Jet Zero Council

Steve Double Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Miller. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) on securing the debate and on the excellent speech he gave in opening it and the way he laid out the case so clearly.

I pay tribute to Sustainable Aviation, which is a coalition that brings together the aviation sector––airlines, manufacturers, airports––to work across the sector and move towards sustainable aviation and clean flight. It has done incredible work over a number of years to drive and focus the sector on the issue. It has been a delight to work with it in recent years in some of the roles that I have played in this place.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) mentioned that the UK has led the world in innovation in aviation for over 100 years. I see another great opportunity before us as a country to once again take a lead, and lead the world in developing clean flight. I am delighted that the Prime Minister set out in his characteristic way a positive vision for the country to get behind and work towards having the first zero-emission transatlantic flight. It is a vision that I wholeheartedly get behind.

Aviation is crucial to today’s world for trade and the economy. We all know the huge challenges that the sector faces now, but we have to believe that that will be reversed and that we will once again have a growing, thriving aviation sector. We should use this moment as a great opportunity to make significant change that perhaps would have taken some time to develop but that, with some focus, could happen more quickly than it would otherwise have done. I believe that we will see that in many areas of our economy.

Moving towards clean flight can very much be part of that. As several hon. Members have highlighted, we are making progress. There are some great and exciting developments such as sustainable biofuels and electric and hydrogen-powered flight, all of which will help the sector become the clean way of getting around that we want it to be. I know that some people are sometimes cynical about this but there is no doubt of the Government’s commitment to get to net zero by 2050. We are leading the world as the only developed nation that has made that legal commitment. We should use this as an opportunity to take a lead globally and demonstrate to the world that clean flight is within the realms of possibility in the very near future.

I believe that the current attitude often shown towards flying––that it is the dirty way of getting around and we should all feel bad every time we get on a plane––can be changed. We can get to the point of zero-emission flight in the coming years. At that point, flight will become the chosen way to travel quickly and cleanly both around the UK and around the world. I genuinely believe that we can get to that point. Instead of being the dirty cousin of transport, flying will be the green choice, because we can fly cleanly and get places quickly. That is the ambitious aim that we should focus on working towards.

I know the Minister well and he will not be at all surprised that I want to raise my belief that our current challenges demand a response from the Government to ensure that we have everything in place to grasp this opportunity in the next five to 10 years. Our regional airports will be absolutely crucial, because the likelihood is that the first clean flights will be short-haul domestic flights. That is probably the first step, and if we do not have successful and operating regional airports across our country, we will not be able to make the most of the opportunity.

I am genuinely concerned that if we do not support the sector and our regional airports across the country, some of them will be lost and closed. The chances are, if they close as a result of the current crisis, there is every likelihood that they may never open again. Heathrow will be there, Gatwick will be there, Manchester and the other big airports will be there—they will get through this. It may be challenging, but they will get through this and will still be with us for many years to come, but our smaller regional airports—such as the one that I represent, Cornwall airport Newquay, and many others across the country—face a crisis now.

There is a risk that our smaller regional airports will be lost. If they are lost, the impact on the sector and on our ability to fulfil our ambitions for clean aviation will be greatly damaged. I say again to the Minister, who I know gets this, but through him we can get a message to the Treasury: we need to step up and provide more support for the sector and in particular for our regional airports, because they are struggling with the challenge of the current crisis. If we want them to be there, to survive and to thrive through this, they will need some more support. Please will the Minister take a message back to Government, in particular the Treasury, that if they are serious about fulfilling those ambitions, we need to do a bit more to help our regional airports?

To wind up, the only way that we will achieve our ambitions is by having a thriving aviation sector that has the funds to invest for the future. It will not happen if we do not have an aviation sector that is able to have confidence about the future and to invest in the future of aviation. Therefore, it is crucial at this time for the Government to stand behind the sector and to provide the support it needs, so that it can work with us to achieve our great and exciting ambitions for clean aviation.