Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Gregory Barker]

Biomass certainly needs to be sustainable as well as affordable, but it is not carbon neutral. However, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that greenhouse gas savings from biomass are at least 68% less than those for coal. Although it may not be carbon neutral, it is certainly much cleaner so far as carbon is concerned.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

A number of recent papers—the Searchinger paper, the Hudiburg paper and the Schulze paper—have noted the problems of life-cycle biomass. The Minister is right to have taken steps to address that in forest regrowth and the sustainability standards, but he has not yet addressed the impoverishment of soils and how the resulting increase in the use of fertiliser will lead to an increase in emissions. Will he publish the basis on which he amended his Department’s projections on biomass?

[Gregory Barker]

The hon. Gentleman makes a sensible point. He is right to highlight the impacts not just on the burning of wood or biomass, but on indirect land-use change. The Government are taking this seriously and we are working on it with colleagues at the Department for Transport. In order to be effective, land-use change needs to be dealt with on a pan-European basis. We would welcome support from throughout the House for work with our partners in Europe to put in place robust sustainability criteria.

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[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)]

This coalition is absolutely committed to driving a transformation in the take-up of community energy, so we are really keen to help community groups such as the ones my hon. Friend mentions. That is why we established LEAF—the local energy assessment fund—with £10 million and the low carbon communities challenge with up to £20 million. I would be delighted to talk to my hon. Friend about how we can help his communities to access that cash.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

T7. What could be more topical than a challenge to the recently announced infallibility of the Minister of State, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes). Indeed, there has been such a challenge—from Mitsubishi, Vestas, Alstom, Areva, Doosan and Gamesa. The Minister maintains that there should be no decarbonisation target until 2016; they have said that postponing the 2030 target decision until 2016 creates entirely avoidable political risks and slow growth in the low-carbon sector, handicaps the UK supply chain, reduces UK research and development and produces fewer jobs.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are grateful; we have got the gist.