Energy Bill

I am grateful for that intervention, which again shows that sustainability is the crux of the matter. Another problem, if we are serious about encouraging people to drive biofuel cars, is doing something about pricing. When I investigated buying my vehicle, I looked into the fuel performance charts, which said that a petrol car would get 35.8 miles to the gallon for combined urban and motorway travel. When I looked into the biofuel car performance, the same figure of 35.8 miles appeared, so I thought that there was no difference between the two. However, when one drives along the road using biofuel, it is easy to see the needle drop—the car does only about 19 miles to the gallon. I thus asked Saab why the literature highlighted the same performance for biofuel as for petrol. I should have guessed who the culprit was—the European Union. Apparently, there is no standard by which to distinguish between biofuel and petrol. The petrol figures had to be entered because, as we all know, we can drive our biofuel cars with petrol in them. Another interesting aspect is the generational dimension. When I stop my car to put petrol in it, my seven-year-old son will say, ““Daddy, why aren't you buying biofuel?”” I have to explain that not every station has it, but it is interesting to see how the message that we must do something to save the planet is getting through to the younger generation. I seriously congratulate my party leader on changing the Conservative party in that respect. We heard the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone mention all the terrible things that the Conservatives have done that did nothing to save the planet, yet we are now leading the debate on that front—[Interruption.] I am pointing out the reasons why we should not have biofuels, highlighting the issue of sustainability, about which the hon. Member for Copeland (Mr. Reed) made a good point. British Sugar at Wissington provides an interesting example. Its production plant uses waste sugar beet product and guarantees a reduction of at least 60 per cent. in CO2 emissions in comparison with equivalent fossil fuel production. The plant creates biofuel from sugar beet, which is grown locally in the UK and is surplus to the needs of the food market. It can be done, so we should look in that direction for more sustainable biofuel plants in this country. I would like to put a few points to the Minister for Energy; I hope he will have the opportunity to deal with some of them in his concluding speech. If we are serious about biofuel pricing, we must reduce the duty so that it costs the same as petrol. Otherwise, we are not really serious about it. I do not know how many cars in the Government fleet are either biofuel or flex fuel, but if we want to reduce CO2 emissions, we should surely move in that direction. The congestion charge is also relevant. When I rang to find out whether my car was exempt from it, I found that there was no class for biofuel at all. We must look into these issues more carefully. It cannot be right that there are only 19 E85 pumps in the whole country. If the Government are serious about improving the position, they should tell petrol suppliers that half the stations in the country must provide flex fuel. I believe that the Government are trying to tackle the issues constructively, but they have not yet done enough work on biofuels. I would like to see them make more progress on that front.