Gregory
Barker: I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak to
this amendment, and I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on tabling it. I
should first like to remind the Committee of events that took place in
Committee Room 11, down the corridor, on 23 October last year, when a
Delegated Legislation Committee met to vote on the renewable transport
fuel obligation. Despite the fact that the Government’s own
briefings admitted
that “There
is currently no internationally agreed definition of a
‘sustainable biofuel’, nor a working standard that could
be
imposed”, the
Government Members on the Committee proceeded to vote in favour of
making the RTFO law. The only MPs on that Committee to vote against the
RTFO on the grounds that it had no sustainability criteria attached to
it were from the Conservative party—the Liberal Democrats
abstained—so the RTFO became
law. I
am therefore delighted—genuinely pleased—that the Liberal
Democrats have looked more closely at the issue and that they have
clearly decided that things must change. Although I am happy to support
the amendment, it is a shame that we could not have halted the RTFO in
its tracks earlier.
What exactly
does the RTFO require? It stipulates that all fuel suppliers must
ensure that 2.5 per cent. of
their sales in the UK come from biofuels from April this year. That
figure will rise to 5 per cent. by 2010. The RTFO is designed to help
bring the UK into line with the European Union biofuels directive,
which sets targets for all EU countries to achieve biofuels usage rates
of 2 per cent. by the end of 2005 and 5.75 per cent. by the
end of 2010. A failure to ensure that such a vast amount of renewable
fuels are obtained sustainably will negate any positive efforts to
tackle climate change that such biofuels will supposedly bring, as the
hon. Gentleman suggested. The notion of destroying vast swathes of
pristine rain forest in a bid to protect the
environment— The
Chairman: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we are
discussing the general functions of the administrator in relation to
the schedule. We are not having a wide-ranging debate on biofuels.
Members’ comments must relate to this schedule and the duties of
the administrator.
Gregory
Barker: I stand admonished, Mr.
Atkinson. We
believe that such a notion is unacceptable. The current reporting
requirement and the Government’s hopes to have mandatory
sustainability standards in place by 2011 are not sufficient safeguards
to protect the environment. By 2011, we will already have sold more
than 5 billion litres of biofuels in the UK. Therefore, on what I
rightly assert to be a moral principle alone, I repeat now what my
party colleagues said in Committee Room 11 more than eight months ago:
we cannot allow the Government, who up till now have shown little or no
regard for the impact of biofuels imports on the environment, to set
targets for biofuels with no statutory requirement for sustainability.
That is why I am happy to support the amendment, which would place a
sustainability requirement for the RTFO on a statutory
footing. It
being One o’clock, The Chairman
adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the
Standing
Order. Adjourned
till this day at Four
o’clock.
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