Lord Birt (CB)

My Lords, we are a remarkably united House tonight. I too support the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. I am not the first to say that the case for biomass is very weak. It is, in effect, a historical anomaly. As others have said, biomass emits more carbon than coal. As the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, just pointed out, it takes decades—perhaps half a century, perhaps even longer—to reclaim that carbon from the atmosphere. Actually, Drax’s homework has been marked. Nobody has mentioned the remarkable and excellent “Panorama” documentary made by Joe Crowley just under three years ago, which demonstrated very clearly that Drax was burning primary ancient forests, which would be exceptionally difficult, if not impossible, to replace. That, in my view, is unconscionable. Nobody has said this so far, but Drax is not an organisation that inspires any confidence. For those who saw “Panorama”, it put up a remarkably weak case for what it was doing. Its handling of a senior executive whistleblower—again, not mentioned so far—was, to put it mildly, unsavoury. I appreciate the difficulties that Drax presents for the Government. It is a major employer. It produces a significant share of our national electricity supply, as others have pointed out—we could not possibly close it down tomorrow—and it gives that energy supply on tap. The question for the Minister, which I hope he will address in his closing remarks, is: will the Government, who must have heard the passion, power and effectiveness of the arguments from across the House this evening, now consider a proper long-term plan for the phasing out of Drax and for reinvesting in real renewables?