 House of Commons |
Session 2007 - 08 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Climate Change |
Climate Change Bill [Lords] |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:John Benger, Sara
Howe Committee Clerks †
attended the Committee Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 8 July 2008(Afternoon)[Mr. Peter Atkinson in the Chair]Climate Change Bill [Lords]Schedule 6Renewable
transport fuel
obligations Amendment
proposed [this day]: No. 1, in schedule 6, page 75,
line 38, leave out subsection (2) and
insert— ‘(2) It is the duty
of the Administrator to ensure that only renewable transport fuel
that— (a) causes or
contributes to the reduction of carbon emissions over its total
lifecycle from planting or production to use,
and (b) contributes to
sustainable development and the protection or enhancement of the
national or global environment
generally, qualifies as a
permitted fuel under this Act.’.—[Martin
Horwood.] 4
pm Question
again proposed, That the amendment be
made. Mr.
John Gummer (Suffolk, Coastal) (Con): I am reminded that
amendment No. 1 is narrowly drawn. It is not about the generalities of
biofuels, but about the role of the administrator. I am sure that
Members would agree that the role of the administrator is of
considerable importance in the light of the growing understanding of
concerns about the origins and derivations of biofuels. I declare an
interest: for many years our company has been working with the largest
manufacturer of biofuels from used fat. Indeed, we helped to develop
the modern techniques that make that a very successful procedure. As
should be the case when one declares an interest, I know a bit about
the subject, and I support the Liberal Democrat proposals. If the
presumption is not tested clearly that biofuels are better than mineral
oils and that they do more for the environment than the equivalent
fossil fuel, we bring the whole process into disrepute. That ought to
be our main concern. It is very important to make that distinction, and
I have indeed sought do so for a very long time.
I do not
blame the Government, because it was difficult to get biofuels taken
seriously, and that has not been helped by the way in which they have
been seen, first, as the be all and end all, and the answer to every
possible prayer—maidenly or otherwise—and, secondly, by
the same people, as precisely the opposite. It is said that there is no
good biofuel to be found. Sometimes, those in the campaigning movements
should pause awhile and recognise that it is not satisfactory to march
people up to the top of the hill, and then march them down again. A
little more careful consideration in the first place and a little less
precipitate action in the second place, might make it easier for those
of us with
responsibilities to get a bit nearer the truth. It might also help us to
avoid the “I told you sos” from the climate change
sceptics, such as the Daily Mail, and all other trouble makers
in this area. I hope, therefore, that those from the green
organisations who read the report of this debate will recognise that
they have not helped the debate about biofuels one little
bit.
The
Minister for the Environment (Mr. Phil Woolas):
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. If I wanted to use
taxpayers’ money, I would cross-reference the addresses of
people who wrote to me in favour of biofuels with the addresses of
those who wrote to me recently against biofuels. But I shall not waste
the taxpayers’ money.
Mr.
Gummer: That temptation arises on many occasions. I am
glad that the Minister has rightly fought against temptation, but I
know exactly what he means—the same is true of other things in
life.
We must
therefore try to make the Bill the most sensible answer possible. It
goes against a lifetime’s experience to say this, but I think
that the Liberal Democrats were right to table amendment No.
1—they know that that is my general view. It is right to make
the changes that they have proposed, first because this is a matter of
life cycles. It is quite a difficult thing to do, but at the same time
it is essential. One cannot say that particular biofuels from
particular sources are always as beneficial in one circumstance as
another.
Let me give
an example: biofuels produced close to the point of use are likely to
have a lower carbon footprint than those produced a very long way away
that have to be carried a long distance, although not necessarily. A
biofuel source may be much more carbon intensive if the fuel is
produced using a particular process rather than another way. A lot of
research has shown that to be true.
I commend to
the Minister the work of Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, which he
supports. That partnership has produced some good work on which we can
base our judgments. I was sad that the Government found themselves
unable to use its work from the beginning on the renewable transport
fuel obligation. I hope that they can use it now and the amendment will
enable it to be used.
Subsection
(2)(b) of the amendment would widen the tone of the phrase by using the
words “enhancement”, “protection”,
“national or global environment” and
“generally”. They are all useful additions that would
help to achieve what the Government really want. I hope that the
Government feel that they can take that on
board. Finally,
the amendment is valuable because it would add to the administration of
the system—a point that you, Mr. Atkinson, drew our
attention to earlier on. That is important because we must move to a
world in which we take these matters into account automatically and
without a second thought, so that this is not some great new operation
stuck out there, but simply the way that we think and the means by
which we move forward. It is what my mother used to refer to as
“good habits”. There is a lot to be said for doing things
the right way all the time. I shall put it bluntly: people who find
themselves in extremis revert to type, so it is valuable for them to
have good habits. When something crops up that they did not expect, I
want the default mode of a society and a Government to be, “This
is how we behave and this is
the mechanism that we always use”. Therefore, I congratulate the
Liberal Democrats for tabling the amendment, because it not only makes
the point that needs to be made, but sets an example about how we ought
to behave in all
circumstances. We
should ensure that the two elements are measured—first, the life
cycle, so that we know what the carbon footprint really is; and
secondly, how it contributes to sustainable development, not only to
the protection of, but to the enhancement of both the national and the
global environment. All that should be seen not just in specifics, but
in generalities. Therefore, I hope that the Government will find this a
suitable amendment to accept. I know that it is always difficult to
accept amendments but, after all, this one is in line with their own
thinking.
David
Maclean (Penrith and The Border) (Con): May I say how
relieved I am that my right hon. Friend has moved away from exhorting
the Minister to be vulgar and is extolling the virtues of his
mother’s good habits. The Committee will be on safer ground if
we stick with the latter—not to mention the habits of any
dustbin men. I rise generally to support, if not the amendment, the
thrust of what has been said by my right hon. Friend and the hon.
Member for Cheltenham. The Minister may say that the amendment is not
necessary, because proposed new section 125A(2) of the Energy Act 2004,
on page 75, already does what the amendment would do and that the
Government intend to ensure that the administrator promotes only good
biofuels.
A few years
ago, I was one of those who thought that biofuels could do no wrong,
but I was wrong to think that. I was perhaps looking at the issue from
a Cumbrian or a United Kingdom perspective. I looked at the acres and
acres of set-aside and at the weeds and thistles and thought,
“Goodness me, why are we promoting that? I know that
there’s a wildlife element involved, but can’t we grow
biofuels there instead?” I was looking at the issue from the
perspective of what we could do in our localities to grow indigenous
British crops closer to home and convert them into biofuel, because I
thought that was a better alternative to leaving land fallow or set
aside. In those circumstances, there was a place for biofuels, and I
called for more of them to be produced in Cumbria, so that we did not
need to have a plague of ghastly wind farms, like a noose around the
neck of the Lake district.
In the past
few years, however, I have seen certain countries cut down their
original, primal rain forests to grow sugar cane to convert into
biofuels, and I therefore joined the school of thought that believes
that biofuels can do no right. That, too, is wrong, and I suspect that
the truth lies somewhere in between, as my right hon. Friend the Member
for Suffolk, Coastal said. It is utterly wrong to cut down original
rain forests to grow short-term crops—sugar cane or date palms
for palm oil—that are then converted into biofuels and
transported hundreds of thousands of miles around the world.
Colleagues on
both sides of the Committee will be relieved to know that I am not
going down the old biodiversity and rain forest speech route again, but
it is a million times better to keep rain forests intact and preserve
our biodiversity than to cut them down for biofuels. It is better for
our carbon footprint to let them grow ad infinitum and then to let them
rot and grow
afresh than it is to cut them down—that immediately releases
carbon—than to grow short-term crops for biofuels that do
nothing to reduce our carbon footprint.
All that I
want from the Minister is an absolute assurance that, even if the
Government will not accept the amendment, the administrator will take
into account the thrust of what the hon. Member for Cheltenham and my
right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal have said and will
promote the supply of transport fuel using biofuels only if those
biofuels have not been produced by destroying a better crop, such as
primal rain forest or our upland bogs and peatlands, which have locked
carbon in.
I have no
objection to using biofuels if they are from short-term coppice or
myriad other crops that I have never heard of and do not understand, if
they come from close to home and if they do not involve a huge number
of whatever the equivalent of food miles is—I suppose that the
term would be fuel miles. Similarly, I have no objection to biofuels if
we do not cause more destruction or release more carbon into the
atmosphere to create the modern environment to grow short-term biofuel
crops. That is not the way to go, and I look forward to the
Minister’s assurance.
Mr.
Woolas: It is nice to see you back in the Chair,
Mr. Atkinson. Let me say at the start how grateful I am to
my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport for making
the statement on the Gallagher review to the House before we got to the
amendment. I would like to say that that was a consequence of my
Machiavellian and detailed planning, but I have always believed in the
cock-up theory, not in the conspiracy theory. Seriously, however, it is
good for the Committee that we are debating the amendment after the
statement on the Gallagher review, because I suspect that right hon.
and hon. Members would have smelled a rat and seen a conspiracy where
there simply was not one.
The schedule
and therefore the amendment are not about the rights and wrongs of the
renewable transport fuel obligation. As you rightly said,
Mr. Atkinson, they are about an amendment to the way in
which the administrator works. However, the amendment tabled by the
hon. Member for Cheltenham is helpful in that it addresses the
instruction to the administrator on how we may improve the confidence
of the consumer and show that, under the scheme, biofuels are
sustainable. That is the intention of schedule 6, in which we have made
amendments that build on the policy and improve its functioning in
exactly the area on which the hon. Gentleman tabled his amendment. It
is about increasing sustainability and, with it, consumer confidence,
let alone the environmental sustainability that we are all in favour
of. 4.15
pm I
agree with the hon. Gentleman and I can give an assurance to the right
hon. Member for Penrith and The Border that the Government agree with
the policy behind the amendment. I have a problem with the amendment,
which I will explain, if I may, Mr. Atkinson, but with your
permission I shall briefly outline the purpose of the schedule before
addressing the amendment specifically, otherwise I may lose the thread
of the argument.
The changes to
the renewable transport fuel obligation that we are advancing in the
schedule are designed to enhance the operation of the order to give
increased flexibility, but they are not essential to the operation of
the RTFO. We are not debating whether that goes ahead, but talking
about how it works. Under the schedule, a number of changes are made to
the provisions of the Energy Act 2004, in order to improve
it. Proposed
new section 125 would replicate the existing provision for setting up a
non-departmental public body and appointing it as the administrator, so
it preserves the effect of the order appointing the Renewable Fuels
Agency. Proposed new section 125A would place a new duty on the
administrator of the scheme to promote the supply of renewable fuel,
which delivers carbon savings and contributes to sustainable
development or general environmental protection. There is consensus on
that point throughout the Committee. We want to use schedule
6 to improve the instruction to the administrator to ensure that there
is sustainability. The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for
Cheltenham goes a little bit further and, as I said earlier, we agree
with that
policy. Of
course, we acknowledge the point that the right hon. Member for
Suffolk, Coastal made about the worries about some biofuels and the
production methods relating to some biofuels, but we do not wish to
throw the baby out with the bath water. We recognise that to encourage
research and development in future generations of biofuels, it is
necessary to help create a market for existing biofuels so long as they
are sustainable, as far as is humanly
possible. Proposed
new section 125B would enable the Secretary of State to give written
directions to the administrator about the use of any power that the
administrator has, under an RTF order, to require information from fuel
suppliers or to specify the form of the information or the period
within which it is required. That power enables us to instruct the
administrator to provide and report on the information that all of us
want to
see. That
is an abridged version of the rationale for the new schedule. Let me
turn to amendment No. 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Cheltenham. I
have already said that the Government agree with the policy behind the
amendment. Let me take Committee members through the reasons, which I
hope will satisfy them, why we do not want the specific wording. I
strongly believe that I can convince the Committee that we are getting
to where the hon. Gentleman wants to be, but by a route which, because
of the European Union interest that he mentioned, gets us to the right
place. The
criteria and methodology for demonstrating the carbon saving and
sustainability of the products is complex. I do not want to hide behind
that. We are committed to certification and sustainability criteria.
The amendment would introduce a requirement under law that affected
entitlement to certificates for the selling of biofuels and,
consequently, the biofuels market. It would not define what is
required. Without an amendment to the Renewable Transport Fuel
Obligations Order 2007, of which the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle
reminded us, to provide the necessary definitions, the law would be
uncertain. It would therefore be left to the courts to decide on the
criteria and the
methodology. My
fear is that such uncertainty about the validity of certificates issued
in the meantime could be used by those opposed to what we want to
achieve to undermine
the scheme. I think there is a consensus that the criteria and method
for measuring carbon savings and sustainability should be set on a
European Union-wide basis because we wish to create an EU market for
good biofuels, rather than going it alone. It is an area where there is
a self-evident benefit from an EU-wide
policy. My
problem is that, at present, the European Union criteria and methods
are being developed. I am advised that the EU law falls under the
technical standards directive, which we strongly support. It is not
something that Europe is imposing on us against our will. That will
never happen. I want to make it clear that we support that because it
is in our interests to have a biofuels market that it is EU-based. The
technical standards directive does not currently allow member states to
implement legislation that covers the same
ground. Under
the directive, UK law setting carbon and sustainability requirements,
including the amendment and other associated amendments to the 2007
order, would be subject to a stand-still period to prevent its
implementation for at least 12 months to enable the EU criteria to be
agreed and adopted. Furthermore, if we were unilaterally to introduce
the criteria and method in the United Kingdom, it might be difficult to
ensure compliance with EU trade rules. That is a subsidiary argument,
but one that I put before the hon. Member for
Cheltenham. If
the amendment were accepted, it would be legally ineffective until such
time as the EU carbon-saving and sustainability requirements are
adopted, at which point it would be superseded. My argument to the
right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border is not the usual
ministerial contention that the amendment is not necessary because it
is covered anyway, but that it is not necessary for different reasons.
First, it would be ineffective for a year and, secondly, when we have
the EU policy, it would be
superseded. Martin
Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD): The Minister makes a
technically accurate and important point that was made also in another
place. I referred earlier to the possibility of the EU’s
legislative timetable not going according to schedule and the directive
not being adopted before the next European elections in June 2009. That
raises a different scenario, which the hon. Gentleman should
address.
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