Welcome to our second panel. Could I please ask you both to introduce yourselves?

Good morning, Chair. I am Mike Kane. I am the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Aviation, Maritime and Security.

Welcome to the Committee.

I am David Silk. I am the director of aviation at the Department for Transport.

Thank you very much for attending today. Catherine, you have the first question.

What is the Government’s vision for UK aviation?

Thank you so much for the question. I have always, as an MP who was brought up in an aviation constituency in Manchester, been very proud of our being a world-class aviation nation. We have the largest aviation sector in the world, apart from the USA and China. It adds £20 billion to our GDP and it employs 240,000 people directly. Last year, 2 million commercial flights took off and landed at UK airports, ferrying 273 million people, and, due to the CAA and great officials and why we are good at this, they did that for the most part in a very safe manner. My mission in this Government is to make sure that we continue with that success and that growth, because we are good at it.

Thank you. Can I ask about the aviation strategy and how that fits into the Government’s wider transport strategy?

Aviation strategy is usually dictated by the airports national policy statement that Government produce. The last one was produced in 2018, which was two whole Governments ago, so we need to refresh that strategy. We are saying that if Heathrow or another credible party comes forward with a third runway proposal this summer, which the Chancellor has asked for, we will review the airports national policy statement on that basis.

Is there already any thinking about how it fits with the wide transport strategy as it stands and how that will be impacted?

Of course, because aviation supports economic growth, it supports sustainability; it connects people, places and businesses domestically and internationally; and it cements our regions—Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the south-west and the north of England. It is integral to how it fits together. When you look at surface area access to aviation, we have National Highways, Network Rail, and local providers like Transport for London, TfGM and others to make sure that all that provision is joined up so that we achieve economic growth and make the customer experience the best we possibly can.

Could you clarify this, please, Minister? We now have the announcement from Heathrow this morning confirming that they are going to apply for a third runway. In answer to Catherine’s question about the aviation strategy for the UK, you mentioned the ANPS, but the ANPS refers just to Heathrow. It is chicken and egg. Which comes first, the ANPS for Heathrow or an aviation strategy for the whole of the UK?

Heathrow’s announcement today was particularly around terminal 2 and terminal 5.

No, it was confirming that they want to apply for runway 3.

As a Government, we have invited them to bring forward their proposals this summer. What I am saying is that when they bring forward their proposals we will begin the process of reviewing the airports national policy statement, and the scope of that will be determined by the Secretary of State.

When you say “bring forward their proposals”, it will take three or four years to actually produce a DCO. What does “this summer” mean in terms of the level of detail you are expecting?

We are expecting that their proposal will come forward this summer, and then it will go to DCO in the future. After we receive their proposal, we will begin the process of the statement.

You mean an indicative proposal.

Forgive me?

Do you mean an indicative proposal given that they stood down their expansion team?

Yes.

Thank you.

Minister, you rattled through quite a lot of statistics in answer to the previous question. When was the last time the Department conducted an in-depth analysis of the value of aviation to the UK economy?

We know from the Office for National Statistics that in 2023 air transport and aerospace contributed £20 billion to the economy, which I mentioned at the start of my comments. In 2022, we know that that was 240,000 jobs in the system. As an airport MP, I know from my constituency that the direct jobs created inside the apron have a relationship to the number of supply chain jobs you create outside it. I would love in the future to get more defined statistics on that, but we do not have that currently. It is just shy of a quarter of a million jobs in the UK.

What recent work has the Department done to assess the impact of the capacity constraints that we heard about in the earlier session at the south-east airports?

The last ANPS, which was in 2018, clearly showed capacity constraints in the London airports system by the mid-2030s. Today, Heathrow announced that it had 6.3 million passengers through in January this year, which was up 5%. We know as a Department that Heathrow has been operating at 95%—effectively, full operation—except for covid for almost two decades now.

The Chancellor announced at the end of January that the Government would support a third runway in principle. What was the involvement of the Department in coming to that announcement?

Full involvement. We are the Department that has the expertise and the Department that would take forward the expansion on behalf of the Government. The Chancellor’s announcement was in full consultation with the Department, and it is part of our collective responsibility that this is the Government’s vision for aviation.

The Department already had an airspace modernisation programme priority. What effect does the Heathrow announcement have on your plans to modernise airspace?

We had two key announcements in the manifesto. One was around sustainable aviation fuel, and we introduced a mandate last year for 2% of aviation fuel to come from SAF from 1 January. Our other key manifesto commitment was to airspace modernisation. Our airspace is analogue in a digital age, designed closer to the time when Yuri Gagarin went into space than it is for today. We can improve resilience, capacity, and noise pollution if we do that. We have introduced the UK Airspace Design Service, which we consulted on. Those consultations are coming to an end. I will allow David to answer the specific question.

Forgive me, but the question was on what impact Heathrow expansion would have on those programmes.

Airspace modernisation is needed in the south-east irrespective of expansion, and that is why, as the Minister said, we already have an active programme to update airspace in the greater south-east area. The UK Airspace Design Service will help us do that in a more efficient and co-ordinated way than perhaps has been the case to date. We need to work through, with the CAA and the UK Airspace Design Service as it is established, what the implications of a third runway are for the airspace modernisation programme. Since early 2020, that programme has been developed on a two-runway scenario. We now need to do detailed work with the CAA and the UK Airspace Design Service, as it is established, to pivot towards a third runway scenario.

Thank you. When do you anticipate that work being available?

Airspace modernisation is a multi-year programme. It is very complex. We have requirements through our CAP1616 process to consult with communities as we take it through. It needs to be done over a number of years, and we need to think carefully about when we can designate the precise airspace changes as well. There are only so many changes you can do at once from a safety perspective. We need to do that work to ensure that the airspace is modernised in time for the third runway to be up and running. The detailed work that we need to do with the CAA and the UK Airspace Design Service is how we ensure that the airspace is modernised for a third runway scenario in sync with the third runway opening. Precisely when we can complete that work by, I do not know at present, but that is a task we are turning to.

The Committee might be interested in what effect the announcement will have on the overall timeline compared with before the announcement for that work being completed, but perhaps that is something that we can return to at a different point. In 2018, the Government of the day said that they would require Heathrow airport to protect domestic flights into the airport, including through the public service obligation. Is that still Government policy?

I want to add to the last piece. While airspace modernisation will give us the biggest bang for our buck in the south-east, that does not stop us progressing Scottish airspace modernisation, the Manchester airspace and the south-west airspace. We have already just made some changes to the Manchester airspace. In terms of regional airports, we are not reviewing slot policy at the moment, but last time the Government’s intention was for slots to regional airports and to our nations to be baked into any expansion, because we know that that would increase the passenger experience, allow more people to hub out of the UK and increase productivity and growth at those airports.

Will you be updating the airports national policy statement to that effect?

That is what I was saying slightly earlier. Once we receive the proposal from Heathrow, which we expect to do this summer, that is when we will begin that work. It is already existing Government policy from 2018, two Governments ago, but we want to see that baked in for the future.

I have one final question. What is the earliest date when you think the first flights from a third runway could take off?

I don’t think I have the information to hand to answer that question. If we have the Heathrow proposal for this summer and then we review the airport national policy statement, the scope of that will be defined by the Secretary of State. Everybody says, “Spades in the ground.” We expect to see spades in the ground very shortly over terminal 2 and terminal 5 after today’s announcement. It is also being done at Scunthorpe because it is around industrial policy as well and improving the viability of the British steel industry. We will see economic benefit almost immediately.

Would you say the first flights from runway 3 would be two Parliaments away or three Parliaments away if it were given approval?

From the last time the airports national policy statement was done, most of these things rarely take less than a year, but the scope will be defined by the Secretary of State, so we have to wait for that decision, and then we have to see the DCO decision come. That is another year’s process.

Three to four years for a DCO, I understand.

I am happy to defer.

It is a matter for the scheme promoter in terms of putting together the development consent order. The Government are also planning to take through a planning and infrastructure Bill aimed at improving the national infrastructure regime, and that may have benefits in enabling the promoter to bring the DCO forward quicker than would otherwise be the case. On the precise timeline, at the moment, we are waiting for Heathrow’s formal proposal to us in the summer. As the Minister says, we then need to conduct an ANPS review. It is then for the scheme promoter to bring forward a DCO. The Chancellor, in some of her comments, has set out an ambition for flights taking off from 2035. I think Heathrow are aware of that ambition, and that will be relevant, I am sure, to their consideration of how quickly they can bring these things forward.

Thanks for coming along today. For some reason, you keep mentioning Manchester airport in your examples. You mentioned the reserved slots that you hoped that Manchester would get. I do not speak for Edinburgh airport, which is just outside my constituency, but I think the point they were making to me was that there is untapped capacity in Luton and Gatwick, and what people using Edinburgh airport want is more point-to-point flights rather than going via hubs. I expect that people using Manchester airport are exactly the same; they want to go straight to their destination rather than going through Heathrow. One of the concerning points that was raised in the previous session was that Heathrow might rob those regional airports of longer-distance flights, and it means that, for what is now currently point to point, they may have to go via Heathrow. Is that a positive? Is that something that you have considered? Should people not be coming from Manchester to London by train?

Or even Edinburgh.

Or even Edinburgh. We could segue into Avanti’s performance for the past few years. It was interesting for me, Chair, as a young Manchester councillor and a campaigner, that we are the only city that has built an international runway in the past 80 years, despite what others may say, which means capacity of 55 million, and we currently have 200 point-to-point flights. Having said how good my airport is in my constituency, it will never ever, in my lifetime, get people to some of the destinations that they need to go to; they will still have to hub out of somewhere. At the moment, a lot of businesspeople and others in my constituency hub out of Schiphol or they hub out of Dubai and take the weekend. I would much prefer that that pound is spent in the UK hubbing out of our hub airports if it is humanly possible.

What is that pound if they go via Heathrow or via Schiphol? Is it the cup of coffee they buy in the Caffè Nero or wherever in this new Heathrow airport?

A £10 sandwich.

Is that the economic benefit? Is that it?

The economic benefit is that we have capacity within the UK such that people can get to anywhere in the world, and we are one of the most connected countries on the planet because of our superb aviation system, as I said at the top. Most of that is because Heathrow has that number of destinations. With all the will in the world with our great cities, we are not going to penetrate some of those markets. That is because of population issues around those regional national airports, as well as the public transport penetration, which is not as good as it is in the south-east. I would like to see that better. I know you have worked in that field.

Yes, I am more interested in ground transport.

Ground transport, of course, yes. If we could improve that as well, I know that Edinburgh airport, Manchester airport and other regional airports could penetrate further point-to-point markets, but for now if we want to stay competitive in an international system we have to invest in our hub airport as well.

You talked about your desire that expansion at Heathrow would enable more domestic regional airports to get into Heathrow, but the previous panel stated that the market trends in growth of aviation, particularly from Heathrow, are in long haul and thick routes such as New York. There is also the cost of landing at Heathrow, particularly if the landing charges have to cover the expansion costs. How would you as a Government guarantee the future connectivity of our regional airports into Heathrow, if that is Government policy?

Landing charges at Heathrow will be a matter between airlines, Heathrow and the Civil Aviation Authority, which is obviously an arm’s length authority from our Department. They will adjudicate that. In terms of the ANPS, as I said, the one in 2018 was very keen that there would be protection for regional slots into Heathrow. As I said, it improves connectivity, it allows people to connect to places where they could not connect from their point-to-point airport, and we know that where we have airports we have huge regional growth and economic activity. After a scheme promoter brings a plan forward this summer, we would, as part of a new statement, want to continue to protect regional slots into Heathrow, because some of them are just not good enough at the moment. We had an urgent question, Chair, a few weeks ago about the Northern Ireland connections. We want to be a clean energy superpower. If we are not connecting into Aberdeen and the north-east or Newcastle, and if some of the connections are not good enough either, I want to see them improve over time.

If the Government approve expansion at Heathrow, will they insist on long overdue additional surface access other than vehicular at an expanded Heathrow?

Indeed. It depends what scheme comes forward. That is key to it.

I think we are assuming, as of today’s Heathrow announcement, that we are talking about a third runway, which will mean an additional terminal—a significant expansion.

A significant expansion.

Will the Government insist on increased surface access and new routes such as the western rail link or the southern rail link?

In terms of the southern rail link and the western rail link, we would expect that any promoter bringing that forward will have to take that into consideration. That was in our last ANPS; it will be in the next ANPS. We expect that the promotor would fund it if that is what the scheme requires. We do not know that. I have to stress that. We have not seen the scheme that they will bring forward. If that is what is required, we would expect the promoter to be able to fund those schemes.

In order that the benefits of Heathrow expansion can be properly felt outside London and the south-east, will you be considering adequate and better surface links to other parts of the UK?

Some of the evidence that you have probably received is that this could create 100,000 jobs and improve GDP by 0.3%, and some analysis shows that 60% of the benefits from expanding Heathrow would be outside the south-east. As part of how we improve transport links nationally, this Government are moving at pace in terms of their bus services and rail services, and part of our ANPS could be about access to the south-east.

As you know, the road connections around Heathrow are already heavily congested. That was the point of my question.

Regional capacity of airports?

Yes. That is a really legitimate question. I will pivot back to me being involved in opening the second runway at Manchester in 2001. The design concept was around about ’96. It took four to five years to get that from design and concept to up and running. We have seen 2 million square feet of high advanced manufacturing currently going in at Manchester airport. We have seen an Amazon fulfilment centre. We have seen the Hut Group invest and DHL for logistics. We know that where we have regional airports, we get regional economic growth, and that is key. In terms of passenger numbers, most airports in the UK had their best year last year. As I just suggested, Heathrow had its best January ever. We know that they are going up. Currently, John Lennon airport serves 7 million to 8 million people a year. Manchester is going to announce 31 million, rising to probably about 40 million in the next seven to eight years. We are seeing growth everywhere. That is good for our regions.

If wishing made it so, but this is an industry that exists mainly in the private sector. Most people actually want to hub in and out of Heathrow. There is no doubt about that. Most of our air freight comes in through Heathrow as well. Other places do really well—Scotland, East Midlands and places like that. The capacity constraints on our cargo are huge as well. We have to do all those things. We cannot direct planes where to go. When you have cargo, some of the long-haul routes that I talked about earlier become a lot more attractive because they can fill their belly hold as well as their passengers, whereas in some of our regional airports we can often fill the passengers on the plane but not get the belly hold that makes some of those routes commercially viable. We need to do all of that.

I don’t think there is very little we can do. There is lots we can do, and this Government are doing it. If I talk again about my own conurbation, getting the buses to run on time, bringing in the local franchises, and enabling people to get to the airport within an hour on public transport make a material difference to regional airports. This Government’s better buses Bill means that connectivity will improve to our airports, solving the rail dispute.

We need private sector investment to do this. What I am saying about an expansion when proposals come through for Heathrow is that better connectivity to Heathrow and to the regions will automatically, I believe, improve economic activity at those airports.

Are you going to fix that? If left to the market, as we learned in the earlier session, regional airports lose out.

The power is the ability to act through the ANPS. That will be us looking at that and about how that connectivity is baked into the rest of the country if a proposal comes forward for Heathrow to expand.

What mechanism will you use to fix the proportionality of the flights to the expanded Heathrow? How will you fix the proportionality to ensure the regions retain their access? Can you do it all through public service obligations?

The scope of the ANPS will be determined by the Secretary of State, so I cannot fully answer that question. From the last one, and I can guarantee you the next one, we will look at this and at how to do it better. In terms of the public service obligation, I think there are only three at the moment. There is Newquay to Gatwick, City of Derry to Heathrow and Dundee to Heathrow. At the moment, we do not have any thoughts of changing those.

Do you want to come in on that point, David, on what mechanisms might be available?

As the Minister said, the previous ANPS set a very clear expectation that additional domestic routes would be provided through Heathrow expansion. We need to look at that again in scoping the next ANPS. The Minister wants to ensure that it delivers on domestic connectivity, so we need to work that through as part of the ANPS. There are other tools in the kit. We have a making best use policy that enables and supports regional airports in making the best use of their existing assets. That making best use policy is in part based on our understanding of the capacity constraints in regional airports at the moment. They are not full, and therefore making best use of their existing assets feels like the right planning policy in order for them to make the most of what they have. You mentioned public service obligations as well. The Minister referred to three of those public service obligations. We remain open to looking at PSOs for routes that are at risk and in particularly unconnected places. There is a range of tools we can look at in order to support regional airports at the same time as expanding Heathrow.

The Chancellor said that Heathrow expansion will deliver economic benefits across the country, meeting one of the Government’s four tests, but Frontier Economics analysis shows that the growth will be strongly weighted towards London and the south-east. Have you quantified the benefits that will be delivered for regions other than London and the south-east?

I have read the Frontier Economics report. That is a report sponsored by Heathrow. It clearly said, as I mentioned, a 0.43% rise in GDP, which will be good for the country, and 60% of that benefit would be outside the south-east. I want to speak about the statistics that I gave you earlier from the Office for National Statistics. In 2023, it was £20 billion from aviation and in 2022 it was 240,000 jobs. We expect those two figures from the ONS, when we next come to review them as a Department, to have improved substantially because of just the passenger growth we have seen in the last 12 months, and exponentially if we get construction projects around terminal 2 and terminal 5 and the potential runway 3. Don’t forget all the other investment that is going on: a £1 billion transformation plan for terminal 2 at Manchester and a huge terminal improvement plan at Birmingham. There is lots of investment going on in many places in terms of aviation across the country.

Where is this growth predominantly coming from? Is it business passengers? Is it leisure passengers? Is it freight?

It’s everything.

Would you like to rank them?

Would I like to rank them? We are just full. Heathrow is full. It is 95%-plus at the moment, and that can be damaging. It means we begin to leak people to a hub elsewhere, taking the pound out of the UK. It means that we cannot get our goods and freight in because it is also the biggest airport. We are full and we need the capacity. An improved Heathrow also baking in regional connectivity would improve jobs and services right across the realm.

One of our witnesses on the previous panel told us that business use of air travel has not really seen any net growth since 2006, so do you really believe that there is untapped demand out there, or has the market corrected and taken away some of the leisure flights?

Even if there wasn’t business growth, there is leisure growth. Even if there wasn’t leisure growth, there is more demand for freight growth. I met recently with most of the major airline freight providers in the UK, and they all had the same issues about getting slots at Heathrow and the pressures that would come in the future around what time people could fly or come in and what type of aircraft they use, which will get worse unless we improve capacity in the south-east, particularly at Heathrow.

Moving on, the expansion of Heathrow is clearly likely to be very largely funded by the private sector, but what cost do you think there will be to the public purse?

We are going to have to review the ANPS. That is what civil servants will do. There is an indicative cost of doing that. I go back to the point that we don’t know what the proposal is going to be, but they have to meet targets that we provided in the last one. I do not have them to hand at the moment. Surface access improvements that solely benefit the airport are typically funded by the airport itself. How many people get there by train and what sort of car reduction we want to see will have to be met not from the public purse.

Would that include tunnelling the M25 underneath the runway?

We have not seen what the proposal is.

Assuming they come back with the proposal we had last time.

We would expect this to be private sector—

So moving the incinerator, the immigration centre, the M25.

I hear about the incinerator a lot. I must get a briefing note on the incinerator.

But you are saying that all the additional costs—

We have not seen a proposal, so I cannot talk about the incinerator and the M25. All I can say is that surface access transport will have to improve to get more passengers to Heathrow, and therefore we expect Heathrow or any related party that comes forward with that to show how they can fund it.

Okay, so the off-perimeter costs of expansion. Would that also include noise insulation for all those residents who do not currently experience significant aircraft noise but who would, given that flights will be arriving over a built-up area of west London?

As somebody who grew up under the flight path at Manchester, I remember in the ’70s—

These people aren’t currently under a flight path.

—the BAC One-Elevens, the Tridents and the Concordes. I even saw the Space Shuttle do a low pass on a jumbo jet one day. We have two Members from Derby here. We know through Rolls-Royce and others that engines are getting quieter, more efficient and more carbon efficient. We need to think in the future about noise envelopes around airports in particular. The answer specifically to your question, Chair, is yes, we would expect that to be funded by the promoter of the scheme.

The previous ANPS had clear obligations on community compensation, mitigation packages and noise insulation. There were also provisions around night flights, limiting night flight movements and so on. We obviously need to work through that again in the next ANPS. There is a precedent for having clear obligations on that in the previous one.

The Government have been very clear about their search for economic growth. Anybody with experience of Avanti West Coast between Manchester and London would very much agree with your review. I will not travel on it at all because I have had so many nightmare experiences. Going back to the plans for an HS2 north-western leg, that would deliver economic growth. Making the most of the fact that channel tunnel and High Speed 1 utilisation is under 50% would generate economic growth, particularly with so many flights from Heathrow to places relatively easy to reach by rail such as Paris, Brussels, Geneva and Frankfurt. Why is there such a commitment to this particular project rather than several other infrastructure projects that presumably have just as much potential to deliver nationwide growth?

Thank you. I know you have previous experience in the rail industry. It is helpful. For those of us living in the north, it is not a great connection. Possibly Manchester to London is on a good day, but in Scotland, the north-east, Wales and some parts of the south those connections are not good enough. We cannot just live in a bubble in the south-east and have a world-class transport system in one part of the country and then expect everybody else to live by the same standard. For some people, it is going to be easier to fly from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen or Prestwick to Heathrow to hub out to the rest of the world. We hope Avanti will work. The Rail Minister is working at pace to improve performance there. I know that in France they have taken out some domestic routes where they have high-speed TGV lines, but you will know that those lines are world-class, whereas we have one brilliant High Speed 1 line, but High Speed 2 is not where we would want it to be as a nation whatsoever. If High Speed 2 gets to Birmingham, which we think it will now, by 2030, you suddenly have Birmingham airport with, I think, about 11 million passengers currently, and huge potential as well, being only about 35 or 40 minutes from Old Oak Common, so you bring in extra capacity that way. For the rest of us, that rail connectivity and local connectivity is not there. For the five great northern runways—Liverpool, the two at Manchester, Leeds Bradford, and Newcastle—improving TransPennine and Northern and the electrification of those lines through Manchester at the Manchester hub where there is capacity constraint will unlock the potential of the airports that exist along those lines.

You are quite right to talk about France. The reason they have been able to have some of those policies on domestic flights is a comprehensive high-speed network: Paris to Bordeaux in two hours, five minutes, and Paris to Marseilles in three. Paris to Marseilles is similar to London to Scotland. We can all agree that HS2 is not in a good place. It is interesting that we do not feel that we can match that French ambition and competence, particularly given our determination to have national pride. Do you think we should be looking more at that alongside projects such as the one we are discussing today?

Undoubtedly. HS1 has been an unparalleled success. HS2 will get to Birmingham. We will see what happens on that. We have capacity constraints on our west coast main line. The French did some of this around carbon emissions, but UK domestic aviation only accounts for about 4% of our emissions. We have to look at other ways that are going to be more effective to decarbonise, such as the Rolls-Royce engines, the sustainable aviation fuel mandate, and the revenue certainty mechanism that we hope to legislate for in the next few months to begin to build some of that SAF production in our own nation.

Moving on to some of the environmental aspects, you mentioned sustainable aviation fuel. According to the IATA website, the first test flight with biojet fuel was in 2008, but even today, SAF production only accounts for 0.3% of global jet fuel use. Given that very slow progress in adoption of that technology and given that aviation is projected to be the sector that will make the least progress in cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, is this really the sector that is the most appropriate vehicle for achieving economic growth, given our climate commitments?

You stated that as being slow progress. I say to you in all genuineness: if I was going there, I wouldn’t be starting here—that is the famous line—but this Government have acted at incredible pace. They were elected in July. The mandate was put through Parliament in September, with the 2% coming into force on 1 January this year. We know that airlines have sourced that fuel. We want to see more of that fuel sourced in the UK in the future. When parliamentary time allows in this Session, we will legislate for the revenue certainty mechanism and establish a strike price that will give investors more confidence about building those types of facilities in the UK. I could not have acted quicker to begin the decarbonisation of aviation, in addition to establishing the UK Airspace Design Service, on which we had questions earlier, which we have just finished consultation on and we will get up and running.

The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has stated that any aviation expansion has to take place within carbon budgets and within environmental limits. You have already talked about the fantastic work that Rolls-Royce is doing in pushing decarbonisation. What else can we do to achieve that? Can it be achieved?

I said that we have got to 2% of the mandate this year, which the new Government have legislated for. I will just check my figures. That rises to 10% by 2030 and 22% by 2040. We are investing £135 million in the advanced fuels fund as well. This new Government have invested £1 billion in the Aerospace Technology Institute as well to look at how we continue to improve those engines, how we get them quieter and how we get them to use less carbon in the meantime. We are still looking at alternatives to jet fuel for flights. I would love to be the first Minister to have, or at least to leave to my successor, UK internal flights with nothing coming out of the tailpipe, through the use of hydrogen or hydrogen battery. I am not there yet, but I hope to get there, or I hope to leave that legacy for my successor.

Thank you. The previous panel confirmed what others have said: any rise in aviation carbon emissions is going to result in carbon constraints in other sectors. What work have the Government done to understand how higher carbon constraints in other sectors may affect overall economic growth?

Yesterday, I was in Geneva speaking on the floor of the UN at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Inland Transport Committee. We are working right across the globe and showing leadership in this to try to reduce our emissions right across the globe, particularly across the continent, working with our international partners. I also have the maritime brief. We have UK SHORE reducing 50% of our emissions by improving our grid to our ports. We are looking at advanced fuels in maritime and we sponsor the clean maritime demonstration competition. There is a whole range of ways the Department and the Government are looking to decarbonise our transport network.

Were you just covering the transport sector?

Indeed. Because of maritime, we have the International Maritime Organisation in the UK. In addition to the work on seafarers’ rights that we have already introduced, we are pushing for higher environmental standards in the maritime sector right across the planet at this year’s council about taking out more greenhouse gases.

In order for the UK to abide by its legally binding carbon commitments, it is going to have to reduce its overall carbon emissions, and that means not just within transport sectors. Transport is going to have to work in conjunction with the carbon needs for steel and other sectors. What work have the Government done on that? What work has the DFT done with other Government Departments?

Since entering Parliament 11 years ago this week, I have been involved with Sustainable Aviation, and they have developed a clear pathway of what needs to happen within aviation to reduce our emissions. Currently, Chair, there is no way to completely reduce carbon emissions without some form of carbon capture technology as part of that pathway, and that is why the Government I think invested £22 billion—there was an announcement by the Prime Minister in Merseyside a few months ago—in Stanlow in Merseyside and in the Tees Valley around carbon capture technology. Part of the pathway will be through that as well.

With aviation expansion, what analysis has the DFT done on the non-carbon greenhouse gas implications of aviation and aviation expansion?

We currently have a study on what comes out of the tailpipe in terms of the other gases and the impact that that has on climate change. We work with Sustainable Aviation to look at that pathway to make it net zero. I think the target date is 2050.

When will that report be released?

That is out in the public realm now.

That piece of work?

That piece of work with Sustainable Aviation is in the public realm right now. You clearly see on a graph a pathway through airspace modernisation, hydrogen battery and improved technology. You cannot get down to a zero pathway to decarbonise aviation without carbon capture technology. It has to be part of it.

You are going to rely on carbon capture rather than solely on the expansion of SAF and airspace modernisation to achieve decarbonisation in the aviation sector, while also going for expansion overall.

Yes. I have seen the figures. I cannot remember them offhand.

Would you send them to us?

Yes, we will send them to you.

Broadly speaking, we need to reduce the carbon impact of aviation by about 53 megatonnes by the middle of this century. We have previously set out plans for how we will reduce that to about 19 megatonnes through a combination of SAF, fuel efficiency, zero-emission flight, air carbon pricing policies with the rest of the world and investment in the Aerospace Technology Institute. There is a credible path for reducing it by about 30 megatonnes of carbon over the next 25 years. As the Minister said, to get beyond that at the moment in our plans, we assume a degree of carbon capture.

The Government need to set out their plans on the sixth carbon budget period later this year. We are working with DESNZ colleagues on how we put together those plans. As we do so, we need to work out what the economic consequences of them are. That work is ongoing across Government, led by our DESNZ colleagues, to which DFT is making a significant contribution.

I am sure other parliamentary colleagues will be looking at it as well.

I do not think it is binary, either. Carbon capture technology and SAF are growth industries, which we are legislating for. These are creating the industry of the future, and in parts of the country, as we know, like some of our coastal communities, particularly in the north and the central belt in Scotland—

—that have de-industrialised.

Okay, well that’s all right, then. Thank you very much to our witnesses, thank you very much to the secretariat for their very hard work at short notice in producing our papers for today, and thank you to colleagues for your questions. As I said to our other witnesses, if there is anything else you want to send us, please do so. The evidence is really helpful. As I said at the beginning of today’s session, aviation is an area that we will come back to in due course. We have current inquiries ongoing at the moment. That concludes today’s meeting.