Sustainable Aviation Fuel Remaining Stages: Amendment 9

What happened: The House of Commons voted on Amendment 9 to the Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Bill during the bill's remaining stages on 15 October 2025. The amendment, which sought to introduce stricter targets or requirements for the adoption of sustainable aviation fuel, was defeated by 324 votes to 160.

Why it matters: The SAF Bill establishes a mandate requiring a proportion of aviation fuel used in the UK to come from sustainable sources. Amendment 9 would have gone further than the government's current framework, pushing for enhanced obligations on the aviation sector to adopt cleaner fuels more rapidly or more extensively. Its defeat means the bill proceeds without those additional requirements, leaving the government's original targets and timelines in place. The outcome affects airlines, fuel producers, and the broader effort to reduce the carbon footprint of UK aviation.

The politics: The vote divided sharply along party lines. All 314 Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs who voted opposed the amendment, while Conservatives (87), Liberal Democrats (59), Plaid Cymru (4), SNP (3), and smaller groupings backed it. Four independents voted in favour and three against. The government, whose position was to oppose the amendment, succeeded with a comfortable majority of 164. This sits within a pattern visible on the same day, when a related amendment (Amendment 8) was similarly defeated 319 to 151, and an earlier New Clause 5 fell 316 to 78.