Renewables Obligation Order 2006 (Amendment) Order 2007

We on these Benches also welcome the order. All these points have been raised at earlier stages, especially when we debated this last time. It is good to see that the Government have taken on board most of those points and answered many of them, especially on co-firing. It was not seen as a priority as I believe the Government thought that coal would not be a primary source of energy in the future. But as we have seen, especially with the rise in the spot price of gas, co-firing has become a real issue. Therefore, the introduction of co-firing using biomass is a very important way of reducing carbon emissions. I have one question on this. The issue with co-firing is that if biomass and energy crops are used, they would flood the market. What progress has been made on the banding discussed with the industry—namely with the big power stations such as Drax, the country’s major polluter, although it is trying to utilise the largest co-firing element—and will that banding affect the type of biomass? I ask that because waste biomass is around three times more expensive than coal. Indeed, energy crops can be five times as expensive. The other points on microgeneration are particularly helpful, especially those concerning buyback. When I looked into building a small turbine on a grid connector system, I found it incredible that although I would be able to sell energy to the grid at 2p per kilowatt hour, I would have to buy energyback at 5p per kilowatt hour. I understand that the distributors have some costs to meet, but it is rather unfortunate that we have such a major impediment in the system. We support the order.