Biofuels: Production

(asked on 3rd September 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to promote ethanol production in the UK.


Answered by
Nadhim Zahawi Portrait
Nadhim Zahawi
This question was answered on 13th September 2021

The UK biofuel market, including bioethanol, has been supported since 2008 through the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO). The RTFO is a certificate trading scheme which sets targets and provides financial incentives for the supply of sustainable biofuels. This month the government has introduced E10 as the standard petrol across Great Britain. The introduction of E10 increases the amount of bioethanol blended with petrol sold at forecourts in the UK. E10’s introduction has been welcomed by the UK bioethanol industry as positive for the environment and jobs in UK production plants and supply chain.

More broadly, the chemicals sector is crucial to the UK; with 83% of employment outside of London and the South East it provides high-skilled, highly paid jobs across the UK and supplies essential inputs to almost all other manufacturing industries.

Last year's UK Budget sets out our ambition to spread opportunity across the UK, led by vital investment, to help important businesses such as chemical companies to grow, and improve access to skills, capital and ideas. This ambition is being supported by measures such as the new two-year super-deduction that will cut companies’ tax bill by 25p for every pound they invest in new equipment and mean they can reduce their taxable profits by 130% of the cost. In addition, the Government has a target for total R&D investment to reach 2.4% of GDP by 2027 and in the recent Innovation strategy we have committed to increase our annual public investment in R&D to a record £22billion.

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