Senior Labour MP Barry Gardiner also told parliament that those running Drax were not ‘fit and proper.’
The attacks came as MPs debated a proposed Climate and Nature Bill, a private members bill which had sought legally binding targets to tackle ‘climate change,’ but was later dropped.
In the Friday debate, Tory grandee Sir Roger Gale told the house: “Like the last Government, this Government are subsidising Drax, to the tune of billions of pounds.
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“For why? To transport millions of trees, felled and shipped across the Atlantic at God knows what carbon cost, to burn in the interest of some sort of future carbon-free fuel—which, of course, it is not.
“Why are we allowing this, and why are we paying for it?”
Shortly after, Barry Gardiner MP, a former shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change, said: “We are going down the wrong road with Drax. I understand the reasons why: Drax power station provides 4% of UK electricity in the power sector. It seen as an important area, so the question is, if we take it away, how will we fill it?
“But we cannot allow the damage to old growth and to virgin forests that we know is happening in Canada.”
Mr Gardiner then told the House that Lord Birt, a former director general of the BBC, has told fellow peers about accounts from whistleblowers about Drax and the sources of the wood chips it imports from North America for burning at Selby.
The Labour MP continued: “Those accounts make it clear that the Ofgem investigation was correct in saying that the sustainability of the feedstock had been not only misreported but deliberately misreported.
“That means that the people concerned in Drax are not fit and proper to run the company, and we should not be paying them—at the moment—£9 billion.”
Mr Gardiner added: “We have now to decide whether we will subsidise that even further. The impact on biodiversity is disastrous, and although they say it is renewable, it is not within the timeframe to meet the 2050 climate target.”
A Drax spokesperson told the Press this week: “Biomass generators are critical to UK energy security and employ thousands of people in high quality jobs throughout the country.
“Drax provides secure renewable power to millions of homes and businesses when they need it, not just when the wind is blowing, or the sun is shining. The science underpinning biomass generation is supported by the world’s leading climate experts, including the UN’s IPCC and the UK’s CCC.
“Extending this support is essential to facilitating the development of largescale bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) in the UK. The millions of tonnes of carbon removals that BECCS will deliver will play a critical role in supporting the Government’s 2030 clean electricity goal.”
