Lord Harper (Con)

My Lords, let me explain what the amendment would do and the rationale for why I have tabled it. It goes back to the famous document of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that will be issued and seeks to add one thing to the list set out in the Bill: for the Secretary of State to set out to the CAA how it will have regard to the seventh carbon budget in exercising its functions, specifically “any implications for aviation demand and consumer access to air travel”. The amendment’s purpose, if I am being frank, was to make sure we could discuss this issue, because it is important and connected. A number of noble Lords have talked about the environmental impact of aviation. Before I get on to my specific questions about the seventh carbon budget, I want to put this in a little context to make sure—although no one in this Committee would do so—that no one outside misrepresents me. I am a strong supporter of decarbonising aviation. I chaired the Jet Zero Council when I was Secretary of State, working with government, industry, airlines, airports, manufacturers, suppliers of fuel, academia and representatives of the Climate Change Committee looking at how we develop technology to ensure that we can continue flying but in a way that has less impact on the environment. As I said in our debate on the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill, I had the great pleasure of being on the VS100 Virgin flight to the US, which was the first flight that had 100% sustainable aviation fuel, showing that it was technically possible to deliver that with a significant reduction, in the order of 70% to 80%, in emissions. I am a strong supporter of decarbonising aviation. I want to flag, though, the real challenge for government and the question of who makes these trade-off decisions. The current position, which I was operating under when I was Secretary of State and which the current Government have no plans to change, is this: with the net-zero target due to be hit in 2050 in statute, and the Climate Change Committee making its reports on carbon budgets, which the Government accept—Parliament will have the chance to vote on the seventh carbon budget shortly—there is a hard stop for the impact of carbon emissions. A clear path is set out by the Government for the technologies that will be needed to make sure we can decarbonise aviation and those are explained by the Climate Change Committee. But what happens if those technologies do not proceed at the pace that we hope and expect they do? I am a strong supporter of ordinary people being able to continue to fly. The danger, which I will come on to in a minute, is that, if the technology does not go fast enough and the legislative position remains unchanged, the Government will be forced to use what is euphemistically called demand management—that means jacking up the price of flying so that ordinary people cannot fly any more. Wealthy people will continue to be able to do so because they will be able to afford it, but ordinary people will no longer be able to take their reasonably priced holidays and businesspeople will not be able to fly for essential economic activity. Those sorts of trade-off decisions should be made by Ministers, who are democratically accountable, rather than, as would actually happen, judges, when people judicially review decisions and so they would be made in the courts. That is the purpose of the amendment, and I want to test where the Government’s thinking is on that. The Committee will be aware that the Climate Change Committee published the Seventh Carbon Budget, which covers the period from 2038 to 2042, on 26 February 2025, which, coincidentally, was my birthday, for completely random reasons. The committee recommended carbon budget 7 and the Government are required to legislate for it by the end of this month. The Climate Change Committee supports the various technologies that are needed to decarbonise aviation; it specifically sets out in the budget that the primary tool in that timeframe is sustainable aviation fuel. A number of Members of this Committee were also involved in the debates on that, so I will not rehearse this at length. There are also other technologies such as the development of hydrogen-powered aircraft for smaller and shorter-haul flights and battery-electric planes. There will also be the necessity, which the Climate Change Committee sets out, to do direct capture of carbon from the atmosphere and then store it. That is how you reach net zero. The problem is, as I said, that the Government’s current view—it is the view I took when I was Secretary of State and I do not disagree with the Government at the moment—is that the technology the industry is developing will get us on a path to hitting the targets and all will be well and good. But there is risk involved in this process. My view is that Ministers should make the judgments about risk and should balance those things. That is why, while being a very strong supporter of decarbonising aviation, I support the position my party has reached that we should not legislate the net-zero target. If you do that, these decisions—I think my noble friend Lord Moylan talked about the judicial challenge to the Airports National Policy Statement—get challenged and end up being made by judges, not democratically elected and accountable Ministers. In the end, because Ministers are democratically elected, decisions are made by voters. Given that we are in a position where this is in law, I just want to test the Government’s view. It is set out very clearly in the Explanatory Notes to this Bill, the Minister has said on a number of occasions and it is in the policy statement published today, that the Government support the aviation sector and understand how important it is to economic growth. On a number of occasions, Ministers have made it very clear, rightly, that they support people being able to fly to see family and friends around the world and take holidays, and all those sorts of things, and business. We talked on day 1 of this Committee about the real importance of UK trade and the amount of valuable cargo that is shipped by air, which is particularly important for an island nation such as the United Kingdom. There are trade-offs here. If the net-zero line is legislated for, it becomes the most important thing, as opposed to one of the things you have to balance. I just want to test Ministers and listen to what they have to say. If the technology does not move quite as quickly as we would hope, are the Government planning to use the demand management measures? To be clear, those are taxes and charges that make aviation more expensive. Are they proposing to give the CAA direction in its regulatory decisions? For example, the CAA has a number of airports that have regulated asset bases and are allowed to pass on a certain amount of charges to consumers. I would not want to see the CAA making aviation and flying more expensive to reduce demand because, inevitably, that would mean that the burden would fall on people who are less well-off, and I do not think that would be reasonable. I just want to hear from the Minister, when he responds to my amendment and the other amendments in the group, which are obviously on the same theme of the environmental impact on aviation, about where the Government think that these lines should be drawn, given that the Government say that their number one priority is economic growth. If they start slamming the brakes on aviation, they are not going to deliver economic growth and that is not really their number one priority. That is what I am looking forward to hearing from the Minister when he winds up. I beg to move.