Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Stephenson Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

The renewables industry, the solar industry and onshore and offshore wind are indeed a great British success story, and other countries wanted to talk to us about them. There is a great opportunity for exports for business. I am happy to say that a number of Ministers spoke to me about this in Paris and I think there will be great opportunities. As regards individual wind farms or proposals, I must ask the hon. Lady to write to me separately so that I can look at those, but I gently remind her that the Government are committed to making sure that we deliver on our renewables target while ensuring that we keep bills down. That will always drive us to make sure that we get that balance.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

8. What steps she has taken to support the anaerobic digestion and biogas sector.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Andrea Leadsom)]

First, may I say how delighted I am to see my hon. Friend fully recovered and back in his place?

We support AD and biogas through the feed-in tariff scheme, the renewables obligation and the renewable heat incentive. The Government have provided £124 million of support under the renewables obligation, £53 million under the renewable heat incentive, and enough support under the feed-in tariff scheme to deploy 161 MW since 2010. These technologies can make a valuable contribution to our decarbonisation targets and we will continue to support them.

[Andrew Stephenson]

I thank my hon. Friend for her kind remarks. I recently met Salterforth resident Peter King, along with representatives of Kirk Environmental, at my Earby advice surgery to discuss anaerobic digestion and biogas. Does my hon. Friend agree that, compared with wind or solar, biogas has significant benefits in delivering predictable and consistent amounts of renewable energy into the network?

[Andrea Leadsom]

Indeed. There are real benefits for the UK in having a wide range of renewable energy sources, but my hon. Friend is right to point out that as the sector develops in the UK, biogas technologies could bring additional benefits, including providing baseload energy, injection into the gas grid and potential use as transport biofuels.