Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

Lord Ravensdale Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 10th December 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Ravensdale]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 5, at end insert “, subject to sections (Further provision about power to liquid fuels) and (Further provision about the direction to offer revenue certainty contract),”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on Lord Ravensdale’s amendments adding new sections “Further provision about power to liquid fuels” and “Further provision about the direction to offer revenue certainty contract”.

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[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 1, 5 and 6, and Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield. I declare my interests as a chief engineer working for AtkinsRéalis and as co-chair of Legislators for Nuclear.

Turning first to Amendment 5, I listened carefully to what the Minister had to say at Second Reading on this matter and was pleased to hear some clarification on competitive allocation. Of course, to get the market moving, most contracts will initially be likely to be bilateral between the counterparty and the SAF provider, but the legislation must be future-proofed.

We had a lot of discussion in the other place and at Second Reading here on the effect on air fares of this legislation. The way to bring costs down and deliver value for money is, of course, through competition. In the longer term, we need a mechanism similar to offshore wind whereby a strike price and an auction are put in place. That would apply the right competitive pressure to the markets and put downward pressure on costs. All other similar government legislation—for example, the Energy Act 2023 for hydrogen carbon capture and storage, and the Energy Act 2004 for offshore wind—include such provisions, but the Bill does not. Clarity on how this competitive process will be set out is important, so I propose this amendment.

Amendment 5 is based upon Section 76 of the Energy Act 2023, but it has been tweaked so that, rather than spelling out all the things regulation might cover, I give the Secretary of State the power to make rules. This reduces the complexity of the other Acts by avoiding the need to table complex secondary legislation and instead covers this through a rule-making power. Through the framework, the amendment also allows the Secretary of State to make decisions on aspects such as the process of producing SAF, the outputs and, critically, the location of production, which feeds into some of the amendments in the next group.

Overall, Amendment 5 is an opportunity for the Government to clarify the overarching strategy of the Bill in moving from bilateral negotiation to competitive allocation by embedding competition within the Bill. This would clarify the Bill and ensure that the benefits of competition in lowering costs are taken forward.

Turning to Amendment 6, there is another opportunity here for the Government in aligning the Bill with the SAF mandate order. The strategic nature of power-to-liquid fuel, or third-generation SAF—eSAF—has been recognised by the Government. In the SAF mandate order, there is a table that specifies by calendar year the percentage of SAF that must be in power-to-liquid form.

It is crucial that the revenue certainty mechanism secures enough eSAF production capacity to meet the SAF mandate in the UK; otherwise, there is a real risk that the mandate will not be able to be met due to global scarcity. Analysis from the Transport & Environment NGO shows that the UK cannot rely on eSAF imports from the EU, for example, to meet the SAF mandate, as planned EU production capacity is just enough to meet EU regulations. That shows the importance of aligning the revenue certainty mechanism with the SAF mandate order.

In Amendment 6, I am proposing to take aviation fuel demand in the UK, which is around 10 million tonnes per year—that figure is at the lower end of aviation fuel demand over the past couple of decades and is taken from ONS data—and multiply that figure by the percentages in the SAF mandate order.

The amendment would help the Government to ensure that the revenue certainty mechanism and domestic SAF production delivers the quantities of power-to-liquid fuel that are required to meet the SAF mandate. Critically, it would ensure that we have join-up between these two parallel pieces of legislation and that the revenue certainty mechanism is joined up with the SAF mandate order.

I will also speak to Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield. This amendment, which is very straightforward, proposes a modification to the SAF revenue certainty contract having a default length of 10 years in that it would extend it to 20 years. This is particularly of interest for nuclear-derived SAF. If a SAF offtake is to support the investment in a nuclear power station like an electricity offtake agreement does today, revenue certainty beyond 10 years is highly likely to be required. Ten years’ offtake of SAF is too short to be bankable and is likely to block a SAF developer from supporting investments in nuclear new-build projects, as they would need to do in order to comply with the SAF mandate. This amendment is to probe whether a change to the 10-year period is required for certain classes of projects or whether the option of longer-term contracts is open in the existing legislation. I beg to move.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly to this group of amendments. I strongly agree on the importance of having a proper framework for these contracts and a competitive process. The lesson from the energy market is that that competitive process is important to make sure that we achieve the policy objective, which is the production of the fuel, but at the lowest possible cost, which in the end will be passed on to consumers, so having some sort of competitive process is very important.

Two amendments in this group are potentially conflicting. I understand the argument in favour of allowing a longer contract period, particularly for nuclear-derived power-to-liquid fuel, as the noble Lord said, but equally, I would not want that to be the automatic default for all these contracts. I was struck by the amendment from my noble friend Lord Moylan about making sure that it is possible for the Government to exit from these contracts. From my point of view, the attraction here is just to make sure that we learn one of the lessons from the energy market. There is a balance to strike here. We want long-term contracts to give the certainty to the investors and those going into first-to-market plants in the UK to produce this, but we do not want to lock in contracts longer than necessary but potentially at a point where the market price is lower and we are effectively holding the price higher than it needs to be. We have learned some lessons from how that works in the energy market. The amendments on the paper may not be the right way of doing that.

The Minister referred in his speech at Second Reading to the contracts for difference models from the energy market. When he winds up this group, I would be interested to hear what the Government have learned. What detailed work has been done about getting these contracts right at the outset but also enabling them to be flexed as the circumstances change, so that we get the right level of price protection which is necessary to get the initial investment and produce investor certainty but do not keep it going past the point at which investors are making returns above what was necessary to get them to invest? Obviously, you cannot change those rules retrospectively, so it is about getting the right level of certainty. I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say there.

I am supportive of the thrust of the noble Lord’s Amendment 6 on power-to-liquid fuels. The only thing I would quibble with is that it has a “must” in it; I do not know the likelihood of this, but I would not want to force the Government to enter into revenue certainty contracts that were not necessary to produce. If we had producers producing enough of that third-generation sustainable aviation fuel, I would not want to force the Government into having to enter into unnecessary revenue certainty contracts. Therefore, I support the thrust of the noble Lord’s argument, which is to make sure that enough of the third-generation SAF is produced to meet the requirements in the mandate, but I would not want the Government to be forced to do that. So the wording in the amendment just needs something which says that they only have to do that if not doing so would not allow that level of fuel to be produced for the market.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments on the amendments. I would certainly be open to what he is saying about the wording in that amendment. I will just say that the way we have structured this amendment is to provide 1 million tonnes of oil equivalent figure. We have tried to do it using a floor mechanism, so we looked at the total aviation fuel demand in the UK over the past 20 years or so, took the lowest figure and simply multiplied that by the percentages in the SAF mandate order. I hope that by providing that floor mechanism, there is that flexibility there, but I certainly take his point about the wording.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that clarification. As I said, I certainly agree with the thrust of his amendments; I just would not want there to be a legislative mandate for the Government to do something that proves to be unnecessary. Again, I think we need to understand from the Minister what is the appropriate amount of flexibility for the Government to have in practice, because we want the Government to use the lessons from those contracts and to have the appropriate level of negotiating space to strike the best deal for aviation consumers. However, we also want to make sure that the Government do not give away unnecessary amounts of consumers’ money that is not necessary to produce the results.

Overall, the amendments in this group are helpful in enabling us to have that debate and to just test what lessons we have learned from the way these sorts of contracts work in the energy market, but also the amount of negotiating space that Ministers will need when they are directing the counterparty to strike the best possible commercial deal.

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[Lord Moylan (Con)]

We are all agreed that we should be talking about contract length, but my amendment is the only one that refers to it. That is the point that I am trying to make.

The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, in respect of competition, says that there must be at least an opening in the future for these revenue certainty mechanism contracts to be awarded competitively. He seeks to put this in the Bill now and appeared to say that, if this is not done now, through a device such as that which he is proposing, there would not be in future an opportunity for competitive procurement. If I have misrepresented him, I will give way and be corrected—I see that he is about to rise, so I might as well complete the point before he corrects me. My understanding is that there is nothing to prevent competitive procurement taking place from day one under these arrangements. Therefore, it is not necessary to put in place an arrangement to secure it. I am open to being corrected on all hands about this, because I am groping my way in the dark through this thicket.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

I agree with what the noble Lord has said. The Minister provided the clarification at Second Reading that there is nothing in the Bill that prevents competition. However, for consistency with the other legislation that I outlined that has such direction on similar competitive processes in the energy Acts, and for clarity on the strategy, it would be beneficial to have that process set out in the Bill.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for explaining that. I am glad we are broadly ad idem, but he helps me to my third point.

The assumption by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, appears to be that the procurement of all future SAF, including non-HEFA SAF and potentially at some stage power to liquid, will have to depend upon or be supported by a revenue certainty mechanism, or at least some form of subsidy or support from the state. That appears to be the assumption. I wholly deprecate that assumption. It is appalling that we should embark upon this project with a view to a regime of perpetual subsidies. If SAF is not rapidly producible on a commercial basis in this country then, as I shall come to in other amendments, the whole project should be reconsidered at this stage.

However, I am comforted in thinking that the Government do not envisage perpetual subsidy by my reading of Clause 1(7) and (8). These are the subsections that I referred to before, so I will not read them out again, but why would the Government put in place what is, in effect, a sunset clause if they envisaged a need for perpetual subsidy? The Minister may want to confirm this, but subsections (7) and (8) taken together are a sunset clause. At the end of 10 or possibly 15 years, no more contracts can be awarded without further primary legislation. There is a degree of confusion, which I may have participated in, concerning what we are discussing. We are giving the Minister the opportunity to bring a blast of fresh air to clear the fog and explain it all to us, so that we know what we are talking about, because up to now I am not entirely sure that we all do.

My Amendment 2 has been explained very well by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon. I do not need to elaborate on what it says, but I have not yet given any rationale for why it should commend itself to the Committee. Amendment 2 seeks to limit the length of contracts. The reason is very simple. This Bill is a large slice of corporate welfare. Having given to the industry, through the SAF mandate which we approved last year, a guarantee of uptake of SAF so that you know that your product is going to have to be bought, this is not enough for them, and we are now going to give them, in addition, a guaranteed price. That is what they are demanding.

I do not blame them for demanding that. Let us have guaranteed demand and a guaranteed price—that is a very pretty place to be in. Let us transfer all the risk somewhere else. Who is going to pay that guaranteed price? Not the Government, because it is not a subsidy. They have discovered from the electricity market the contract for difference, which the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, has referred to as a model—a structure which has given us the highest electricity prices in the civilised world. This points to the cost of SAF falling on the airlines and, potentially and ultimately, on the passenger. We will come to this later, but the Government have assessed what that might mean in pounds per ticket. That is the subject of a later amendment which I will not trouble your Lordships with now.

Recognising the large element of corporate welfare in the Bill and the need to get away from that and to incentivise competition, I suggest that there should be some basis for limiting the contract, and therefore the benefits that accrue to the producers of SAF. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Harper for supporting this. I have suggested 10 years, which is of course an arbitrary number—it might be six years, it might be seven years, or it might be eight years. I have also suggested including a break clause, which I put at five years, so that if the Government saw that this was all going well and that the thing was becoming commercial, they could walk away—which must be their ambition. I put that break clause at five years, which is an equally arbitrary number. If the Minister agreed on the principle, I am sure that he and I could sit down and rapidly agree a maximum length of contract and an appropriate term for the break clause.

It is in that direction that we should be looking if we are not to burden young people. There are not so many young people in the Committee this evening. Many of us are getting to the point where our best flying days are behind us, but when you look to young people who perhaps work in other parts of the House and say, “You are going to be paying for this for the next 20 years. You and your wives and children, and even potentially your grandchildren, are going to be paying for this slice of corporate welfare, so if we don’t get it right the burden falls on you”, and one thinks about that, then of course one is moved very strongly, and is surely moved in the direction of supporting my Amendment 2.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for this group of amendments. Amendments 1 and 6 would require the Secretary of State to enter into at least one revenue certainty contract with a SAF producer that is using power-to-liquid technology. The Government recognise the potential that power-to-liquid fuel may have. These fuels will have high greenhouse gas emissions reduction potential, with a low risk of environmental issues such as land use change.

However, adopting these amendments would limit the Government’s allocation flexibility by setting criteria in advance, which could ultimately reduce value for money in the contracts agreed. It is important that the allocation strategy is able to reflect different technologies as they develop. The Government will establish a fair and transparent process to assess each project’s key costs, benefits and risks. This process will be developed over the coming months and will involve consultation with stakeholders.

The decisions on contract allocation will be determined during the contract allocation process. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is right that we do not want perpetual subsidy, but we have to establish over time the opportunity for different technologies to develop.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is right in his remarks about contract lengths; there is no humiliation there at all. The length of contracts is not set out in the Bill, and the amendments other than his Amendment 2 would extend the time in which the contracts could be entered into, not the length of the contracts themselves. We are engaging a range of stakeholders on contract length because it obviously makes sense to talk to the market about that. No final decisions have yet been made.

Contracts issued under similar schemes are generally for a period of 10 to 15 years, which reflects a standard debt repayment period. Limiting the contract to 10 years may not be sufficient to attract the investment necessary to construct these plants, and I contend that it is premature to decide the contract length until the market has advised what it would need to construct the plants that would make the fuel.

The Bill allows the Secretary of State crucial flexibility to adjust any standard contract length in between allocation rounds in the light of emerging market evidence. It also preserves optionality for the potential needs of emerging pathways—for example, nuclear-derived SAF. The addition of a no-fault break clause would, of course, undermine the certainty provided by the contract and seriously risks losing the investor confidence that the Bill aims to increase.

In respect of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Harper, the learning from the energy market is that the contracts need to be long enough to secure the investment that we are talking about. The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, asked what the right contract length is. I think we have to establish that by talking to the market, so it is premature to determine it now.

On the contrary, Amendment 3 seeks to extend the time in which revenue certainty contracts can be allocated from 10 years to 20 years. The purpose of the Bill is to kick-start the industry in this country. The revenue certainty mechanism is intended to be a time-limited measure and to stimulate the early market. Once investors have confidence in the market price and the first-of-a-kind technology has proved itself at commercial scale—to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan—the mechanism should no longer be needed.

The Government contend that Amendment 3 is not the right way to go. However, if the Government find in due course that it is necessary to extend the provision, Clause 1(8) will allow the Secretary of State to extend the period by which contracts can be allocated in five-year increments by making regulations by the affirmative resolution, so that Parliament can take a view about the applicability of that extension at the time that it is proposed.

Amendment 5 from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, seeks to include a contract allocation framework in the Bill. The Government will need to carefully consider and work with industry on the specifics of contract allocation. This will ensure that there will be a fair and transparent allocation process that evaluates the key costs, benefits and risks of each project. This will be developed over the coming months and will be rightly subject to consultation with stakeholders. The amendment as it stands would reduce the Government’s leverage in negotiations by setting criteria in advance and limit the ability to secure the best value for money in the contract signed.

The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, referred to the Energy Act 2023. The allocation framework was included in the Energy Act 2013 and the Energy Act 2023 to ensure that the Secretary of State could effectively regulate the activities of an allocation body where one is appointed under that legislation. In this Bill, the Secretary of State will carry out the allocation process, so it is not necessary to set out an allocation framework to govern the activities of an allocation body.

I hope that my explanations have answered the concerns and that noble Lords feel able not to press their amendments.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

The Minister’s response to Amendment 6 is appreciated, but there is a risk that if the amount of third generation SAF or power-to-liquid that needs to be produced is not set out, then the Bill would not, in effect, align with the SAF mandates, which have clear percentages on power-to-liquid fuel requirements. Does he accept that there is a bit of a gap between this legislation and delivering the SAF mandates, in that one does not support the other?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. If he is willing, I will take that point away and contemplate it further.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

I thank the Minister. This has been an excellent short debate and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and the Minister, certainly provided the clarity on contract length that we were missing. I was pleased to hear that the allocation process will be fleshed out through a consultation. For now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

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The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, is in a similar vein. We share his intentions and what he sets out to do. However, Amendment 18 goes a little further and is clearer in defining what production is. Whereas his amendment sets out a useful boundary, ours fills in the framework inside that boundary. Without a statutory definition of UK production, and without the reporting duty that our amendment would provide, it is difficult with the other amendment to guarantee that levy revenues are genuinely strengthening domestic capacity.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendment 18, to which I have added my name, and the other amendment in this group. As has been said, it is important for the Government to consider setting out the definitions in the amendments of what manufacture means and how it is going to be supported in making sure that this is all UK-based. As the noble Lord, Lord Harper, said, that is the point of the Bill.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I join the noble Earl, Lord Russell, in sending the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, our good wishes for him and his family. I congratulate the noble Earl on his recent nomination for a life peerage. That is an odd sentence to say, but there you go. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has got lucky by signing this amendment, as she will shortly hear.

The revenue certainty mechanism is intended to support only eligible SAF plants in the UK, and this will be ensured through the allocation process. This Government are committed to supporting the UK SAF sector through our advanced fuels fund, which is supporting projects across the UK, and through the revenue certainty mechanism. The UK SAF sector will create jobs and growth opportunities in the UK, help secure a supply of SAF for UK airlines and enhance energy security.

On Amendment 4, SAF projects that use imported precursors still offer significant economic benefits to the UK because of the investment needed to construct them and the employment that they would provide. I fully recognise the strong points made by noble Lords this evening around UK production being in the Bill, and I will seriously consider this point ahead of the next stage of the Bill. I will invite noble Lords who have spoken tonight—or rather those who tabled the amendments—to meet me and my officials ahead of the next stage. I therefore invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

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Moved by

[Lord Ravensdale]

21: Clause 16, page 8, leave out lines 34 to 36 and insert—
““relevant crops” means starch-rich crops, sugars, oil crops and main crops, where “starch-rich crops” include—(a) cereals (regardless of whether only the grains are used or the whole plant),(b) tubers and root crops, including potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, sweet potatoes, cassava and yams, and(c) corm crops, including taro and cocoyam;“renewable transport fuel” means anything that is (or could be treated as) renewable transport fuel for the purposes of Chapter 5 of Part 2 of the Energy Act 2004 (see sections 131D(2) and 132(1) of that Act), other than such fuel where it is derived from relevant crops;”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment will include nuclear-derived power-to-liquid fuels in the scope of sustainable aviation fuels for which Revenue Certainty Contracts can be offered, and remove food crops, using the same definition of “relevant crops” as the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations Order for surface transport (SI 2007/3072).

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[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, referred to earlier, I think this wraps up a number of points in previous groups. It is a good point at which to have this debate about what actually qualifies for support under the revenue certainty mechanism. First, I take the opportunity to congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on their peerages. It is absolutely brilliant news, and I am really pleased for them.

There are two parts to this amendment, and I would like to deal with them in reverse order. At Second Reading, I asked a question on the eligibility of nuclear energy or nuclear-derived SAF. The Minister said:

“SAF produced using nuclear energy is and will be eligible for the SAF mandate”.—[Official Report, 20/11/25; col. 990.]


I noted that he said the SAF mandate and not the revenue certainty mechanism. What I am really after from the Minister is explicit clarity that nuclear-derived fuels are within the scope of the revenue certainty mechanism, and perhaps some commentary on how this flows through the legislation.

The reason for needing this clarity is that the legislative route is a little convoluted. Clause 16 defines sustainable aviation fuel as

“aviation fuel that is renewable transport fuel”.

Renewable transport fuel is defined in the same clause as

“anything that is (or is treated as) renewable transport fuel for the purposes of Chapter 5 of Part 2 of the Energy Act 2004”.

As I said at Second Reading, I proposed the amendment to the Energy Act 2023 that led to the insertion of Section 131D into the Energy Act 2004, which treats recycled carbon fuels and nuclear-derived fuels as renewable transport fuels. But it was stated there that it required secondary legislation to take effect and to treat these fuels as renewable transport fuels. I noted that this has been done for recycled carbon fuels, but the secondary legislation has not been done for nuclear-derived fuels.

We have this quite convoluted route through the 2004 Act, the 2023 Act, the secondary legislation and the SAF mandate, so I would appreciate that clarity from the Minister on nuclear-derived fuels. That is the second part of my amendment to ensure that they would be within the scope of the Bill.

My second point is around the eligibility for this Bill of certain types of sustainable aviation fuel. I am seeking to exclude first-generation SAFs from the revenue certainty mechanism. I do not see the need for crop-based biofuels to be given support, because the production pathways for these fuels are already there—they are already commercialised at scale. On previous groups we have talked a lot about some of the issues with crop-based biofuels: they are CO₂ saving; they compete with food, potentially raising food prices; they drive land use change and reduce biodiversity. Those fuels have all those other effects, and they are already commercially viable and commercialised, so I cannot see why we need them to be within the scope of the revenue certainty mechanism.

That is brought out in a lot of the government guidance as well. The driver behind the Bill is to provide a mechanism for second and third-generation sustainable aviation fuels. That has been stated repeatedly by the Government. I cannot see a good reason for including these fuels within the revenue certainty mechanism. I look forward to the Minister’s thoughts around that. I beg to move.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

If noble Lords do not object, I will speak now rather than later in this group because, having read his amendment, I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, before Committee that it would be sensible if we grouped these two amendments together. We are both trying to get at the same thing and, in a sense, I am not going to say anything very different from what he said, but I am going to take a different approach. It is fair to say that both of us want to limit the deploying of these contracts, or at least to know what limits the Government are going to apply themselves.

As the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, said, Clause 16, states that

“sustainable aviation fuel’ means aviation fuel that is renewable transport fuel”,

and earlier it states that

“renewable transport fuel’ means anything that is (or is treated as) renewable transport fuel for the purposes of Chapter 5 of Part 2 of the Energy Act 2004”,

in which the noble Lord played a certain part in amending in 2023.

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[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, asked some questions in relation to Amendment 19 in his closing remarks. I will write to him and provide a copy to all noble Lords about standing by the cost-benefit analysis on ticket prices and how we can control the cost to passengers by controlling costs through the allocation process. For good measure, I will also clarify the phrase “per year”.

On Amendment 21, I understand the desire of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, to exclude crops from the revenue certainty mechanism. Several other noble Lords also spoke about their concerns on growing crops for purposes other than food at Second Reading. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, just now, was realistic about some of the practicalities of doing so. The sustainability criteria in the revenue certainty mechanism will align with the criteria in the SAF mandate.

As I mentioned before, there will be a call for evidence shortly, focusing on the potential benefits, risks and trade-offs of using crops in SAF production. The scope of the call for evidence will include different types of crops, including feed crops, dedicated energy crops and cover crops. While this call for evidence will neither propose any changes to the SAF mandate nor signal the future direction of the mandate, we would not want to expressly exclude SAF derived from relevant crops from the scope of the RCM if they might be included in the SAF mandate in the future.

We will, of course, continue to engage with industry on these issues. I echo the words of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, that this is developing and things will change over time. We need to understand it, and that call for evidence is part of that process.

The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, referred to nuclear eligibility. We will match that in the SAF mandate. We are already supporting nuclear through the advanced fuels fund, which we believe to be right.

Turning to Amendment 22, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that HEFA SAF—I hate these acronyms—has already overcome many of the barriers to investment. For that reason, in our response to the first consultation on RCM, we announced that HEFA SAF projects will be excluded from the first round of contract allocation. I hope what I have said is sufficient to persuade the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

Just to clarify what he said, could the Minister just confirm that nuclear-derived fuels are eligible under the SAF mandate and that they are also eligible under the revenue certainty mechanism, please?

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[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

In answer to the noble Lord, I will not do that at this stage, but I will consider what he has just said.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

I thank noble Lords for this short debate. In terms of eligibility of crop-based biofuels, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, this is a journey we are going on and, absolutely, crop-based biofuels are part of that journey. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan said, and made the case quite strongly, that we have not heard any rationale for why those fuels should specifically get support under the revenue certainty mechanism, but I look forward to those further conversations. We have had the clarification on nuclear-derived fuels. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 21 withdrawn.