Earl Russell (LD)

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their amendments; this is one of the really interesting groups. In response to what the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said about knocking out fuels, I can probably sum up my speech by saying that I am not certain that knocking out fuels is the best thing to do in the transition; we might need to limit the time the revenue certainty mechanism applies to certain fuels. That might be where I am coming from. Amendment 21 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, seeks to “include nuclear-derived power-to-liquid fuels in the scope of sustainable aviation fuels for which Revenue Certainty Contracts can be offered, and remove food crops, using the same definition of ‘relevant crops’ as the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations Order for surface transport”. While we recognise and support the ambition behind this amendment—promoting nuclear-derived and more sustainably-derived stuff, thus reducing carbon emissions —we would welcome the Government’s response to the idea of including nuclear-derived power-to-liquid fuels. Our questions relate more to the complete removal of biomass from the revenue certainty mechanism. I suspect the Minister might say that this technology in relation to the nuclear side is not ready, and we would not disagree. But my question back to the Minister would be: how do the Government plan—if they do indeed plan—to bring these into the revenue certainty mechanism? How will that be done, what is the timescale for doing that, and is it something that can be done by secondary legislation? We recognise that biomass has some use as a SAF, particularly in the early stages of SAF use. At the same time, we recognise the limitations of biomass as a sustainable fuel and its impact on any use at scale. This amendment raises some fundamental questions about the plans for the revenue certainty mechanism, its role in relation to different technologies for SAF production and how it is best used to advance the aim of zero-carbon flight. I will be honest: we have some difficult challenges and questions to answer, and this group has certainly raised those. It can certainly be argued, as the noble Lord has done, that crop-based biofuels should not be given long-term support under the revenue certainty mechanism, as production pathways for these fuels are already commercialised at scale, as has been said. It can also be argued that crop-based biofuels offer relatively small CO₂ carbon savings compared with fossil fuels, that they compete with food and can create biodiversity loss in other countries. However, crop-based fuels offer some CO₂ savings when there are very few other options available today at scale. However, with very few alternatives to reduce carbon emissions from aviation today, the revenue certainty mechanism could also be an important intermediate step in this continuous journey of decarbonisation. So, while we support nuclear derived power-to-liquid, and we share a desire to limit the use of the RCM to support bio crops, this amendment opens some complex policy decisions which need a lot of careful thought. What we are doing here is planning a journey. On that road, we will have different fuels that will jump in and out as we move along it. A lot of the questions that are being asked in this group are around how the Government plan to have those fuels come in and drop out, how that that be done and scrutinised and how the mechanisms will change. The same is true in relation to Amendment 22, on HEFA. The arguments I would make around that are the same. This is a really important group of amendments, and there is a lot to think about in this space.