Lord Berkeley
Main Page: Lord Berkeley (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Berkeley's debates with the Department for Transport
(12 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Earl Attlee
My Lords, my noble friend asks an important question. The obligation system increases the price of fuel at the pump. It is, in effect, a hidden subsidy, and it works in a very similar way to the renewables obligation for electric power.
Lord Berkeley
Is the noble Earl aware that the addition of biofuels to diesel does quite a lot of damage to engines which stand idle for a long time, such as those of boats and agricultural vehicles? Does he have a solution to this or is the answer to buy non-biofuel diesel for certain uses, such as those I have mentioned?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the noble Lord and I discussed this during consideration of the renewable transport fuel obligation order in Grand Committee. I admitted that there are some handling problems in keeping biofuels in tanks for a long time, as the fuel needs to be circulated. I am confident that the appropriate publications, magazines and so on will alert users to the need to circulate the fuel, but the noble Lord makes an important point.