Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

Lord Ravensdale Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 10th February 2026 Lords Chamber

The crucial thing is to narrow the scope of the Bill so that, of the three particular forms of sustainable aviation fuel I have set out, the Bill will focus solely on non-HEFA sustainable aviation fuel. That is the one where it may be argued there is a need for subsidy in the reasonably foreseeable future, excluding the other two options—on the one hand because the Government say that HEFA does not need a subsidy and the Bill is not aimed at it, and on the other because PtL is potentially speculative and expensive, and should be dealt with through a separate statutory and legislative process at the time when it is necessary. In that light, I beg to move my Amendment 3.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords of my interest as a chief engineer working for AtkinsRéalis. For my Amendment 7 in this group, I have simply retabled my amendment from Committee. As a brief reminder, we have targets in the SAF mandate —coming back to what noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said about power to liquid—and an escalating percentage of sustainable aviation fuel needs to be power to liquid. That is clearly set out in the SAF mandate. This amendment is trying to ensure coherence between the SAF mandate and the projects given support under the revenue certainty mechanism.

This comes back to what the Minister set out about support for UK production. The percentages in the SAF mandate could simply be met by importing power to liquid fuel, so it is important that we set out the ambition for the industry to meet in producing all that fuel, which is already legally required under the SAF mandate, in the UK, aligning that with the earlier government amendments. I recognise that setting this out in the Bill may be going too far, but I would welcome the Minister’s comments on how this could be set out in the allocation framework documents to give industry that steer on power to liquid fuel and the expectations for producing it in the UK.

My Amendments 14 and 16 are similar to those I tabled in Committee, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for signing them. I reflected on the Minister’s responses at that point, but I did not hear any compelling reasons why HEFA sustainable aviation fuel products should be included in the scope of the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said, my amendment and his Amendment 15 are very similar and aim at the same thing. Mine deals more with the base product, using established definitions, and his encompasses the totality of HEFA products.

I welcomed meetings with the Minister’s team of officials. The outcome was that the main rationale for retaining HEFA in the Bill is that that recognises that this is a fast-developing market and it is important to retain that flexibility in primary legislation. I accept that, but I still find it hard to imagine a scenario where the Government want to subsidise HEFA using the revenue certainty mechanism. The whole point of the legislation is to help pump-prime those new industries, not to support the well-established industries that we have to provide HEFA fuel.

The Government are taking broader powers than they need under the legislation, so there is a risk that, as we go forward, subsidies could be given outside that intent. However, I hope that the Minister will be able to say something substantive about this in his remarks, on the exclusion of HEFA, and I look forward to hearing what he has to say in that regard.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to speak in support of the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, on crops, and to share many of the concerns raised about HEFA. I declare my interests on the register as an adviser to AtkinsRéalis—there are a lot of us here today.

My concerns are that, first, I do not believe that we should be using crops to make fuel. In a world that does not have enough food and where biodiversity is under threat, where deforestation is happening in areas of the world that provide extra land for agriculture, I do not think that there is any justification for growing food and turning it into fuel. I ask the Minister please to exclude crops. The United States is permitting them, and the European Union is not, and I think that we should fall on the side of avoiding the use of agricultural crops. Agricultural waste is a different thing —the residue from crops, such as straw and corn husks. Agricultural waste is one thing, but actual crops is another, and we should not be using them.

On HEFA, we are where we are, but we have to exercise extreme care, because the truth is that there is not enough used cooking oil in the world to fill the supposed need for that used cooking oil. All too often, the suspicion is that somebody is dumping a chicken wing into a tub of virgin palm oil and saying that it is HEFA—so HEFA is something that we need to move away from as quickly as possible. In any case, we depend on imports from the Far East for it, which may not be sustainable going forwards. Our focus should really be on biowaste and municipal waste and on the technologies that offer a really good path for the future —but let us not use crops and let us be extremely careful with what we do with HEFA. I have a lot of sympathy with what my noble friend Lord Moylan and the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, have said. It is far from clear that this is a genuine product that has the full potential to do what is necessary.

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[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a fair point. I mentioned the call for evidence precisely because it would be useful to have evidence from any party that cares to give it about using crops, for example. I am happy to say that in those circumstances, somebody should come back and say something about that position.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

I thank the Minister for making that strong statement from the Dispatch Box on the intention to exclude HEFA technology and feedstocks. That is further than the Government have gone before in their statements. It sets out a clear direction of travel for the legislation and the revenue certainty mechanism, and I thank him for that.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, taking the issues separately, we in this House are used to governments seeking powers much broader than they need, and explicitly broader than they are intending to use. The Government seek the power to offer a subsidy regime, the character of which we will come to in the next group. They want the power to extend a subsidy regime to the production of something which requires no subsidy, as the technique for producing it is well established. Neste Oyj, a Finnish company which came to see me a few weeks ago, is producing vast quantities of HEFA already in various European centres.

There is no need for a subsidy for HEFA, and the Government agree. They say that they have no intention of using the revenue certainty mechanism for HEFA; none the less, they want to have the power. That is a bit shabby, although I appreciate that, thanks to the intervention of my noble friend Lord Harper, they are now willing to come to the Dispatch Box and explain why they would want to do this, if they ever should.

On power to liquid, at the other end of the scale, while I and the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, were broadly in agreement on the question of HEFA and crop-based fuels, we were diametrically opposed on the question of power to liquid. It is unfortunate that the Government are giving themselves the ability to launch a subsidy regime for a highly speculative type of fuel that should be subject to much closer parliamentary scrutiny when the Government might want to offer such subsidies. However, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.