Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Harvey Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

I have to remind the right hon. Lady and the House that no single party—not the Labour party, the Conservative party, the Liberal Democrats or even the Green party—argued in its 2010 manifesto for a decarbonisation target for the power sector. It was this Government and me as Secretary of State who argued for such a target and got the power to set one in the Energy Bill. When it comes to targets and having the policies to meet them, this Government have done far more than the previous one. The previous Government were right to set targets in the Climate Change Act 2008, but they did not produce the policies to meet them. This Government are doing that.

[Sir Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD)]

6. What recent assessment he has made of the long-term environmental effects of Government support for large-scale biomass conversion.

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)]

We agree that effective sustainability controls must be in place for bioenergy. We already have biomass sustainability criteria for the renewables obligation, and we now propose to improve them by adding new sustainable forest management criteria for wood fuel and a requirement for an independent audit, and by setting a trajectory so that greenhouse gas life-cycle savings targets become tougher over time.

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I welcome the commitment to reforestry targets, but how do Ministers stand up the rather curious proposition that wood burning is carbon neutral? They support the conversion of coal-fired stations to wood burning, but that is only carbon neutral if emission at the point of burn is ignored, and it takes up to 98 years for tree growth to neutralise that. Will the Minister confirm that this dubious practice is simply an interim measure? I understand the need to protect the investment at Drax and elsewhere.

[Gregory Barker]

Biomass certainly needs to be sustainable as well as affordable, but it is not carbon neutral. However, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that greenhouse gas savings from biomass are at least 68% less than those for coal. Although it may not be carbon neutral, it is certainly much cleaner so far as carbon is concerned.