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

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Callanan on 13 December (HL Deb, col 2), what are the "strict sustainability criteria" by which biomass operators abide; and whether these criteria allow operators to source wood pellets from virgin forests.

The UK has strict sustainability criteria in place for biomass use. For biomass power generation supported under the Renewables Obligation scheme, the sustainability criteria are outlined in Schedules 1, 2, and 3 of the Renewables Obligation Order, which are publicly available on the legislation.gov.uk website.