My speech at Second Reading: As a Green, I am well aware that a lot of what I say in your Lordships’ House is not supported by anyone around me and that my views on the environment, climate change and the disastrous path we are taking as humans are at best contentious and, at worst, regarded as plain wrong. I am just staggered by the lack of ecological awareness among Members of your Lordships’ House. It defeats me that noble Lords cannot understand the science, cannot see what is in front of them, and still support things such as airport expansion when we know it is bad for the planet—I exclude the noble Earl, Lord Russell, from this, obviously, and some of his colleagues. Luckily, there are people outside—many scientists and people who know what they are talking about better than I do—who can say that we are headed for disastrous circumstances if we do not take climate change seriously.

This whole Bill is just ludicrous in terms of the future of people and planet. I have mostly lost hope that this Government care about people and planet. They have lost all claim to be a green Government, with their attacks on nature in Britain and their decisions to expand aviation. The go-ahead for the expansion of London City Airport, Luton, Gatwick and Stansted means an extra 51 million passengers per annum. If the Government add Heathrow to that total, it is an extra 65 million. The Minister in his opening remarks said that aviation is a “cornerstone” of our economy, or some such. I would say it is a cornerstone of climate collapse. If we cannot see that, I would be happy to have one-to-one sessions with any Peer who would like to discuss this further, because, quite honestly, I am in despair at the lack of awareness about what our future could be.

As I said, luckily there are people outside. For example, Professor Bill Rutherford of Imperial College London said:

“The only way you can make aviation any more sustainable is to do less of it”.

All those extra flights result in either extra emissions or extra farmland taken up growing jet fuel, and that means rising food prices and more public subsidy.

The Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill was appallingly named: there is no such thing as sustainable aviation fuel. That was infuriating as well. It is just greenwash that will leave future Governments needing to do the hard work of behaviour change to achieve net-zero targets. Actually, I am not a supporter of net zero. It is a ridiculous aim; we should be going for less than zero and cutting back completely. Net zero is unrealistic. It is real zero that we need, and less. The climate crisis is accelerating and this Bill would have been a chance to do something about that. Rather than promoting aviation, we need to cut back.

The first step towards stopping more flights leading to accelerating climate change is to deal with private jets. The rich are paying a lot of money for the privilege of wrecking our planet and the Government need to tell them that it is no longer acceptable. Being rich does not excuse you from your responsibilities as global citizens. Flying off for the weekend, perhaps every weekend, has consequences. The ice is melting, the seas are rising, flash floods and storms are becoming more powerful, and heatwaves and droughts are going to hit farming very hard. Our food supplies will be under threat. Change is happening now, not decades in the future. That means we have to act now as well, so private jets should be the first thing that the Government target to cut back on, and this Bill is the obvious opportunity to do that.

Next to the frequent flyers, the Government should be raising the aviation tax on people who take two or more flights a year. Frequent flying is something that well-off people do; we can discourage them by reflecting the true environmental cost in the amount that frequent flyers pay. Business flights have already changed since Covid made us shift towards online working and that trend must be given another shove.

Finally, we are experiencing another record-breaking year for temperatures in this country and across the globe. The next decade will see yet more record-breaking years, as will the decade after that. The decisions being made by this Government on aviation will add to the disaster that the younger generation will have to live and struggle with. I ask noble Lords to stop and rethink. I do not mean just the Government; I mean every single Member of this House who has supported the whole idea of aviation. Stop and think about what you are doing for the future—for your children and grandchildren. You are destroying their future.

Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Ref – Hansard – UK Parliament