§ Mrs. ShephardTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport what the closing date is for his consultation on the UK target for biofuels; and when he proposes to submit the UK target to the EU. [179707]
§ Dr. Howells[holding answer 21 June 2004]: The closing date for the UK's public consultation on the Government's biofuels strategy is Friday 16 July. The EU directive requires annual progress reports from member states on implementation of the directive to be submitted to the European Commission by 1 July, and the UK intends to meet that deadline. As we will still be consulting at this point, we will make clear to the European Commission that the indicative target proposed in our report is only a provisional one. We will confirm our target for 2005 by the end of the year, in the light of the responses to our consultation paper.