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Finance Bill

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and we could spend a long time talking about it. Some worries are emerging about the effects of biofuels on CO2 emissions, and work is being done to determine biofuels' whole-life emissions levels. We have to look very carefully to see whether there are advantages to maintaining the differentials for biofuels. The idea of raising the biofuels differential before the new evidence about biofuels' CO2 emissions and whole-life costs came into the public domain was dealt with in the King report, which I recommend that the hon. Gentleman has a look at. The original idea was to shift the Government's support away from the development of the biofuels industry, and to transfer it to the road transport fuel obligation. However, new and important questions have been asked about biofuels. What are the whole-life costs of producing them? Are they putting food prices up and displacing the growth of food for human consumption? If so, what effects is that having, and what are biofuels' overall CO2 emission levels? We could talk about all those things at great length, but I do not want to go down that road this evening. We are talking about VED at the moment, and I am sure that many of the hon. Members who have come into the Chamber to vote would not want me to move away from that.