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Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations Order 2007

My Lords, in introducing the measure the Minister used the word ““significant”” to describe the effects that it would have on the demand for fossil fuels. I beg to differ. I believe that the demand for fossil fuels, both in this country and abroad, is rising very steeply. The Minister may have had the opportunity to read the full-page article in the Guardian today; it was the first time that I have read the Guardian for months. It was a very bleak article which quoted expert opinion pointing to a steep decline in worldwide oil production. It talked about the risk of war and unrest, although I am not concerned with that now. It talked about a decline of 7 per cent a year. I also read an article today—I think it was in the Times—in which someone at Virgin Trains talks about people making provision for oil to rise to $200 a barrel within the foreseeable future. I am not going to contest this measure; it is a good and worthwhile step. The Government may have got their incentives wrong. I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said about food crops not being available to convert into ethanol. I do not think that the Swedish Government are being very clever in their boast of burning a lot of ethanol. That has to come from South America where the very forests that the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, referred to have to be chopped down and then the stuff has to be transported halfway across the world. It might give other people some sort of warm feeling; it does not give me one. The long-term scenarios that this country faces are steeply rising oil prices and competition between food and biofuel crops, with possibly some perverse incentives, unless, as we shall hear later, there is the possibility of further biofuel sources that do not deny people fuel. My view is that we have to harness electricity to do a great deal more than it does now. Electricity can be sourced from wind, waves, barrages and nuclear. None of those has a short lead-time. It will take 10, 15 or more years to bring those sources of power on-stream. I venture to suggest that the price of oil will rise steeply. I should like to know the Treasury’s current forecast for oil prices. If prices are forecast to be very low, then I do not believe that the forecast is at all realistic. We have to think in terms of having as much public transport driven by electricity as possible. We have to stop pricing people away from public transport. I fully agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, about what can be done by the road transport industry. Possibly the best source of immediate power saving is personal energy saving in the home through insulation and the installation of modern equipment. That would give us a much greater dividend than will this obligation. I am not going to vote against it, but I want to draw attention to the very serious problems that this country faces and the potential for conflict if they are not addressed.