Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations (Amendment) Order 2009

I am grateful for the Minister’s explanation of the order. I propose to make a few initial observations, and then look forward to hearing other noble Lords. With the leave of the Committee, I may make some winding-up comments. It is, to say the least, extremely unfortunate that the definition of "relevant hydrocarbon oil" in the original RTFO order was defective. Worse still was the difficulty in rectifying the problems which the Minister described. This is despite all the care that is taken when drafting statutory instruments. I was on the JCSI for a while, and it surprised me how many drafting errors slipped into secondary legislation. When we agreed the principle of a renewable transport fuel obligation, if we are honest, we must admit that we all thought that it would work just as well as the non-fossil fuel obligation for generating electricity. However, the reality is rather different. We are now suffering under the law of unintended consequences. When I pressed the print button to print one of the department’s publications, little did I realise that I would be printing 71 pages of detailed analysis: a sure sign of serious problems. I welcome the instigation of the Gallagher review—it is important to be sure that we are taking the right steps to tackle climate change—but, thinking aloud, I have a concern about targeting transport fuels. Given the high proportion of our CO2 emissions arising from road transport operations, it is an obvious thing to do. However, our overall objective must be to reduce our global CO2 emissions. To do that, we need to substitute renewable fuels and power for fossil fuels. The problem is that road transport fuels, principally petrol and diesel, have to be produced to a very tight specification, otherwise engine damage or poor fuel economy or performance will result. On the other hand, a thermal steam-raising power station is relatively insensitive to fuel quality; thus the biofuel, or waste carboniferous fuel, being burnt in a thermal power station would not need much processing, so the fuel economy would be much higher. Is there not a horrible possibility that while renewable transport fuels are desirable, it might be better to concentrate our carboniferous fuel substitution efforts on power stations, for all the reasons given in the Gallagher review? Gallagher did not necessarily propose that; I am merely asking whether we are going in the right direction. Although not all noble Lords may agree, it may be right to slow the rate of increase on renewable transport fuels, but it is very much work in progress and the jury is out.