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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the report by Panorama, aired on 3 October 2022 on Drax power station and the burning of wood from primary forests; and what steps he is taking to ensure that biomass complies with strict sustainability criteria.

The regulator, Ofgem, is responsible for auditing the sustainability of biomass used by biomass electricity generators who receive support under the Renewables Obligation and has a process in place for this. As is routine, Ofgem is establishing whether the sustainability criteria have been met by the generator. Sustainability information is publicly available on Ofgem’s website, with the latest dataset accessible here: https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/biomass-sustainability-dataset-2019-20.

The forthcoming Biomass Strategy will set out recommendations for enhancing the UK’s stringent biomass sustainability criteria even further.