Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of biomass energy on (a) CO2 emissions and (b) animal biodiversity.

The Government follows scientific advice which indicates that sustainable biomass could play a role in decarbonising the energy sector as part of a diverse renewable energy mix and in achieving net zero. Recent reports from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Climate Change Committee (CCC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) all support this view.

The UK only supports biomass which complies with strict sustainability criteria which considers a range of environmental issues including protecting the biodiversity of forests from which the biomass is sourced, irrespective of its location.