Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations (Amendment) Order 2011

Lord Palmer Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradshaw]

My Lords, before the Motion is put to the House, I should like to draw to the attention of the House the fact that the report of the Merits Committee on this order was published last Thursday. Nine noble Lords then debated the order yesterday in the Moses Room so we all expected that some notice would be taken. This morning the order appeared on the Order Paper and so there has been no opportunity to consider what was said in the Moses Room. This does not reflect well on the House or show that the Government really value the opinions of Peers before they place matters on the Order Paper.

[Lord Palmer]

My Lords, I should like to echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. Surely it must be an insult to those of us who spent 90 minutes yesterday in the Moses Room in that the noble Earl agreed to come back to several of us on many major points at issue on this extremely complex subject. Now, less than 24 hours later, we are being asked on the Floor of the House to agree to the order.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, the Minister had a difficult time with this order yesterday, not least because, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, indicated, the Merits Committee took a rather dim view of its inadequacies. Her Majesty’s Opposition think that this order should go through because of the real urgency of the position for the industry. But what I sought to point out yesterday, and what other noble Lords pointed out more forcefully than I did, were the inadequacies of the instrument. I am certainly of the view that we should let it go through today but I hope that the Minister will take on board the fact that the criticisms yesterday were serious ones and that we expected the Government to have taken a more definitive position on the issue so as to reassure the industry in circumstances where underinvestment in this very important sector is occurring because of a complete lack of confidence in government policy. The Minister should therefore not be surprised that he is being pressed further today, as indeed he was yesterday.