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Department of Energy and Climate Change

I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), for jumping in too early. In order to reduce our emissions by 80 per cent., we clearly need increased investment in a wide range of renewables. Will the Secretary of State carefully consider what the cumulative effect would be on forest and land use around the world of locating enough biomass material to feed all the biomass power stations in the planning system? I fear that our system of renewables obligation certificates might end up rewarding electricity producers for importing biomass materials huge distances from unsustainable sources. That would be completely different from small-scale projects using locally sourced biomass.