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Renewables Obligation (Amendment) Order 2011

Once again, I thank the Minister for introducing the renewables obligation order today. It is an extremely important order as the renewables obligation is crucial in driving forward the development of renewable electricity generation through various support mechanisms. We are in broad agreement with the order. The provisions concerning the phased development of offshore wind generation are sensible and build on Labour’s legacy in laying the foundations and ensuring that the ROCs cover the whole lifespan of a project. The situation at Dogger Bank, where there may be some 2,000 turbines, requires phasing so that the early capacity can be rewarded while the later development can still qualify for the full 20-year payment period permitted to receive ROCs. As wind power is at the vanguard of renewable technologies, will we need similar orders to encourage investment in other technologies, such as wave and tidal generation? This part of the order is to be welcomed. Set against wider electricity market reform, signals to facilitate cost-effective investment in all forms of low-carbon generation must be supported. It is a complex balance reviewing the roles that a carbon price, an emissions performance standard, a revised renewables obligation, feed-in tariffs, capacity mechanisms and other interventions should play in achieving our goals. The challenge in the order today relates to the sustainability criteria for biomass and bioliquids. Deliberations between Defra and DECC will have been informative in assessing whether we have the balance right in defining the sustainability criteria. We must ensure that we do not produce negative adverse implications for land use management or for the transfer from food production into biofuels or biomass oil, and that must be the case both domestically in the UK and internationally. There are several options for the Minister to consider when looking at how to achieve that balance, and the question for the Committee to consider is whether we have that balance right. The issue of cost efficiency is key and the provisions will not satisfy everybody. Some organisations will say that we must go much further and put sustainability criteria at a higher level. Of course, that will have implications, and not only for the UK. If all we do is transfer the problem to other EU nations, that will simply drive our greenhouse gas problems abroad. I hope that the Minister will elaborate a little on the representations that he has heard during the 12-week consultation both within DECC and in discussions with Defra Ministers and other organisations. Will he tell us who is broadly content with the proposals, who thinks that they should go further and who thinks they have gone too far? Who thinks that the burdens are too great? That will help us to decide whether we have the balance right. The Minister said that this order will be subject to endorsement by the devolved Administrations. Will he illuminate the Committee about whether there have been any differences of opinion among the devolved Ministers in terms of input into the formulation of the sustainability criteria? Were the Welsh, Scottish or Northern Ireland departments in a different position? What was the nature of the discussions that have brought us to this point today, or was there broad consensus from the outset that the right balance was achieved between avoiding the imposition of undue burdens on businesses, the regulatory framework and delivering legally sourced, sustainable biomass and bioliquid crops? Earlier, I mentioned marine and tidal power and asked whether a similar approach can be adopted. Paragraph 7.6 of the Explanatory Memorandum states how that could work. I can see the sense in that. The 50 kilowatt exemption is eminently sensible. We do not want to drive new or smaller investors from this potential market. It is right to exempt essentially domestic installations. However, in the intervening time, will the Minister also consult with those industries which are not directly involved in biomass generation and so on, and which have an interest in what happens with the ROCs regime and the development of this industry? The drive towards biomass is not only about sustainability about where we source our biomass product from internationally but about domestic sustainability. The established timber industry and the wood panel industry in this country are concerned that their products, including some good quality wood that should not be burnt for biomass but should be used for other purposes, might be squeezed or priced out of the markets, and that there might be genuine job implications that do not appear in the impact assessment. The impact assessment focuses exclusively on sustainability in land use and the sourcing of timber. It does not consider the other externalities of the possible impacts on the wider timber production sector in the UK. Will the Minister say whether there have been discussions, especially in the light of the forestry proposals recently brought forward? Will he also expand on the rationale for including fossil-fuel derivatives in the bioliquids in the eligibility for ROCs? Why would one include fossil-fuel derived products in biofuels and reward them with ROCs? Finally, perhaps I may ask the Minister to reassure the Committee that when he looks at the various options for biomass, in particular, as well as bioliquids, the preferred option will be the one that delivers certainty around sustainability criteria, which people have been seeking for some time and on which the previous Government were working. The preferred option should also have the right balance between the burdens on industry and the light touch, and ensuring that our expansion in biomass generation, to which we all subscribe, will not be at the cost of the environment in this country or elsewhere.