Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

Lord Raval Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Raval (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Bill and commend the Government on bringing forward a serious and long-awaited framework to decarbonise a sector that accounts, as the Minister said, for its ever-rising share of our national emissions.

Before I turn to aviation fuel, an altogether more uplifting and sustaining subject commands our attention. It is an extraordinary privilege and an honour to congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester on his outstanding maiden speech. His contribution displayed the wisdom, moral seriousness, humour and quiet authority with which he will flourish in the work of this House.

If I may declare a personal interest, long before he was a Bishop, the right reverend Prelate joined a Senior Faith in Leadership programme which I directed. Across residencies with rabbis, imams, priests, business leaders, medics and public servants, I observed at first hand the depth of his character. He remained firmly rooted in his own tradition while offering genuine friendship across boundaries. In our digitally recorded conflict simulations—designed to test even the most devout—he kept his cool, listened with generosity and mediated with a humility that enabled others to shine. As I recall, he won.

I learned then that, although the right reverend Prelate had read mathematics at Cambridge, with every conventional avenue of worldly success open to him, he could not escape a deeper calling to ministry. As warden of Cranmer Hall, and vice-principal of St John’s College, Durham, he nurtured generations of leaders and equipped them to grapple with exactly the kinds of questions he raised a few moments ago—questions about community, purpose, presence and belonging.

The right reverend Prelate’s recent doctoral thesis offers a further window into his nature: a pastor-scholar attentive not to abstractions but to how real people grow, collaborate and serve. In it, he explores the call to integrate a leadership that is rooted ultimately in love—in the words of the right reverend Prelate himself,

“a combination of spiritual, emotional, rational, and pragmatic intelligence”,

reflecting a “relational understanding of humanity”. As was underscored by this and the preceding debate, we meet in a time marked by polarisation, disaffection, a growing distance from once-trusted institutions and the unsettling acceleration of trends intensified by digital habits, including, regrettably, the amplification of hatred that distorts our public square. The right reverend Prelate brings precisely the countervailing gifts this moment requires: not only the intellect, analytical clarity, logic and tech-savviness to address these forces—he is really brainy—but the pastoral breadth to speak, as he reminded us only moments ago, with the communication and genuine connection needed both for those who share his convictions and for those who feel unheard or left behind.

It is often communities whose social anchors have shifted that can be drawn towards simpler, louder narratives. The right reverend Prelate offers instead an approach that sees diversity not as a difficulty to be managed but as constituting a tapestry of human intelligences to be woven for the common good. Such leadership is not merely timely, it is essential. We look forward to, and indeed need, the right reverend Prelate’s statesmanship in this House.

I turn briefly to the Bill before us. The Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill, working alongside the SAF mandate, provides the clarity and confidence that industry has long sought. With first-of-a-kind plants costing between £600 million and £2 billion, and typically running at a loss in their early years, the revenue certainty mechanism is a critical enabler of the investment this industry requires. This is precisely the sort of pragmatic investment-led policy that creates jobs, strengthens supply chains and positions the United Kingdom to lead in clean aviation technology—but ambition must meet delivery.

Industry modelling suggests that announced UK SAF projects may deliver only around half the volume required under the 2030 mandate unless further policy and investment steps are taken. Meanwhile, total UK greenhouse gas emissions, including aviation and shipping, amount to approximately 414 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent. Aviation will not decarbonise itself, and the Bill helps ensure that the UK does not fall behind while others race ahead. I therefore strongly support its direction of travel.

My question to the Minister concerns the feedstocks that will power this transition. As has been said, many early SAF pathways rely on used cooking oils, industrial residues and, critically, black bin bag and other residual wastes. As we rightly reduce such waste and increase recycling, how does the Government’s modelling ensure a stable, sustainable and ethically sourced supply? How will Ministers balance emerging SAF demand with existing waste-to-energy plants and local authority waste reduction targets so that one green ambition does not inadvertently undermine another?