Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

Tom Collins Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 15th October 2025 Commons Chamber

Stemming from the Chancellor’s announcement in relation to the third runway, it is evident that support for that runway is driven by misguided financial incentives, with our environment being forced to take a back seat. The Government must not discard their environmental commitments, and the Liberal Democrats will continue to hold them to account on them. The first step towards protecting our air quality is for the Government to support new clause 2. If they do not plan to get behind it, will the Minister explain why?

[Tom Collins (Worcester) (Lab)]

I will speak to new clause 1. Context is important, as this Bill is a first step on a long pathway to decarbonising aviation. At the moment, SAF components are blended with existing fossil fuels to create usable aircraft fuel, as I will go on to discuss, but I think it is helpful for us to be aware of the context: the various generations of sustainable aviation fuel that will form a road map as we move into the future.

First-generation aviation fuels use oils, often of biological origin, as feedstocks, and they produce a kerosene-type fuel that can be blended with our existing jet fuel. Second-generation SAF is derived from solid waste that goes through a digestion process, producing alcohols that can then be formulated into aviation fuel-type products. Third-generation fuels—I remind hon. Members that there are four generations—use wet mass as feedstock. Again, that wet mass might be biological, but it is incapable of competing with food crops for production, and the process produces an output that is much like a bio-crude oil.

As we move through the generations of sustainable aviation fuel production, it is important to remember that the outputs are different and are able to slip into different parts of the existing fuel production supply chain. The fourth generation is derived from gases, maybe even atmospheric gases, such as carbon dioxide drawn from the atmosphere. It is often referred to as a power-to-liquids process, and is an entirely non-biological process that requires a lot of new technology. It is a future solution, but an advantageous and attractive one as it can provide us with a purely synthetic fuel.

The point that I am illustrating is that the Bill is the first step in a long-term vision for aviation, in which sustainable aviation fuel is able to play a progressively larger role. In future, we may even move to different fuels all together. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on hydrogen, I would like to give a shout-out to its role in the potential long-term future of power for aviation.

These generations of fuels also interact with the technology in our aircraft. Although current blends of sustainable aviation fuel can go into aircraft now, the aircraft will need to be upgraded as we move to higher fractions of sustainable components in that fuel, because some of the aromatic components in fossil fuels are not available in synthetic fuels. They are currently required by some of the seals in the engines, and the aircraft will need to move into future generations to accept high proportions of aviation fuel.

All of this is about having a strategic road map. The Bill is one step—one vastly enabling piece of legislation—and it follows a model that is well proven to help establish new technologies as part of a green and sustainable future. We have seen the similar progress in offshore wind, for example, where it has been utterly transformational beyond anybody’s expectations. This vehicle should be able to do similar things for the beginning of our journey on decarbonising aviation, but it needs a long-term plan. That is why there is a really important piece of work to be done in the secondary legislation enabled by the Bill. It is very important that that legislation takes account of all the factors being discussed through the various amendments that have been tabled.

I oppose new clause 1, because we must not oversimplify the journey before us. In fact, we must allow the Government the freedom to create a sophisticated, technically-led strategy to deploy these different types of sustainable aviation fuel, taking into account all factors, including our existing infrastructure, the production of biomass and the advancement of aviation technology. If we get this right, and if this game is played well, we have the opportunity to start successfully—and even lead—a journey that will be absolutely transformative, and to envisage a thriving, positive and sustainable future for aviation.

[John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

For many years, I commuted by aircraft from Scotland to Dublin—so many years, in fact, that I can still recall there are eight emergency exits on a Boeing 737-800. There are two at the front, two at the rear and four over-wing exits. What a great pity that this Bill does not have an amendment that is an escape slide.

While sustainable aviation fuel sounds wonderful, it is burdened with many inconvenient facts. The first is that there is no SAF production industry at the scale required. While new clause 1 is a bold attempt to jump-start production by repurposing old facilities, it is a jumbo jet of a task. The World Economic Forum estimates that by 2030, global demand for SAF is expected to reach 70 million tonnes per annum—around 4% to 5% of total jet fuel consumption.

Meeting likely demand in just five years requires an additional 5.8 million tonnes of capacity. What is the investment required to reach even that relatively modest goal? The WEF pitches it at somewhere between $19 billion and $45 billion globally. If that does not give our legislative autopilot the warning, “Terrain! Terrain! Pull up!”, then it should do. New clause 1 is unaffordable, whether backed by public or private finance, and I am afraid it is doomed to fail.

It is certain that the vast input costs will result in massively higher costs for passengers and air freight. I support the vital new clause 6, which would force an assessment of the economic impact of this Bill, which I fear will be nothing short of devastating. Some might piously accept fewer flights to the Costas or a little less airfreighted Kenyan mangetout on the dinner table, but making air travel ruinously expensive will have implications for thousands of jobs—millions globally—in not only aviation, but tourism. Many flights are not indulgences, but lifelines. We are an island nation, and many communities within the UK are entirely reliant on air links.

Will Britain—so long the pioneers of aviation, with a history stretching back to the first scheduled international passenger flight and the first jet airliner—be foremost in SAF? Probably not, for mandating SAF is easier than producing it, especially in a country with power prices as exorbitant as ours. Energy bills in Dumfries in my constituency are four times what they are in Dumfries in Virginia in the United States, and they are cheaper still in China.

We need a lot of power to make SAF. Many question its green credentials when so much carbon is generated in its production. Amendment 10 is a bid to explore the serious issues around SAF derived from either organic or synthetic sources. Much is made of an 80% reduction in greenhouse gases using SAF sourced from waste fat and oil feedstocks, but, as we have heard, those basic building blocks are in limited supply. That issue is also addressed in, though not solved by, new clause 2. Using crops as feedstock may not reduce greenhouse gases at all, and there are huge implications of turning prime agricultural land and billions of gallons of water over to producing crops for fuel, rather than food. Again, Britain is at a disadvantage. America’s vast corn belt might get involved, but the British bioethanol industry is a warning to us, for it was not able to survive on current targets for the content in road fuel.

Other amendments, including amendment 11, concern themselves with how a revenue certainty mechanism will operate. My concern is that we risk creating a self-licking ice cream—a self-perpetuating system with no purpose other than to sustain itself. This Bill could guarantee moneys that simply offset the costs of manufacturing SAF, which is itself made expensive by green levies. Would it not be better to put what money we have available into aviation excellence, driving up the efficiency of jet engines and airframes? Aviation is already playing its part in reducing its carbon footprint—according to some experts, engine efficiency is already up by as much as 83% from the early days of the de Havilland Comet jet liner. That progress can continue, although super-efficient jets need superalloys to handle the extremes of temperature in their engines, and those require the sorts of rare earths that China is hoovering up. Canada, by the way, has many of the same critical minerals; might we be better off investing in those than subsidising SAF?

If we want really big carbon savings, we ought to look to the sea. Much of what we trade—in and out—goes by sea, and cargo ships are heavily reliant on bunker oil, a tar-like substance with heavy emissions. If we want novel fuels, this island nation should look once more to Tennyson’s “boundless deep”, where the salt-caked smoke stacks belch still. Meanwhile, the wild blue yonder of the skies must not be made inaccessible simply by expensive green dogma.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Morello]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. She managed to make a detailed speech sound like a backhanded compliment. I do not disagree with her point that we have several reporting standards, and my only counter-argument would be that I do not believe there can be too much transparency. If that results in information being presented in a way that gives the public further clarity and puts greater pressure on any Government to speed up the transition, that can only be a good thing.

Those figures must be presented clearly in a format that is accessible and easy to find on websites and in public material. That matters, because whether it is demonstrating that solar and wind power lower bills, that carbon removal technology will provide jobs or that sustainable aviation fuel can cut emissions, we must be transparent to build public trust and belief in what we are doing. The powers in this Bill to fund the strike price mechanism to levy fines on fuel suppliers who fail to pay are all welcome, but they must be matched by equally strong accountability to this House and the general public. The amendments I have proposed would ensure that the Government are required to review progress every year, to explain how targets will be strengthened, and to make transparent the actual use of sustainable fuel across the aviation industry.

[Tom Collins]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Edward Morello]

The hon. Member is just in the nick of time, so I will.

[Tom Collins]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way. I would like to speak to his comments and those of the Father of the House about the impact on consumers. In Committee, the Government made it clear that they are alive not only to the considerations of cost and the impact on consumers, but to the extreme complexity of how aircraft logistics and fuelling function across global markets, and how aircraft are operated on a day-to-day basis. That makes some of these reporting requirements extremely difficult for airlines to deliver. We do not want to create a burden of bureaucracy that drives airlines away from sustainable fuel and back towards unsustainable pure fossil sources. I support the Government’s position that we should stay where we are and build processes that provide accountability.

[Edward Morello]

I think I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I am afraid that I do not agree that increasing reporting burdens on industry is a bad thing. Every industry will argue that reporting is onerous. The liturgy starts with water companies. Companies will hide behind not having to report. On the need to move forward with technology, I am reminded that Henry Ford once said, “If I asked people what they want, they would say a faster horse.” The reality is that technology will be the route to our achieving our net zero goals, and this is one step on that pathway.

I will finish. New clauses 4 and 5 would strengthen this Bill, strengthen public confidence and demonstrate the UK’s global leadership, and I very much hope the Government will support them.