Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of licensing requirements on small and medium-sized enterprises in the aviation sector; and what steps they are taking to streamline regulatory processes for both labour mobility and innovative and low-emission technologies.

Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)

The Government’s New approach to ensure regulators and regulation support growth, which launched in March, has introduced a host of initiatives to streamline regulatory processes across aviation and all other sectors. These include committing to cut the administrative costs of regulation to businesses, whether small, medium sized or large, by 25% by the end of the Parliament.

Government is funding the Civil Aviation Authority to deliver this for innovation and low emission aviation technologies through: the Future of Flight Programme that is developing the regulatory framework to enable innovative aviation technology, such as electric Vertical Take-off and Landing aircraft (eVTOL) and Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (e.g. drones); and the Hydrogen Regulatory Challenge to support its engagement with innovators on the development of the regulatory framework for this technology.

The Government and the Civil Aviation Authority are also taking steps to streamline the regulatory processes for people working in the sector, including by bringing in a digitised process for commercial pilot licence applications to speed up and deliver admin savings for up to 6,500 pilots every year.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the regulatory challenges facing small and medium-sized enterprises involved in the development and deployment of sustainable aviation fuel, and what plans they have to simplify relevant processes.

Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)

There are a number of steps we are taking to support enterprises of all sizes to contribute to SAF targets. We aim to minimise regulatory burdens when designing our policies.

We are encouraging the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in the UK through the SAF mandate, which obligates fuel suppliers to supply a proportion of SAF in their fuel. To minimise the impact on small or micro businesses from being obligated, the minimum threshold for registering with the SAF mandate scheme and being set an obligation is 15.9 terajoules of aviation fuel, or 450,000 litres, per annum. This minimises unnecessary administrative burdens with negligible impact on GHG emissions reductions.

We are supporting the production and development of UK supplies of SAF through the Advanced Fuels Fund (AFF). Applicants were invited to apply for funding in 2025 with no restriction on the size of the project. Previous rounds have supported a range of proposals from demonstration to commercial scale. The Spending Review 2025 will continue support for the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in the UK to 2029/30.

In addition to providing grant funding under the AFF, our SAF Bill currently before the House, will deliver a SAF Revenue Certainty Mechanism. This mechanism will help unlock investment in UK SAF production and grow this emerging sector.

Our SAF Clearing House also supports SAF producers through the testing process – a grant funding window is currently open to applications.

We keep our policies under review to ensure they are not creating unnecessary regulatory burdens.