Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

Max Wilkinson Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith]

The hon. Gentleman shows my age, and no doubt his own, with that sedentary interjection.

The hon. Member for Harlow was right to focus on the skills agenda that underpins this legislation, on which I do not think we have heard so much from the Government. Likewise, the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) rightly pointed out the lived experience of Jet2 and the impact on cargo. We have heard a lot in this debate about moving people around the country and the world using aviation, but not so much about cargo, which is an equally important part of our role as a global trading nation. The hon. Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie), putting aside his little geek-off with the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor), was right to focus on that agenda of moving goods as well as people.

We also heard from Teesside, with the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer) and the hon. Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald). In fact, I am a little worried. This morning I was in Westminster Hall with the hon. Member for Stockton North, for a debate on the space industry, in which I agreed with every word he said, and I am a bit nervous to say that I agreed with him this afternoon, too. That does not often happen in this House, but he was absolutely right that all our constituents work hard and save hard. They want that family holiday or that weekend away or whatever it is every single year, and it would be a gross dereliction of duty for any of us to lumber them with higher airfares or to try to make their holidays more expensive. That is not what any of them send any of us here to do; they want us to ensure that they can still live their lives in the way they wish.

Briefly, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam warned us that he might be boring but, uncharacteristically for a Liberal Democrat, he actually was not. [Laughter.] I very much enjoyed his speech and the knowledge that he brought from his 16 years of work in the aviation sector. The hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter) was equally right to focus on another matter that a few Members have raised in the debate: the use of SAF by our armed forces, particular the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy.

The use of technology, from fuels derived from waste and feedstock to pure synthetics, is where I think much of the debate will go in the coming years. In fact, the technology to enable us to move on from those feedstock and waste-derived fuels already exists. In 2021 the RAF flew a plane not on a blend of SAF, but on 100% synthetic fuel made right here in the United Kingdom by a company called Zero Petroleum, which was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis).

Let me now turn to a part of the agenda on which I think we will need to have a conversation when the Bill goes into Committee. The Bill gives no detail on the approach to be taken regarding the specifics of the contracting between the producer and the counterparty, the Government contractor for the strike price. In the background material, especially that which can be found in the Government’s response to the consultation on the SAF revenue certainty mechanism, the ambitions are largely there, and we are not critical of the ambitions that sit within that document, but it might be beneficial to be sure that the contracting will follow those ambitions.

Given that the SAF mandate already in force includes a ringfenced mandate for an electro-sustainable aviation fuel quota, it is critical that eSAF projects are supported equally within the revenue certainty mechanism. It is important both to develop a UK market for SAF and eSAF, and local production as created by the Bill and the mandate, and to support and encourage the use of home-grown technology for the manufacture of SAF and eSAF, as that not only retains revenue within the United Kingdom but leverages a huge amount of revenue for future exports through technology licensing. Sadly, a great many projects supported by grants from the Advanced Fuels Fund are using foreign technology.

Perhaps I could suggest that the Government reflect, ahead of the Committee stage, on the possibility of adding another ambition to those that they have already set out: namely, to reward or incentivise the use of UK technology in projects supported by the revenue support mechanism. The House may be surprised to know that, despite the various programmes of UK Government support for SAF and eSAF, AFF grants, SAF mandates and the SAF revenue certainty mechanism, no UK Government bodies are mandated to support the development of the core technologies of fuel synthesis.

We have a great tradition of research and development in this country. Companies such as Zero Petroleum have been funded entirely by private capital—which is largely a good thing—and also through some of their RAF and Ministry of Defence contracts, for different reasons. Notably, however, the Aerospace Technology Institute is the Government-funded body that should be supporting SAF and eSAF manufacturing technology. It supports everything else, including hydrogen and electric aircraft, but, bizarrely, it is not permitted to fund SAF and eSAF technology programmes. That is a huge misalignment in the strategy, which I hope the Minister can address.

I have a few key questions for the Minister, and he is showing great enthusiasm about answering them. We will be spending three days in Committee, so there will be many more to come.

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Only three?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Kane)]

I thank nearly all Members—no, all Members—for their consideration of the draft Bill and for their valuable contributions to this debate. I am grateful to the Opposition for their questions and scrutiny, and we will make sure as a House that we get this right for our nation.

I fully concur with the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), that the Liberal Democrats have not been boring today, and I am grateful for their support in this matter. Having worked with the Liberal Democrats in the past, I know that they are always with you in the room until the fight breaks out, so let us see how we get on over the next period.

[Max Wilkinson]

Will the Minister congratulate innovators such as my constituent James Hygate, who was recently awarded an OBE for his work on green fuels? Over genteel tea and cake—as the House can imagine, this happens all the time in Cheltenham—he told me of his plans to turn human faeces into SAF. He is an innovator at the leading edge, and he says that the Minister might be able to work with his friends in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to solve some of the problems that we have with sewage in our rivers, by taking it out at source. Is the Minister considering that as part of this legislation?