Draft Motor Fuel (Composition and Content) and Biofuel (Labelling) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2021

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 General Committees

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It was the last Labour Government who introduced the RTFO, which helped to support the UK’s biofuel industry and lower emissions by introducing E5 fuel as an obligation for fuel suppliers, but obviously times have moved on, and the RTFO is in desperate need of reform. For example, I have just been talking to the maritime industry about how it can be reformed for that sector.

The Government have for a long time indicated their intention to move towards E10, so today should in theory be something to celebrate. However, correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that what we have in front of us is only a minimum requirement on suppliers to move to 5.5%. The ambition is E10, but the obligation is much less; it is not really an E10 obligation. I really do not see why the Government are being so unambitious on this, particularly when the majority of responses to their own consultation called for greater ambition.

I know that the Government have claimed that they will review the policy in five years, but given that we have the 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles coming in, now is the window to make real progress on the fossil fuels that are being used in cars, not in five years’ time, when hopefully many car owners will have made the transition to electric. That would be my question to the Minister: why leave it to suppliers to decide whether they will embrace the upper limit of 10% blended biofuels? Also, at what point does she see E5 petrol being phased out?

Does the Minister acknowledge that this will not work unless we have greater transparency in the supply of biofuels? She talked about supporting biofuel production in this country, and the use that various agricultural by-products could be put to, but we know that there will still be imports, and we have real concern about the source of many imported biofuels. Research from Transport and Environment has shown that nearly half of what was described as used cooking oil supplied to the UK last year came from China and Malaysia. Guarantees were not really in place that that oil was genuinely waste oil, and not products that were produced just for use in transportation or diverted away from other uses. We do not want to see that. We want to see waste products used.

We could be fuelling overseas deforestation through a demand for biofuels from supply chains that are not sufficiently transparent. Obviously, that would severely undermine any emissions savings from blending biofuels. There is no point in trying to move towards more sustainable petrol if we are contributing to destroying the Amazon rainforest in the process. I would therefore welcome clarification from the Minister on what plans the Government have to monitor that, to ensure that supply chains for imported biofuels are fully transparent and not linked to deforestation. That is not addressed in today’s legislation.

We need to move beyond a primary focus on biofuels when it comes to the RTFO. Many nations across Europe have taken the step of supporting the inclusion of renewable electricity in similar mechanisms, but the UK is yet to follow suit. I have not seen the transport decarbonisation plan yet. It is rather surprising, given that the statement is about to be made in the House, that when I went to the Vote Office earlier I was told that it would not be available until the Minister sits down. It seems odd to me that we can have a statement discussing a transport decarbonisation plan before people have been able to see it. Quite a lot of outside organisations seem to have obtained an advance copy, so it is a bit frustrating that MPs cannot. I hope that there is something in it on this issue.

The inclusion of renewable electricity in a reformed RTFO would bring many benefits, including securing sustainable funding streams for charge point operators. At the moment, low local authority take-up for Government grants for public charge points has shown the flaws in Department for Transport’s approach to expanding our charging network. The current system of incentives, with short-term support for charge points that offer little financial return, such as those in areas where they will not get much use and there is little chance of the operators being able to recoup money from users, is just not delivering the nationwide network of charge points that we need. They will be concentrated in the urban areas with high use. Reforms to the RTFO could be one way to address that, and I would welcome the Minister clarifying whether her Department is considering expanding the scope of the RTFO after today.

The Government need to be bolder and work to make the RTFO fit for the future. The shift to electric vehicles has to be considered as part of that. More urgently, it needs to be done in a way that ensures that any direct or indirect deforestation is stamped out in our supply chains. With those points in mind, Labour will abstain today on the basis that the SI does nothing to address concerns about overseas deforestation in imported biofuel supply chains, does not deliver on the much needed broader reform to the RTFO, and is deeply unambitious when it comes to the blending obligation on fuel suppliers.