---

Energy Bill

I am most grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Redesdale, Lord Woolmer and Lord O’Neill, for their support and their important and construction contributions. I am of course grateful to the Minister for his response and I shall read his words carefully. I hope that he will forgive me, but his response appeared to focus on why co-firing should be made artificially less competitive in order to discourage it relatively against other more expensive forms of environmentally friendly energy production. I did not hear why by-products of non-energy crops, specifically, must be adversely prejudiced against crops grown specifically for energy. It seems to me that we should encourage this and that my key point is being missed. The Minister will not be surprised to hear that our support from all sides of the Committee will encourage us to return to this matter later in the Bill’s progress. I would ask him to think carefully about this before Report stage. For today, I am happy to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.