reform.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

The hon. Lady gives credit to the previous Labour Government, but was it not agreement at a European level that actually forced all EU Governments to move towards more renewable road transport fuels?

[Kerry McCarthy]

That is a very good argument for European co-operation, so it is sad that the right hon. Gentleman is such a fan of going it alone.

The statutory instrument goes some way towards meeting the need for reform. As the Minister has explained, from 1 January, it will mean that the buy-back price multiplier will increase from 30p to 50p, strengthening the RTFO by providing more incentive for people to meet our renewable fuel requirements, rather than buying themselves out of their obligations. The Government estimate that, without acting to raise the buy-back price, we risk losing annual greenhouse gas savings of up to 6.5 million tonnes of CO₂.

As the Minister said, the SI is the result of consultation. I am pleased that, as a result of that consultation, there was agreement to go for a 50p multiplier rather than 40p, which would have been considerably less ambitious. I am also pleased that implementation will begin swiftly on 1 January.

We will support the SI on the grounds that it strengthens the mandate to supply renewable fuels. Moving forward, however, I hope to see action from the Government to support renewable fuels in other ways. A consultation on introducing E10 petrol was launched earlier this year, but we are still waiting for the Government response, with a final decision on how it will be introduced and, hopefully, how we can ensure that an increased demand for biofuels does not lead to an increase in deforestation due to changes in land use.

Many stakeholders are proposing further reforms to the RTFO, such as a floor price mechanism to help to ensure stability for investment in the sector. I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether the Government are considering that reform to further strengthen the RTFO, because it has come up in many of my conversations with people in the sector.

I hope to see more support from the Government for emerging sources of renewable fuels, especially in hard-to-decarbonise sectors such as aviation, shipping and HGVs, which at present cannot easily be electrified. Proper investment in genuinely sustainable fuels for those modes of transport may prove vital in meeting net zero targets and putting us back on track. I know that we are expecting more details of the sixth carbon budget soon, and I will be watching closely for future announcements.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Maclean]

This has been an incredibly useful discussion. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bristol East and my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby for their contributions. With his considerable expertise, my right hon. Friend identified the importance of the industry and the potential that the Government have to support our home-grown British industry, which is exactly what we want to do.

My right hon. Friend and the hon. Lady asked about E10, and we are working hard to publish our response to the consultation on its introduction as soon as possible. I am aware of the industry’s keen interest in the matter. We anticipate that any requirement to introduce E10 would come into force in 2021. There would need to be a period of at least six months in advance of that introduction so that fuel suppliers and consumers could prepare for the change in grade. The experience of other countries suggests that a comprehensive communications campaign is crucial to any successful roll-out to ensure that motorists are well informed ahead of the change in grade. Should E10 be rolled out in the UK, I reassure those who are interested that we will remain committed to ensuring the retention of an E5 grade for those vehicles or equipment that cannot use petrol with high levels of ethanol.

I am delighted by the hon. Lady’s support for the statutory instrument, for which I thank her. She rightly referred to the transport decarbonisation plan that she and I have discussed on many occasions. It remains at the forefront of the Government’s efforts to decarbonise the entire sector. Regrettably, in the light of the covid pandemic, we have had to deal with very pressing public health issues, but that has not detracted from our intense work on the plan, which we will publish in spring next year.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Following my conversations with people in the sector, I am concerned that some companies, particularly those operating fleet vehicles or bus companies —I know that the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby has a company in his constituency that is keen to manufacture cleaner buses—have been so financially hit by covid that they have put their plans on hold, because it is not an ideal time for a company to upgrade its vehicles if it has not made a profit in the previous year. Will that affect what is in the decarbonisation plan?

[Rachel Maclean]

I do not want to stray too far from the statutory instrument, but the hon. Lady rightly raises very important questions. I will be happy to discuss that further with her, but I want to reassure her that our commitment remains. We work very closely with the sector, as she does, and we understand those natural concerns. Of course, the Government have supported the entire economy to the tune of at least £330 billion, which has gone to transport operators and many others. We recognise the challenges that operators face, but we nevertheless remain determined to decarbonise the transport sector.

The order makes a small but important amendment to ensure that the RTFO continues to support the renewable fuels industry as intended. We need the industry to drive down emissions in sectors that are harder to decarbonise, such as heavy goods vehicles and aviation, and to deliver the cleaner fuels that will play an even greater role in achieving our aim of a greener and more prosperous economy. I reassure members of the Committee that we have the most ambitious crop cap in Europe for fuel sources, which is 4% and will be decreasing to 2%. We have therefore taken note of the concerns that hon. Members have raised.

It is true that as we transition to zero emissions vehicles, we cannot ignore measures to reduce emissions from the conventional road vehicles in use today, particularly given the contribution of renewable fuels to meeting UK carbon budgets. We will be setting out in our transport decarbonisation plan more detail about the future of low-carbon fuels across transport modes, and that will be published in spring 2021.

The statutory instrument will change the RTFO buy-out price for the start of the next obligation year—1 January 2021. That timing is important so that we can provide certainty for fuel suppliers and minimise administrative costs. I hope that the Committee will join me in supporting the statutory instrument.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I commend the efforts of the Derwent Valley Trust and encourage it to work in partnership with Derbyshire County Council through the local cycling and walking infrastructure plan. As my hon. Friend knows well, Derbyshire has received more than £1.6 million in tranche two of the active travel fund, and decisions for the allocation of that are made locally, but I would be more than happy to meet her. I know that neck of the woods very well, and I know that her husband is a keen MAMIL—middle-aged man in Lycra—who uses the cycleways around there. I suppose I could don a bit of Lycra and join him and her on a ride.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I did not know MAMILs were a thing, but I have now been enlightened by my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane).

As part of support for active travel, we ought to be supporting our UK bicycle manufacturers and retailers, but they have been hit by tariffs imposed as a result of the Boeing-Airbus dispute. I think the Minister will agree it is somewhat ironic that an aviation dispute leads to bicycle manufacturers being penalised. They are also facing the threat of anti-dumping duties being lifted and a flood of cheap Chinese imports. I know the Minister has written to his counterpart in the Department for International Trade about this. Was he as unhappy as I was with the reply, and can he release the figures showing that anti-dumping duties should not be lifted because they do represent more than 1% of the UK market?

Road Traffic

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Let me start by saying that of course we accept the need for this legislation, although the timing, so late in the day, is hardly ideal, particularly for those in the haulage sector. The fact that we are still discussing statutory instruments, not to mention the fact that we still appear to be teetering on the brink of a no-deal Brexit, with only 16 sitting days to go before the end of the transition period demonstrates just what a shambles this Government’s handling of Brexit has been from start to finish.

Many of the stakeholders in the haulage sector I have spoken to feel that the Government have done nowhere near enough to prepare for what the Road Haulage Association has described as:

“the most challenging task the supply chain has ever faced”.

This sector has helped to keep the country going during the coronavirus outbreak, especially in maintaining essential deliveries of food, medical supplies and other goods. However, the sector has also been hard hit this year, and chaos at our ports and on our roads come January is something it does not need. Those in the sector just want to do their jobs, but the Government are making it difficult for them. I am yet to be persuaded that the Government have done what is needed to prevent huge delays in Kent for those making the short straits crossing. The Government’s own reasonable worst-case scenario suggests there might be a freight flow of 60% to 80% of the usual volumes in the near year, which could, according to the Government, lead to queues in Kent of up to 6,500 HCVs in January, rising to 7,000 in February. That could have significant consequences for the delivery of vital goods and could severely disrupt the lives of local residents, too. I would therefore appreciate clarity from the Minister on the additional measures being taken to avoid their own estimates of delays in Kent.

Unite the union and others have raised concerns about conditions for drivers caught in delays, who will need access to food, water and toilet facilities. There is also an issue as to what this would mean in terms of driver hours and driver fatigue. So what measures are being taken to provide these basic facilities for them? I understand that when giving evidence to the EU Goods Sub-Committee in the other place earlier today, the Minister said that she could not give details as to how many toilets would be needed in Kent because there are still some details the need to be worked out. I would be grateful if she elaborated for us what those details are and when she thinks the Government would be ready to give a figure. Mention has been made of a plan to deploy Portaloos along the queues if traffic is static for a prolonged period. I would be grateful if the Minister told us a little more about that. Rod McKenzie of the Road Haulage Association recently described information provided to hauliers by the Government as

“incomplete, inadequate and quite often totally incomprehensible.”

One measure that could have helped was the timely delivery of the haulier handbook. I gather that the launch date for the full version, which is intended to provide clear guidance to drivers, is now set for 7 December —only 25 days before the end of transition. Given that 85% of freight drivers are from the EU, the document will need to be published, translated and promoted across most of the continent in around three weeks, which includes the breaks for Christmas and new year. I understand that it will need to be translated into 14 languages.

Hauliers also face uncertainty about the use of the proposed fixed penalties for drivers who do not have a Kent access permit. Unite has expressed concerns about how they will work, because it is the driver who will be faced with paying a roadside fine if they do not have the correct documentation, but they rely on the employer or customer to provide it. I was a little confused by what the Minister said just now. I think she confirmed that the penalties would be roadside fines, but when she gave evidence in the other place this morning, she said that because the fine was levied on the owner, it could be sent by post. Perhaps she could give some clarity as to how those penalties will work.

Leaving the EU means that we will need to process around 270 million customs declarations a year, compared with only 50 million now, and we will need around 50,000 customs agents to manage that properly. In July, the Government announced a £50 million fund to try to achieve that figure, but the British International Freight Association warned in September that almost two thirds of customs brokers felt they would not have enough agents by 1 January, and that covid had made the task even more difficult. It was also very critical of the lack of clear guidance from the Government.

More recently, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster swerved an attempt by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) to find out from him how many new customs agents have been trained and are ready to go to. He now says that the 50,000 figure was only an estimate, and that there have been significant increases in the number. That makes me think that either he does not know the answer—that is bad enough—or he does know, and it is so bad that he does not want to tell us. Can the Minister do better than the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and tell the House how many customs agents we now have, and how many have been fully trained? I have been told that there are probably around 10,000 in place right now. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether that figure sounds about right.

What does the Minister think will be the consequences if traders cannot find customs agents to do the paperwork for them? The Kent access permit involves a self-declaration process. Does she envisage any problem with false declarations by drivers? What will happen if those drivers are challenged in Calais, and they do not have the right paperwork and are sent back to the UK?

I have largely been speaking about potential border chaos using the future tense, but reports suggest that it has already begun, most notably in Felixstowe, which is struggling to cope with the volume of business as firms stockpile supplies in anticipation of severe disruption. Clearly, the Government have lost the confidence of businesses. As the holiday season approaches, would the Minister like to use this opportunity to reassure an increasingly concerned public about the timely delivery of vital supplies and Christmas presents?

As I started off by saying, my fear is that these measures are too little, too late to cope with impending chaos in Kent. However, given that they are all that we have in front of us today, and given our desire to prevent even worse disruption at the end of the transition period, we will not be opposing them.

Jet Zero Council

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Alan Brown]

Yes, I agree it is important. They need to be replaced because half the existing nuclear power stations will be phased out in the next four years. However, they do not need to be replaced by nuclear; they should be replaced by renewable energy, so I absolutely do not agree on that point.

We also heard about Airbus being a Jet Zero member, and how it is developing the ZEROe hydrogen aircraft. We look forward to hydrogen aircraft being up and running. I draw Members’ attention to a post-briefing note that highlights the fact that hydrogen emits twice as much water vapour as existing jet fuel. That is a potential issue, and perhaps the Jet Zero Council could look at that, in collaboration with the Government. The need for wider sector support from the Government, by doubling of Aerospace Technology Institute funding to £330 million a year, is also rightly identified. What assessments have the Government made of those asks?

There seems to be cross-party support for Jet Zero and the aim to get net zero aviation by 2050, but there are clear asks for the Government, and I look forward to hearing the Minister confirm those financial commitments that have been asked for around the tables.

3.36 pm

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Miller. I congratulate the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) on securing the debate. The fact that we had contributions from Members with constituencies as far afield as Strangford and St Austell and Newquay, taking in Gloucester, Newcastle upon Tyne North and South Cambridgeshire on the way, says an awful lot. Each Member stressed the importance of the sector to their constituency. I was on the board of London Luton airport a long time ago, when I was a councillor in Luton, and I appreciate the importance of the airport to the town and to Dunstable and the wider area. Of course, now I am a Bristol MP, and we have a vibrant aerospace sector—and we are home to Concorde, although I note that the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) says that he has a Concorde as well. Technically ours is just over the border in Filton, but I think Bristol lays claim to those areas when it is in our interest to do so.

We all know how important the subject of the debate is and, particularly at such a difficult and challenging time for the sector, it is important to take a considered, nuanced approach to the issues that we are discussing. We might, if we had had the debate much earlier in the year, have been able to focus purely on decarbonisation and the need to make progress with that in the sector, but covid has, as with so many other things, turned everything in the aviation world on its head. There have, as we have heard, been unprecedented falls in demand for flights because of the pandemic. The sector has faced immense financial hardship and it is predicted that it will not fully get back to its feet until 2023 or 2024 —or, given the degree of uncertainty, who knows?

Now, therefore, the discussion of decarbonisation must also deal with how to save aviation jobs in the short term, ranging from those in manufacturing, technology and design to those in airports and airlines, and the supply chain. We should not forget the many small companies that also rely on the industry and need to be part of the shift. It is one thing to consult bigger companies as part of the Jet Zero Council, but for every big company at the forefront of innovation there will be many other small and medium-sized enterprises that rely very much on being taken along on the journey.

Labour has called for a sector-specific package for aviation, which will be conditional not just on the protection of jobs—including an end to firing and rehiring on inferior contracts—but on progress in meeting environmental targets. It is important that those two objectives should be intertwined. Some nations uncritically bailed out their aviation sectors because of the pandemic without considering the climate impacts, but other nations have been both ambitious in protecting their aviation sectors and sensitive to the need to decarbonise the sector. France, for example, provided more than €15 billion, much of it to Air France, conditional on a number of things. For example, France expects the airline to renew its fleet with more efficient aircraft; to source 2% of fuel from sustainable sources by 2025; to achieve a 50% reduction in carbon dioxide from domestic flights by the end of 2024; and to ensure that overall emissions from all flights are halved by 2030.

I welcome the Minister to his new post. I hope that we hear from him how the UK can follow France in taking such a lead, because this is too important an opportunity to miss, given that we need far more intervention and investment in the aviation sector—more of a lead from the Government—than we perhaps would in normal times. How can we maximise the opportunity to get the sector back on its feet and also accelerate the progress we all want to make towards net zero?

Intervention is desperately required, both to safeguard jobs and to allow us to become world leaders. Setting up the Jet Zero Council, bringing together all those top minds in the industry to discuss the issues, is a good start. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) said, it is a notable omission that there are no workplace representatives on the council. I hope the Minister will address that in his response, because this is very much about everyone involved in the sector, not only the companies behind it.

I confess that, when I first took on the role of shadow Minister for green transport, I was quite sceptical about some of the claims about sustainable aviation fuel being the way forward. There was lots of talk about sucking carbon out of the sky, but it was not really backed up by much science in the debates or the representations that I heard. In the six months that I have been in this job, and having had so many meetings with people, I have been on a steep learning curve, and I now think there is huge potential for us to make progress in developing sustainable aviation fuels. As well as speaking to sustainable aviation figures, I have spoken to Velocys, which is pioneering production in the UK; I think it has £500,000 funding for a centre in Immingham. The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire talked about it trying to create sustainable aviation fuel from waste, which is a really interesting development.

I also met the Electric Aviation Group, which has a connection with Bristol and with companies such as Airbus. Unfortunately, it has not been invited to join the Jet Zero Council—I have just had a letter back from the Minister about this—but it is working on a hybrid electric aircraft for UK skies. It was interesting to hear from the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire that easyJet is also looking to develop an electric plane soon. The Electric Aviation Group says that, eventually, easyJet could probably fly hybrid planes to most destinations that it flies to in the future. It is obviously a bit more complicated for longer-haul flights. Hydrogen was mentioned by a number of Members, and the fact that Airbus, for example, is exploring it via its ZEROe concept. We obviously want to go down the path of clean, green hydrogen if we can, rather than blue hydrogen. I hope that the Jet Zero Council helps us move on to that path.

As I said, it is quite exciting how much has been done on sustainable aviation fuels. I think that a lot of progress will be made in the next few years. As other Members said, that in itself does not address the immediate issue, which is that—putting to one side covid and the fall in aviation emissions that we have had as a result of people just not flying—the trend of the last decade is aviation emissions either stagnating or increasing, whereas other sectors have been pretty successful in cutting emissions, such as the energy sector, as the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire said. We are just not seeing that for aviation.

Aviation counted for 8% of UK emissions in 2019, according to the Committee on Climate Change. I agree with the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire on the need to include international aviation emissions in the UK’s net zero emissions legislation. Domestic aviation emissions have fallen to some extent, but those international emissions are not currently included in that legislation. I do not know whether the Minister will have something to say on that, because, as I understand it, the Government have said that they want to look at how we can include international aviation and shipping emissions in that target. That would act as a real incentive; rather than just focusing on emissions from domestic flights, which are a tiny minority of journeys, we must look at the international picture.

The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire also talked about carbon offsetting and planting trees, and options such as those must all be included. We also need to consider the issue of aviation demand, once passenger numbers start to return to normal levels. The debates around airport expansions and attributing responsibility remain important conversations to have, particularly given the recent court ruling against Heathrow expansion.

An estimated 70% of all flights in Britain are taken by just 15% of adults, and I think the Treasury is due to consult on the potential for greening aviation taxation soon. We need to look at how aviation can achieve a sustainable level of demand and remain affordable for ordinary families. I am certainly not arguing that ordinary families should not have the right to fly, travel and go on holidays, but I would argue that we need to place more responsibility on the minority of frequent flyers. Perhaps covid has alerted people to the fact that they do not necessarily need to fly across the world for a business meeting—there are things such as Zoom now. The UK’s replacement for the EU’s emissions trading scheme may well be another opportunity to green aviation taxation appropriately, so I hope we see some ambition from the Government on that in the coming months.

To conclude, I urge the Government to balance things out: in the longer term, the Jet Zero Council is a very exciting proposition, but we know that it will not deliver the solutions that we need to deal with aviation emissions in the short term. Alternative fuels have a role to play but, given the crisis in aviation, what we need from the Government now is a coherent package that looks ahead to international leadership at COP, but also looks at how we can save jobs, reskill people who work in the aviation and aerospace sectors, and create those jobs of the future—saving the industry and saving the planet at the same time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not attempting to travel to Wales via New York because that would definitely encourage congestion. I can assure him that we are investing strongly in public transport. We will continue to support the bus sector. We have provided £218.4 million of funding on a rolling basis from 4 August. We have provided over £700 million-worth of funding for public transport throughout the pandemic.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I am pleased that the Government have listened to Labour and are considering bringing forward the date for the phase-out of the sale of new diesel, petrol and hybrid vehicles, but how is the Minister actually going to get us there? All we have had from the Government lately is gimmicks like green number plates and the suggestion that they will paint electric vehicle parking spaces green. The charging infrastructure is woefully inadequate. Other than painting everything green, what is her actual strategy?

[Rachel Maclean]

This was a Conservative Government pledge in our latest manifesto. We are accelerating the transition to zero-emission vehicles with £2.5 billion of support. We already have one of the most extensive charging networks in Europe, and we are ramping it up all the time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for that very direct answer. Around 40% of the lowest income households do not have access to a car, but we know from the Government’s own research that because they tend to live in more hazardous environments—so more traffic, more on-street parking, more pollution and little space for cycling and walking—they are deterred from active travel. Can we have a national strategy from the Government, not just money being sent down to local councils, to try to increase cycling and walking in our more deprived communities?

[Grant Shapps]

As the hon. Lady will know, the Government are very much in favour of people being able to take active transport, but we are not against the car. That is why we are investing £27 billion in roads, but I can tell her—I am sure she will welcome this—that we think the priority for walking and cycling is absolutely essential. I think she will be very pleased with what we have to say in forthcoming guidance on the subject.