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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department categorises burning trees as a source of renewable energy.

The Government considers biomass a renewable, low-carbon energy source. The Government only supports the use of biomass where it complies with strict sustainability criteria. The sustainability criteria require that where biomass is sourced from forests, these should be ‘forest waste or residues’ derived from existing forestry operations and not whole trees purposely grown for bioenergy.