Earl Russell (LD)

My Lords, Amendment 12, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, concerns the potential impacts of this Bill on airline ticket prices. I entirely understand the motivation behind the amendment. Passengers and airlines deserve transparency about how the levy costs will flow through to fares. However, this transparency is already in the Bill, and this amendment is not a particularly good way to improve on it. These Benches accept that there will be reasonable and affordable costs involved in introducing a revenue certainty mechanism, which will reflect the necessary investment to drive the transition to sustainable aviation fuel. However, we cannot support this amendment, for several practical reasons. Amendment 12 would require the Secretary of State within one year of Royal Assent to publish a report assessing the impact of the revenue certainty mechanism on ticket prices, including whether the average increase exceeds £1.50 per ticket per year, followed by further annual reports for as long as the mechanism operates. The intention is fair, but the proposed process is largely unworkable in our opinion. The mechanism will take time to design, consult on and implement. Contracts will not be allocated immediately, and levy collection will ramp up gradually as supply chains mature. Within 12 months, there would be no meaningful data to analyse, only speculative modelling. A report produced on that basis would lack credibility and offer little value to Parliament or consumers. In the early days, as required by this amendment as drafted, it would provide very little value or information at all. Moreover, the Bill and its associated frameworks already provide robust reporting obligations, so, again, this is not a choice between providing transparency through this amendment or having no transparency. The Government will lay a report before Parliament on levy design, contract allocation, production volumes and market development. These will give Members regular insight into the performance and the cost trends associated with the Bill. In addition, airlines, which are best placed to assess the costs passed through to fares, will report on their sustainable aviation fuel uptake and related costs under the SAF mandate and wider aviation reporting requirements. That industry-driven data will provide a timelier and more accurate picture of the real-world price effects than a separate government study could ever hope to achieve. There are also serious practical and cost concerns. Calculating per-ticket impacts would require access to commercially sensitive data, such as flight occupancy levels, which the Government do not hold and cannot compel airlines to divulge without imposing disruptive burdens. Establishing a separate, perpetual reporting duty would therefore create unnecessary bureaucracy and expense without improving transparency. The Government expect that airlines will readily report on the impact of the Bill on air tickets. The practical solution is to build on existing reporting channels and refine them through guidance if needed, rather than introducing an additional obligation that cannot deliver meaningful insights at the required pace. We share the desire for transparency and recognise that costs must be visible and fairly borne for this market to work, but Amendment 12 would not be the right way to do that. The information it seeks will already be available through integrated, industry-based reporting mechanisms. Ministers and officials both expect that this will be reported. I therefore urge the House to reject the amendment and support the Government’s practical approach to these problems.