Barton Biomass Plant

Debate between Charles Hendry and Sheila Gilmore

Wednesday 27th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)]

It is a huge pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. We worked closely together on the Energy and Climate Change Committee before the last election. I know that you have a great personal interest in all these energy-related matters, and I am delighted that we have a chance to debate them in front of you this afternoon.

Let me begin by thanking the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) for securing the debate and for the way in which she has introduced it. Her constituents will feel that she has done them a very important service by initiating a debate in this Chamber, raising their concerns and giving us the chance to debate them broadly. I also welcome the constructive contributions from other hon. Members, who adopted exactly the right tone for such a debate.

I hope that the hon. Lady understands that I am not in a position to comment on individual planning applications. There is a legal process for applications to go through, and it would be wrong for Ministers to intervene in individual matters which quite properly fall under the control of local authorities. None the less, I am keen to respond to some of her points, and to set out the importance of biomass and the safeguards that are needed to reassure her constituents about the role that it might play.

I agree with the hon. Lady about the importance of a well-informed debate. Her constituents need to feel that they can understand the issues that are being addressed. Plain English should therefore be used in all documentation. I recognise that the subject requires quite technical information, but everyone has an obligation to put that forward in the most straightforward way possible. The only way that we can gain public acceptability is if people can understand exactly what is being proposed and feel that they can genuinely have their views heard. I will seek to reassure her, in my contribution, that that is absolutely the intention of our planning changes.

Our objective as a Government is to see that there is constant upward pressure on standards. Such an objective does not stand still; we do not lock it in at any particular point in time. Standards must evolve over time. The types of technology being introduced now are of an infinitely higher standard than those of the past, and that is a process that we want to see taken forward.

Biomass has a very important part to play in our commitment to develop renewable energy. Bioenergy more generally has an important role to play in that regard. Biomass offers a significant opportunity for this country. Energy crops, wood and municipal waste play a vital role in that process, and we encourage people to consider that. I understand the point that the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) made when she said that such materials should come from sustainable sources. We are considering the right standards that we must put in place in that respect, and we will introduce new mandatory sustainability standards next year. People have to be reassured that we are pursuing this in a way that is globally sustainable. We are not just looking at a particular local issue without understanding the wider implications.

Our challenge is to ensure our energy security and to reduce our carbon emissions. We want to rebuild our energy infrastructure in a way that creates green jobs and helps to build economic prosperity. The efficient use of sustainable biomass will play a key role in meeting that challenge. We want Britain to be a global leader in the transition to a low-carbon economy. We are committed to producing 15% of our energy from renewable sources by 2020 and to reducing our carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. Sustainable biomass is the single most important contributor to our renewable energy ambitions. Heat and electricity from biomass can provide nearly a third of UK needs from renewables by 2020—about 4.5% of overall energy demand.

Today, biomass provides around 3% of UK electricity and 0.6% of heat demand. Bioenergy offers the rare benefit of being a renewable technology that it is not intermittent. It can generate electricity or heat on demand at any time of the day or night. We welcome the security of supply that that brings. We also recognise that delivering our ambition for renewables will not be easy. Substantial changes will be required as the UK moves away from the familiar technologies that are used today. Decisions taken now will shape the country’s energy future for many decades to come, and it is vital that we make the right decisions and carry people with us.

I recognise that the investment challenge is large, not only for renewables but for all the types of low-carbon generation that the UK will need. We will require local communities and the private sector to work together to deliver the right energy development if we are to achieve our aims of energy security, climate security, and green growth. That is why we have committed so strongly to devolving decision making from central to local level as much as we can. We want to see communities and individuals having a stake in our collective low-carbon future, and we want them to choose the technologies that work for them in their neighbourhoods. The Minister with responsibility for planning, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), will publish detailed proposals about how that process will work, but the involvement of local communities and their right to determine how they evolve is absolutely at the heart of the process.

We recognise, however, that with choice comes responsibility. It is important for local communities carefully to consider proposed projects in their neighbourhood. Each planning application should be judged on its merits, and not all sites will be considered suitable. A vigorous debate over the pros and cons of all projects is essential to ensure that all the issues are teased out.

In recognition of the important role that communities play in hosting renewable energy developments, we will bring forward proposals to allow communities to retain the business rates associated with renewable energy projects. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston talked about the impact on communities of traffic and related issues, but the benefit from those business rates could significantly help to address those issues locally. We believe that the communities that host developments for the wider, national good should be recognised through the retention of business rates for the contribution that they have made.

I will now look more directly at some of the issues that the hon. Lady raised about public health. A great deal of concern has been expressed about the effect on air quality, the natural environment and the health of communities in the vicinity of an incinerator. I recognise that those are absolutely crucial concerns, both for the hon. Lady’s constituents and for people elsewhere around the country, and I can reassure her that all modern waste incinerators and biomass incinerators are subject to the most stringent pollution controls. Emissions from waste incinerators are more strictly regulated than emissions from coal, gas or any other form of power generation from combustion.

The proposer—that is, the company bringing forward the plan for the Barton plant—must produce an environmental statement covering transport and social and environmental issues. In addition, modern incinerators must comply with the waste incineration directive, which sets strict emissions limits for pollutants. It is in that regard that the best of class and the best of kind must be considered. The Environment Agency will not grant the permits required for an incinerator to operate if a facility is not compliant with the waste incineration directive.

It might be helpful if I set out the extremely rigorous process that a 20 MW facility—that, I believe, is the scale of the plant proposed at Barton—that primarily uses wood waste must go through. Such a facility would be likely to be subject to the environmental permitting regulations and, as I have mentioned, the waste incineration directive. Both the regulations and the directive are regulated by the Environment Agency. The legislation sets strict environmental standards for all plants burning waste, including waste wood, and standards relating to a range of pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, heavy metals and dioxins.

If the Environment Agency were to issue a permit, it would need to cover issues such as: the limits on emissions to air, water, sewers, land and groundwater; the disposal of ash; operating conditions, such as temperature, oxygen and polluting gas concentrations; conditions on the fuel that can be burned; monitoring and reporting requirements; conditions to achieve control of noise emissions; and energy efficiency.

The Environment Agency would then regulate the plant by: requiring continuous monitoring of the main pollutants for which limits are set and periodic monitoring of other substances; making regular announced and unannounced inspections; investigating non-compliance with any condition of the permit, and taking enforcement action if needed, including by issuing notices, prosecuting serious breaches or, potentially, revoking the permit.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston also raised her concern about data suppression. There are absolutely extraordinary powers in that regard, so regulatory bodies such as the Environment Agency can be absolutely certain that nothing was being suppressed. That is an integral part of the process, and we believe that the monitoring of these issues is central. We also believe that if there is to be public acceptance of the green agenda, which we are very keen to pursue, the public must believe that standards will be rigorously enforced.

[Sheila Gilmore]

One of the difficulties for local communities is that this is a highly technical area, and a lot of the detail of what is required is also highly technical. I wondered whether the Minister had any proposals about how information on these issues can be made available in an accessible manner to local communities, so that they can judge what is happening. I say that because obviously one of the difficulties is that this area is so highly technical that people feel almost suspicious of what is going on. Are there ways in which public education could be carried out by the Government to assist local communities?

[Charles Hendry]

The hon. Lady raises an extremely important point. There is a very important role in that regard for the green non-governmental organisations—people who are trusted in this area. I suspect that the power companies would give rise to a question mark, in terms of public trust in the message that they are giving, and I think that the Government come with that health warning, too. The green NGOs therefore have a very important contribution to make, and if their representatives could come to community meetings, put information on their websites or produce materials saying, “We have looked at these issues—the health matters and the environmental issues—and we are satisfied that these plants meet the criteria and can make a positive contribution towards the development of the green, low-carbon economy,” that would help to reassure people. However, I will reflect on the hon. Lady’s point and see whether there are things that we can do through our departmental website to point people in the right direction towards independent sources of information, so that they can gain the reassurance that the hon. Lady is seeking on their behalf.

I also want to talk about some of the concerns that have been expressed generally about the emissions from biomass waste. Emissions from energy from waste plants have fallen considerably in recent years as a result of the stringent standards that have been applied. Biomass burning actually causes only a small fraction of air quality impacts in the UK; the majority of those impacts are caused by transport.

Studies of the health of communities living in the vicinity of energy from waste plants have failed to establish any convincing link between emissions and adverse effects on public health. Indeed, the latest scientific evidence on the health effects of modern municipal waste incinerators has recently been reviewed by the Health Protection Agency. Its report, published in September 2009, concluded that modern plants that are well run and regulated do not pose a significant threat to public health.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston asked about the future of the work of the HPA. At this stage, a significant amount of work is being carried out by my ministerial colleagues to ensure that the critical work of organisations such as the HPA will be continued by different organisations. The decision to remove and get rid of some of the public bodies involved in this area does not in any way demonstrate that we do not value the work that they do; rather, it shows that we think that very often that work can be better done elsewhere. My ministerial colleagues are bringing forward clear proposals about how the work of organisations such as the HPA can be continued. Although it is clearly not possible to rule out completely adverse health effects from incinerators, any potential damage from modern, well run and well regulated incinerators is likely to be so small that it would be undetectable.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh East raised the issue of the sustainability of biomass, which I also want to touch on. We believe that biomass that is grown, harvested, processed and transported sustainably can be a very important low-carbon energy source. However, we recognise the critical importance of taking action to ensure that rapid growth in bioenergy does not result in the loss of important habitats, either at home or abroad, or in the release of more carbon than it is saving. That is why we will introduce sustainability criteria to ensure that the biomass power generation supported by the renewables obligation is sustainably sourced. All solid feedstocks used by generators that are above 1 MW capacity will be required to make greenhouse gas savings of 60% compared to fossil fuel and to avoid deforestation or impacts on diverse habitats and high-carbon stock resources, such as peat. Similar standards will be introduced for biomass that is used for heat.

I understand that the proposed Barton biomass plant intends to use waste wood as its main source of feedstock. I am aware that the wood panel industry prides itself on the use that it makes of wood, but there are still considerable amounts going to landfill currently, and we are keen to reduce those amounts. More generally, we think that waste should be considered more as a resource than as the problem that it is seen as today. Too much wood continues to go to landfill, and landfill itself is a blight that affects many communities. Our constituents are rightly concerned about ensuring that the amount of wood going to landfill is reduced, ultimately to nothing. As I say, we must see waste as a resource and, where it cannot be recycled, we must see how it can be reused, including as an energy source. In that respect, we believe that biomass has an important contribution to make.

This has been a constructive and helpful debate. If people in the constituency of the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston have further issues and concerns, notwithstanding the fact that I cannot comment on individual applications, I will be more than happy to receive correspondence from the hon. Lady or her constituents. However, I hope that my comments have been helpful in putting in context the role that we believe biomass can play in the future, and in outlining the very stringent controls that are in place regarding emissions from, and the health consequences of, biomass.

Question put and agreed to.