My Lords, I am pleased to be here to talk to this order. I have to say, though, that it is rather a miserly order. I happen to be a great supporter of renewable energy of all forms, and we as the UK have got challenging, legally binding targets to significantly increase the amount of renewable energy we use in our energy systems. These are energy targets, not just electricity targets, which means that the 15% we have to reach applies to transport, heat and electricity. Currently we have one policy that supports renewable fuels in transport and that is the RTFO.
Currently the RTFO is asking for 5% of the fuel supply to be made up of renewable sources and the Government have frozen that level. We know that we are going to need more than 5% in order to hit our targets, yet we have a policy that is frozen in time, with no longevity or future certainty, stuck at 5%. Now we have an order in front of us that is reducing this market further—not increasing it, not providing growth for that industry, not supporting new jobs, not providing UK farmers with new opportunities for selling products—no, freezing it and reducing it.
What is going on? It is almost as if those legal obligations did not exist. Yet they do, so what are we going to do? We will have to scurry at the end to try to build an industry which is there at the moment but is at severe risk of being undermined, of jobs being lost and investors fleeing, because of this continual undermining through these miserly orders that reduce the size of the market for this industry. I am very disappointed to see this coming forward.
It has been said before that you have to think of this in terms of volumes of litres of fuel sold, not just in percentages. Overall, fuel sales in this country are going down, so the percentage is also going down. So when the Government say, “We have to reduce this to 4.7% so that there are not more biofuels being sold”, that is nonsense. Actually that 5% is less and less every time the total fuel sold in this country goes down. Can the Government please explain their logic? They are talking about reducing the size of this market, and I find it particularly objectionable that they would use so-called green credentials to do this.
Apparently, the Government are very concerned about the sustainability of these sources. Yes, that is a very valid concern, which we share. But the UK has the best standards for biofuels of any country; they are world class, yet we are providing only 12% of this
market. Why is that? Because there is no certainty, there is no confidence and there is no backing from the Government. This is yet another nail in the coffin of this industry. It is truly regrettable.
The renewable heat incentive also prevents the use of liquid biofuels for the gaining of credits in that market. Are the Government seriously saying that they support this industry? Absolutely not, they are doing everything they can to shrink it and to prevent it from growing. Presumably this is because they are protecting vested interests, because I do not believe that the arguments put forward on sustainability criteria really hold water.
We have had other commentators here. My noble friend Lord Berkeley has raised issues, as has the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, has talked about the need to recycle cooking oil. I hope the Minister will come back with answers and, above all, I hope he will explain to us why the Government see fit to keep capping this industry, reducing its market share, and how they expect to generate investment, growth and jobs and in the country if they carry on in this way.