British Bioethanol Industry

Debate between John Howell and Nicholas Dakin

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Nic Dakin]

I am drawing on the expertise in that “File on 4” programme. Obviously, any serious issues need to be looked at properly. Nobody wants the introduction of a new fuel to have disadvantages for people. It is very important that E5 remains available, as the right hon. Gentleman indicated.

The British bioethanol industry is perhaps not as widely known as it should be, but it is something of a British success story. Over £1 billion has been invested in the past decade, allowing British workers using British-grown produce to produce British bioethanol to help fuel British vehicles and feed British livestock, while reducing the UK’s carbon footprint and putting fewer pollutants into the atmosphere.

Until very recently, the UK had two of Europe’s biggest bioethanol plants: Ensus created a state-of-the-art facility on Teesside with an initial £250 investment in 2010, and Vivergo Fuels created a £400 million plant in Hull in 2013. Both distilled locally grown wheat to produce bioethanol, with protein-rich animal feed created as a by-product. The Ensus plant could produce 400 million litres of ethanol a year, and Vivergo Fuels 420 million litres. Each employed over 100 people directly as well as supporting a further 6,000 supply-chain jobs, including farmers and hauliers. The UK also has a further plant in Norfolk owned by British Sugar, which can produce 70 million litres a year.

As the Minister is well aware, Vivergo announced in September that it was closing its plant in Hull, and Ensus announced that it was pausing production at its plant on Teesside in November. It is not an overstatement to say the industry has collapsed in only a matter of months, and its future is dependent on the Government taking urgent action on the introduction of E10.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I want to know—the hon. Gentleman might be coming on to this—whether he has done a calculation of the effect on the savings on air pollution that these fuels will have. Maybe he could tell us what that is.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nic Dakin]

I will come on to that in due course. If the hon. Gentleman can be patient, I will come to it when I come it.

[John Howell]

I am desperately eager to know.

[Nic Dakin]

I know.

Conflict in South Sudan

Debate between John Howell and Nicholas Dakin

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the conflict in South Sudan.

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I thank my colleagues from the all-party parliamentary group for Sudan and South Sudan, as well as Will Archer, who provides the secretariat, for their hard work to raise issues of peace, social justice and human rights in both countries. I would like to use my time in this short debate to set the scene of the horrific conflict in South Sudan and urge our Government to stay the course of peace in the world’s newest state.

In the world of international crises, competition to be the worst humanitarian catastrophe is tough, to say the least. According to the UN, today we have the worst refugee crisis in the world since Rwanda in Syria, the worst humanitarian crisis in 50 years in Yemen and the worst man-made disaster in the world in Myanmar. There is the return of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the renewed bloodshed led by child soldiers in Central African Republic, and the growing African slave trade in Libya. Yet sadly, in the grimmest competition of all, South Sudan is up there with the worst.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman join me in welcoming the announcement in the last few hours that the President of South Sudan and the rebel leader have agreed to meet for talks to try to restore the 2015 peace negotiations?

[Nic Dakin]

That is good news, indeed. We all need to work together to help peace to prevail. Sadly, in the history of South Sudan, we have been here before. That is not a reason for us not to make better progress this time. I know the Minister is focused on this issue, because I have heard her speak on it many times. She will want to ensure that the British Government do everything they can to encourage a positive process.

Born in 2011 after decades of conflict with Sudan, South Sudan became the world’s newest country and a beacon of hope for post-conflict societies. The eyes of the world watched as a brand-new state was formed with the help of millions of dollars from the international community. Barack Obama said proudly at the time,

“Today is a reminder that after the darkness of war, the light of a new dawn is possible.”

Sadly, the jubilant scenes of July 2011 quickly faded into violence. In December 2013, conflict erupted between warring factions of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement party, quickly escalating into a national crisis, which divided communities along ethnic fault lines. The regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development—IGAD—brokered a peace deal in 2015, to which the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) alluded, but by July 2016 conflict had kick-started again and the last two years has seen escalating violence and tensions across the country.