Electric Vehicles: Infrastructure

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I am delighted to speak in this debate; I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) on securing it. I speak as an unabashed enthusiast for the expansion of electric vehicles, but I want particularly to speak for those of my constituents for whom they are still an expensive aspiration. About 25% of my constituents do not have their own driveway and cannot charge easily.

As the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said, it is good that the Government have committed to 300,000 public charging points by 2030. I like the scale of that ambition, as I do the commitment to 6,000 ultra-rapid charging points on our strategic road network by 2035. Those ultra-rapid charging points are generally able to charge a car in about 30 minutes. For most of us, a stop at a motorway service station—after we have answered the call of nature, got a coffee, and sorted out children and dogs and anything else that needs to be attended to—often takes about that time; if there a few minutes left over, we can always check a few emails while we wait. That charging time is excellent, and we need to push forward on it.

A couple of weeks ago, I was privileged to chair a meeting in the House of a number of significant electric vehicle charging point installers. They were quite enthusiastic. They had a number of problems, which I will speak about, but they said that there is no shortage of private capital looking to fund this work, which is excellent. Investment funds and wealth managers around the world have absolutely got the direction of travel. No one wants to be found holding stranded assets when the music stops, and this is absolutely the direction for the future. It can be monetised, and there is a lot of private money willing to flow into the sector if we can get the overall public policy architecture right. That is reasonably good news.

There is a case—perhaps this might be an early Budget submission by the Minister—for cutting VAT on public chargers, which is more expensive than on private chargers. That would help, and it would be a sensible policy intervention. I would also like to see a requirement for interoperability if charging points are going to receive public funds. I thought we had committed to that a while ago, but we are still not quite there yet. That would be a sensible move because, as the hon. Member for Bristol East said, sometimes it is difficult enough to access a charging point; if we then find that it is not in our network or not for our car, that just adds to the stress and anxiety. It does not help us get where we need to go.

[Margaret Ferrier]

In his last Budget statement, the Chancellor announced that, from 2025, EVs will no longer be exempt from vehicle excise duty, paying the lowest rate in the first year and the standard rate from the second year, and that they will lose their exemption from the expensive car supplement. As that will come some years before the complete phase-out of petrol cars, does the hon. Member think that it could impact the public’s willingness to prioritise purchasing an EV?

[Andrew Selous]

The hon. Lady makes a sensible point, in that we must clearly phase in these two moves together. There will be a serious loss of revenue to the Treasury as the number of electric vehicles increases, and we all have to be sensible about how we will replace that revenue, but we must do it in a way that encourages the transition that I think all of us here want to see. I thank the hon. Lady for making that point.

Before the debate, I contacted Stephen Mooring, the excellent head of sustainability at Central Bedfordshire Council, and he raised four points that I want to draw to the Minister’s attention. The first is connection costs for public charging points. It is not uncommon in central Bedfordshire for the grid to quote up to £45,000 for a connection. That is simply not economical for local authorities, so we must ensure that the grid is working with installers to make the continued roll-out of charging points economical.

An issue remains about people who do not have off-street parking. There is a lack of clarity about the position with cables running over pavements. To me, that is clearly a serious trip hazard. We do not want anyone to fall over and be injured, so that issue must be addressed. I think that there are some solutions—

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend—and my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), who introduced the debate—I am a passionate believer in public access to charging points, but he is right. We allow utilities and others to put all sorts of cables across our streets, in most cases safely. One of the simplest ways to increase access—this is relevant to the levelling-up point—is for local councils to change byelaws to allow people without off-street parking to use cables safely in order to charge EVs. That is a very popular campaign across my constituency.

[Andrew Selous]

I thank my hon. Friend, who obviously has great experience in this area, for that sensible point. It is also possible to put cable gullies into pavements so that people can charge safely. That is a relatively straightforward technical proposition, so we should see more of it. I think clarification is needed on that, to help the many people who do not have off-street parking with charging.

When they grant planning permissions for new supermarkets, retail parks and so on, local authorities can require the installation of electric vehicle charging points, but the position with existing supermarket car parks and so on is less clear. There is a lack of clarity on that front. I would think that having charging points would be a competitive advantage. A number of my supermarkets—Tesco in Leighton Buzzard springs to mind, and I hope the others will forgive my not remembering them—have moved forward and installed them, which is very welcome. This is a big opportunity, and I think that some direction from the Government would be helpful.

Installing charging points in rural areas is more challenging, as my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) said, but there are opportunities in village hall car parks and elsewhere. We must ensure that that is a possibility—certainly, it is sensible to have one charging point among a number of neighbouring villages—so that we are fair to people in rural areas.

I want to mention something important that the EV charge point installers said to me when I met them a couple of weeks ago, which is about the capacity and capability of local authorities. Some very good authorities have really got this and are powering ahead; others are still struggling because they do not have sufficient officers in this area, or their officers are not sufficiently well versed in what to do.

My final point is about the second-hand market and, perhaps, slightly greater assurance for consumers about battery life and warranties on second-hand batteries to encourage that market. As we get greater take-up in the fleet market, there will be many more vehicles coming on to the second-hand market, which will offer real hope to our constituents on lower incomes. Again, some support or assurance that the Government could assist with battery warranty would be helpful.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

2. What assessment he has made of the accessibility of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

5. What assessment he has made of the accessibility of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Jesse Norman)]

As you will know, Mr Speaker, the Government take the issue of accessibility extremely seriously. With the assistance of wider research, we have identified specific accessibility barriers faced by drivers of electric vehicles in using public charge points. Those can include the height of charge points, charging cables that are very heavy, the connectors, and street design. To address those issues, the Government, with Motability, co-sponsored publicly available standard 1899 in October 2022, which provides, for the first time, specifications on designing and installing accessible public charge points.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jesse Norman]

My hon. Friend will be aware that Essex County Council has been able to use ORCS—the on-street residential charge point scheme—and that there has been support in his area for workplace charging and the home charge scheme. We want to go much further, however, and the new local EV infrastructure fund will support local authorities to do just that. A £10 million LEVI—local electric vehicle infrastructure—pilot is in operation, which will deliver more than 1,000 charge points. We will use that as a springboard for further expansion of the fund.

[Andrew Selous]

Councillor Steve Dixon, the portfolio holder at Central Bedfordshire Council, is a big enthusiast of electric vehicles, as I am. Earlier this week, he told me that there are some issues with connectivity to the grid, particularly for the 50 kW superfast 20-minute chargers, which are especially important for tradespeople and delivery drivers who need a quick charge-up during the day. What conversations is the Minister having with National Grid to ensure that it does not hold us back in this vital area?

[Jesse Norman]

We take this issue extremely seriously. As my hon. Friend is aware, responsibility lies with the electricity network operators. Ofgem has allowed baseline funding of more than £22 billion, including the more than £3 billion proposed for network upgrades. We need to ensure that that money is put in place and that any blockages are addressed by the distribution network operators. We are also working closely with fleets and industry bodies to ensure that we can anticipate problems before they arise.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mick Whitley for Question T7. He is not here.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

We do need that fourth round of the active travel fund, because it not only reduces greenhouse gas emissions, but reduces congestion, improves health and frequently increases economic activity through extra footfall. Will the Government commit to it?

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend is right. Active travel is very important and further information on the process will be published shortly.

Industrial Action on the Railway

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question and, indeed, for her vote as well. When this House voted last week with a 278 majority condemning the strikes, I believe that she and her party were in the Lobby putting their position clearly on the record, unlike the Official Opposition.

On those discussions with the NHS, with teachers and the rest, I am engaged with the Civil Contingencies Secretariat, which is the part of Government that co-ordinates with me and fellow Secretaries of State across Government to try, as far as possible, to ease some of the strains and stresses that will come. For example, in the case of exams where people may turn up late, we have been working with the exam authorities. However, there is no magic solution. There are 2,500 stations in this country and more than 20,000 miles of track. The fact is that, if they are closed down as the unions are doing, many people will suffer.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

My constituents from Leighton Buzzard and Dunstable pay enormous sums of money to commute into London. Has the Secretary of State done any modelling on the impact of some of the pay rises that are being asked for and the ability of people to be able to afford to travel on the railways?

[Grant Shapps]

As Transport Secretary, I find that a lot of the time people talk or indeed complain to me about the cost of a ticket on our rail, which can be very high. It is worth knowing that one third of the ticket price is made up of the salary of those who run the trains. As I have said all along, I want to see our railway workers paid well for doing their work, and in fact they are paid very well for doing their work, but we must run our railways as efficiently as possible to keep the ticket price down for the passengers. That is the most important part of the reforms needed and what is unfortunately at the heart of this strike: not pay, but the reform. To answer my hon. Friend’s question about his constituents, I am arranging for people who have annual season tickets, rather than having to rely on a delay repay system, to be able to apply to get their money back for the days they are unable to travel this week.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

Approximately £915 million a year has been committed for the next three years, which is consistent with funding levels for 2021-22. That will help local highways authorities manage their highway assets, including tackling potholes and other road defects across local road networks. As we know from the local elections, Conservative councils fix potholes faster than Labour councils.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

T4. Many of my constituents work at London Luton airport and they want secure jobs that do not contribute to wrecking the planet. Sustainable aviation fuels can help with that, but we need a price stability mechanism, such as perhaps a contract for difference. Will the Minister update us on what action he is taking to give the industry that certainty so that we can fly sustainably?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Robert Courts)]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about SAF, which is critical. We want the UK to be a world leader, and it has the potential to create more than 5,000 jobs; we have one of the most comprehensive programmes in the world. We are considering the role that a price stability mechanism, such as a CfD, might have. We are building the evidence base to support that. It is a complicated idea for SAF, but we are doing that work.

International Travel

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right about how essential the package has been to date, and my conversations with the Chancellor are of course, as with all Cabinet Ministers, ongoing.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con) [V]]

While we all have huge sympathy for travel companies with very little income, what action is the Secretary of State going to take to help people such as my recently widowed constituent who has had no refund for the holiday she was due to have with her husband, and not even an acknowledgement of receipt of her husband’s death certificate?

[Grant Shapps]

I am very sorry to hear about that particular case. I have been putting pressure on the whole sector to do the right thing, and to provide either vouchers or refunds where people require them. An essential part of being able to get travel back together is that people feel, when they book, that they would be able to rebook, should they need to do so for coronavirus reasons. I am not familiar with the individual case, but I would be very happy to follow it up for my hon. Friend.

Aviation, Travel and Tourism Industries

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con) [V]]

No one wants to throw away our hard-won achievement of massively reducing the numbers of deaths and hospitalisations from covid by doing anything irresponsible. We have lost too many lives and caused too much pain and suffering to do that. It is, however, a legitimate expectation that our wonderful and deeply appreciated vaccine roll-out should be laying the foundations to get our freedom to travel back, and there is not enough clarity on how we will do that so that the sector can plan ahead.

Large parts of the travel, tourism and aviation sectors are prevented from trading their way out of the pandemic, with less of a safety net than other businesses that are now open. The fact that the safety net will start to be withdrawn from next month cannot be a fair or reasonable response. London Luton airport, where many of my constituents work, has had to lay off large numbers of people despite the furlough scheme, and the airport continues to lose millions of pounds every month. I know it has plans to be the most sustainable airport in the UK, and I am a strong supporter of zero-carbon aviation and the work of the Jet Zero Council. We need to make sure that international travel fully plays its part in getting to net zero.

One of my travel agents wrote to me to say that she has worked continuously since March 2020, but that work has involved cancelling, rebooking and cancelling holidays again and again, and refunding payments with hardly any income coming in at all. Now she has to pay back £200 every month from her bounce back loan. How is she supposed to do that with no income? A significant number of travel agents are limited company directors and are not eligible for the self-employed income support scheme either.

I think United Kingdom holidays are brilliant, and we have an amazing offer that I have been lucky enough to enjoy myself in the past, but people are not bad if they want to travel overseas. All those whose livelihoods enable people to travel overseas also deserve our support. It has been very disconcerting to have Ministers from outside the Department of Transport speculating on overseas travel. Across the whole Government, can we please just have the relevant Ministers from the Department for Transport providing official information without unhelpful speculation?

I think it is wrong that travel agents are in strand 1 of the restart grant scheme, given that they have, in many cases, virtually no income. Hospitality, leisure, personal care, gyms and sports businesses are in strand 2 and getting the higher £8,000 grant if their rateable value is under £50,000, even though they are open and able to trade. At the same time, travel agents, who have virtually no income coming at the moment, can only get the £2,667 grant. In addition, it cannot be right to reduce furlough payments from next month for any business in the aviation, travel or tourism sector that is still effectively unable to trade because of Government restrictions. That would not be fair or right either.

Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [Lords]

Andrew Selous Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con) [V]]

I am very pleased to be able to speak on this Bill, because London Luton airport employs a great number of my constituents. The town of Leighton Buzzard and the villages of Heath and Reach, Billington, Stanbridge, Tilsworth, Eaton Bray and, in particular, Whipsnade, Studham and Kensworth are all overflown by planes coming in to land at London Luton airport. Indeed, I see them from my garden. I was delighted to learn on Friday that London Luton airport is able to claim up to £8 million from the airport and ground operations support scheme. That is much needed and very good news for our area.

I initiated the Westminster Hall debate on the work of the Jet Zero Council on 14 October last year. It was during my research for that debate that I realised the contribution of airspace modernisation to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from aviation. I met the Airspace Change Organising Group, which first alerted me to the fact that flight paths are now part of our critical national infrastructure and are, as the Minister said, highways in the sky. However, I would be grateful if he can confirm that the ACOG will get the money it needs to finish the job. I think the matter may be with our friends at the Treasury, and if he wants some assistance with that, I am sure that we would all be delighted to give him a hand.

If we get airspace change right, there are huge benefits to be realised. As the Minister said, aircraft frequently fly further than necessary on routes that follow sub-optimal climb and descent profiles, burning more fuel and creating additional greenhouse gas emissions. The environmental benefits of getting this right are enormous. Aircraft will be able to fly more direct routes, with quicker climbs to energy-efficient cruising altitudes and later descents to help to reduce emissions as well as provide opportunities to reduce the noise footprint on the ground. That will be hugely welcomed by many of my constituents, as indeed will the work of Dame Ann Dowling’s silent aircraft initiative in Cambridge.

Upgrading our airspace is a key part of building back better and contributing to a cleaner recovery for the UK economy. Current forecasts show that modernising airspace in the UK offers the potential to reduce future aviation emissions by up to 20%—a fifth—by 2050, which would be one of the most substantive contributions. It is also crucial for supporting the UK’s economic recovery from the pandemic. It will ensure that our future air transport networks deliver the necessary resilience to shocks and the efficiency to underpin aviation’s vital role in driving the UK’s global connectivity and economic recovery.

For the millions of passengers who will return to the skies in the future, upgrading UK airspace will help to prevent potential delays, reduce congestion and make travel easier and more efficient for us all. As the Minister said—and it bears repetition—failure to take action would mean that one in three flights arriving or leaving an airport was likely to be delayed by an average of half an hour by 2030. That would be 72 times worse than it was in 2015 and would be very damaging for passengers, businesses and the environment.

The airspace change programme will also strengthen the sustainability, resilience and competitiveness of regional air travel, which serves towns and cities throughout the United Kingdom. Regional air travel is a very important enabler for a balanced economic recovery, empowering local tourism, business, and international trade. I want us to get to jet zero as soon as possible, which is why the work of the new Whittle laboratory in Cambridge and companies such as Zero Avia, which is based in Bedfordshire and completed the world’s first hydrogen passenger flight last September, are so important. Sustainable aviation fuels obviously play a key role, as well.

The airspace change programme will also enable the United Kingdom to integrate seamlessly into the global system, and it is essential to accommodate unmanned aircraft systems and electric urban mobility aircraft as well. I want to ask the Minister about the UK’s plans for satellite air traffic control, because I understand from Dr Adam Camilletti of the Whittle laboratory that aircraft can now be tracked anywhere in the world by orbiting satellites, which until recently was only possible when they were close to a land-based air traffic control. Specifically, this means that aircraft can be actively rerouted, allowing them to use the jet stream more optimally and avoid areas where aircraft-induced clouds are most harmful. The separation between aircraft over the oceans can also be reduced, which would allow planes to use the jet stream more efficiently. What is really important is that these changes could significantly reduce the climate effects of aviation in the relatively short term.

The relevance of these new possibilities is that, as the Government now own OneWeb, that system could be used as a global aircraft tracking constellation. This would allow the United Kingdom to show leadership in tackling climate change while capitalising on our investment in OneWeb. I am aware that the UK national air traffic systems are already pioneering a similar approach with a Canadian company, Aireon. If the UK has first-mover advantage with this satellite technology, we could create a lot of jobs, which has never been more necessary than as we emerge from this pandemic. I would be very grateful if the Minister could address this issue in his closing remarks.

Jet Zero Council

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Maria Miller (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the new call list system and to ensure that social distancing can be respected. Members should sanitise their microphones using the cleaning materials provided before they use them and respect the one-way system around the room. Members should only speak from the horseshoe and can only speak if they are on the call list. That also applies to this debate, for which we are fully subscribed. Members are not expected to remain for the wind-ups. I remind Members that there is less of an expectation that they stay for the next two speeches following their own once they have spoken to make sure we manage attendance in the room.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I beg to move

That his House has considered the work of the Jet Zero Council.

May I say what a huge pleasure it is to serve under what I understand is your first Westminster Hall debate, Mrs Miller? It is also great pleasure to have this debate responded to by my the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts). I am particularly pleased to see him come on to the Front Bench, because it is the first parliamentary engagement that I have had with him. I know he will do us all proud and cares a lot about this issue. I am also grateful to Mr Speaker for allocating me this debate. London Luton airport is close to my constituency and is an important source of jobs for my constituents.

The UK has the third biggest global aviation network in the world, and we are a leading aerospace nation. Aviation contributes more than £52 billion a year to GDP and the sector directly contributes 230,000 jobs, which are largely high value and high skilled, in airframe development and manufacturing. All of that will be a continued requirement for the industry as it decarbonises. At the moment, however, as a result of the pandemic, there has been a massive reduction in the number of flights, but passenger numbers are expected to recover to 2019 levels by 2023-24 or possibly earlier, depending on the progress of scientific breakthroughs in dealing with the virus. Industry projections also show passenger numbers rising by 65% from 2018 levels to 2050. The UK also has a legally binding net zero target for 2050, and we need to reconcile that vitally important target with the projected increase in demand. Progress has already been made: between 2005 and 2016, Sustainable Aviation member airlines carried 26% more passengers and freight, with carbon dioxide emissions rising by 9%. That is still 9% too much, but it shows that improvements are possible.

Speaking to the International Gas Turbine Institute last September, the Prince of Wales said

“the need to decarbonise flight must remain at the top of the agenda”

and issued a challenge to do so by 2035. In February this year, Sustainable Aviation members made a public commitment to reach net UK aviation carbon emissions by 2050, becoming the first national aviation body anywhere in the world to make such a pledge. In June, the creation of the Jet Zero council was announced, with the objective of developing and industrialising zero-emission aviation and aerospace technologies. The first meeting was held in July. The council has an impressive membership of the great and the good of the aviation and aerospace sectors, and given its importance for aviation and aerospace employment, I think it would be sensible to have a worker representative on the council as well.

It could be said that the scale of the challenge is too big and that we should all fly less and that our aviation and aerospace sectors should contract. I disagree. Instead, we should harness our huge strength in aviation technology and engineering to find new solutions to allow us to fly without wrecking the planet. I want our constituents to carry on enjoying the pleasure and freedom of a sunny holiday, and I want UK exporters to find new markets for British business all around the world as they continue to fly on business travel.

But it is important that all that is done responsibly, so that we can fly with a clear conscience. That is why the work of the Jet Zero Council is so important, and why this debate matters so much. Not only do we need to turbocharge the science and technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation, we also need to ensure that the United Kingdom is at the forefront of sustainable aviation so that the high-skilled, high-wage jobs of the future are provided here. We cannot leave that to chance, as has unfortunately happened with other technologies in the past. Germany, France, Norway and Indonesia are already making progress in that direction.

Calor’s parent company, has already partnered with the Dutch airline KLM to build Europe’s first dedicated plant to produce sustainable aviation fuels in the Netherlands. A by-product of the plant will be low-carbon fuel for homes and businesses in the rural off-gas grid. Sustainable aviation fuels are a here-and-now solution using proven technologies that can be used in existing engines and transport pipelines, requiring no modifications to aircraft or refuelling infrastructure. At present, sustainable aviation fuels are the only option that can decarbonise long-haul flight, from which two-thirds of UK aviation CO₂ emissions currently arise. It is important to note that second-generation sustainable aviation fuels do not rely on feedstocks that should be used for other purposes. Current sustainable aviation fuel is developed from sustainable feedstocks, waste oils, fats, greases, industrial gases and—I am told—even municipal solid waste as well as agricultural and forestry residue.

The UK’s first commercial sustainable aviation fuel facility, Alt Alto in Immingham, received planning permission in June. It is the first of its kind in Europe and is a collaboration between Velocys, British Airways and Shell. Other UK facilities such as the LanzaJet project in Port Talbot are also under development—it seems to help to have a Californian or holiday-sounding name for these new sites. Sustainable aviation have asked for £429 million in Government-backed loan guarantees to support the establishment of the first flagship sustainable aviation fuel facilities in the UK. A grant of £50 million is being sought to move this work to higher technology-readiness levels, and to enable providers to move to commercial scale. A further £21 million is being sought to establish a UK clearing house to enable sustainable aviation fuel testing. By 2037, there could be 14 sustainable aviation fuel production facilities in the UK, which would create 13,600 jobs and add £1.9 billion to GDP when overseas export opportunities are included.

Alt Alto Immingham hopes to be producing fuel by 2025 and many of these jobs would be in our industrial heartlands, contributing to levelling up in areas such as south Wales, the north-west, Teesside, Humberside, St Fergus, Grangemouth and Southampton. There will also be a boost to the rural economy where feedstocks for facilities would be processed before final upgrading at an industrial plant. Electric and hydrogen technologies also have great potential to deliver zero emission short and medium haul flights.

The world’s first hydrogen-powered flight has taken place in God’s own county of Bedfordshire. As part of the HyFlyer, project, ZeroAvia commissioned at Cranfield University the first on-site hydrogen fuelling system capable of producing green hydrogen used to power zero-emission flight. In 2023 ZeroAvia will bring to market the first hydrogen-electric powertrain capable of flying aircraft with up to 19 seats in a certifiable configuration design for a range of airframes currently in use. It has the potential to generate significant new employment and investment in the aerospace sector. For example, easyJet, a major company at Luton airport, continues to work with Wright Electric on an all-electric 186-seat passenger jet, and only last month Airbus unveiled designs for hydrogen-powered aircraft that could be flying by 2035.

Technology improvements through fleet upgrades represent the largest long-term aviation decarbonisation solution in the sector. The Aerospace Technology Institute wishes to see funding doubled to £330 million a year to enable the UK to become a world leader in developing more efficient engines as well as hybrid electric and hydrogen aircraft. Every £1 of Government investment in aerospace research and development brings in another £12 in private research and development spending—pretty impressive leverage.

Airspace modernisation also has an important role to play in making use of aircraft performance capability and reducing emissions and noise. Today’s advanced aircraft still rely on old navigation technologies because the airspace structures they use were designed for the fewer slower aircraft flying in the 1950s. The new Whittle laboratory in Cambridge, and the national centre for propulsion and power that it will house, will ensure that the UK leads the development of zero-carbon flight and will play a central role in supporting FlyZero.

However, as I said earlier, the challenge from overseas is there. The German Government are already planning a large investment in a low emissions aviation research centre that will operate in direct competition with the new Whittle laboratory. The new laboratory will ensure that the new technologies are used across the industrial networks in Newcastle, Lincoln, Derby, Bristol, Glasgow and Lancashire as it partners with Rolls-Royce, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Siemens, Dyson and the Aviation Technology Institute. The new laboratory will co-locate with the aviation impact accelerator, the design of which is based on what Cambridge has learned from Dame Ann Dowling’s silent aircraft initiative. The residents of the villages of Kensworth, Studham and Whipsnade in my constituency will be particularly pleased to learn about that, because they are all under the flight path of London Luton airport.

The aviation impact accelerator will help speed up the delivery of new technology and scale up the infrastructure, investment and policy necessary for that. The new Whittle laboratory has already raised £23.5 million from its industrial partners, but it needs an additional £25 million from the Government to commence building in February next year. I hope that may be possible, because in the briefing in which the Secretary of State for Transport announced the formation of the Jet Zero Council, he said he was

“excited about a Cambridge University and Whittle labs project to accelerate technologies for zero-carbon flight”.

To speed up the council’s work, the Government should consider an airline scrappage schemes, with airlines encouraged to buy less polluting jets when available and take more polluting models out of service.

It is good to see hon. Members in the Room today. I look forward to their contributions and hope we have cross-party support for this important initiative.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous]

I thank the Minister for his response and I thank hon. Members, from pretty much the whole of the United Kingdom, who have contributed. Three central points stand out. First, how do we get from here to there? We have to bear in mind everyone who works in aviation today who is having a really tough time. We do not want to lose those skills and we have to look after those people. Secondly, the urgency of the climate challenge, which my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) talked about, is pressing. Coronavirus cannot stop us recognising that. Thirdly, we have to keep the UK in a world-leading position, so that jobs and the high skill value are here in the UK.

I am encouraged by the Minister’s response. He talked about bold and ambitious leadership, keeping the UK front and centre, and keeping our first mover advantage—

[Mrs Maria Miller (in the Chair)]

Order. There is a Division in the House. I will have to suspend the sitting for 15 minutes.

[Andrew Selous]

I have finished.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the work of the Jet Zero Council.

International Travel

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I agree with the hon. Lady: it is not only wrong and frustrating; it is also illegal for people to do that—come back and break the quarantine. We absolutely will be stepping up measures, and I am working with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and others to secure that. Again, I will say more about it very soon. In the meantime, I send the message clearly from this Dispatch Box that when people break their quarantine, they are breaking the law and putting themselves in line for a criminal record, and it is not something that anyone should want to do.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

The travel corridor policy, while clearly very upsetting for those affected who have worked very hard for a holiday, is absolutely the right thing to do to keep us all safe. Could I ask the Secretary of State to consider one change, though, which would be to move the weekly time for coming back from 4 am on a Saturday to midnight on a Sunday? Changeover, for most people, is on a Saturday or a Sunday, so most people could complete their week’s holiday without having to buy expensive flights, which they do not have the money for, and ruin their holiday. Would he at least just consider that?

[Grant Shapps]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It is true that changeovers do indeed often take place on a Saturday. It might help if I explain the tensions that have to be measured off. The medical community would of course say, “Don’t leave any time at all: do it immediately”—which is virtually what happened with Spain, the very first country to be removed from a corridor—and the other view is to allow it to continue. It is a question of finding the best balance between the two that would satisfy the chief medical officer and his concerns as well as trying to get people home. I promise to undertake to continue to look at this, but I hope my hon. Friend understands and the House will appreciate the natural and proper tensions that are in place.