My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their consideration of this statutory instrument. I join other noble Lords in declaring my previous lack of a full understanding of this very important area. It has been a very useful discussion and I am grateful for the questions raised, particularly those raised by noble Lords who were able to share them with me in advance. I will, of course, write where I do not cover everything.
To start with the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, when he asked if it is an incentive to maintain supply or a punishment to maintain the market, I am going to be very unhelpful and say that it is neither. The increase in buyout price is simply necessary for the market to function. We need to make sure that there is a continued supply of biofuels and other renewable fuels under the RTFO and ensure the continued delivery of carbon savings. Obviously, a buyout price set at the wrong amount would not allow that market to function, because suppliers would then pay a buyout, rather than having to acquire the RTFCs which, as a whole, obviously cap the cost of the RTFO scheme and protect the consumer from the exceptional spikes. So, the buy out is one element of a very well-designed and successful scheme, and it serves as a release valve to make sure that the consumer is never forced to pay a very large amount for their fuel.
The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, raised a number of issues not wholly related to the SI before us today. I would like to reassure him that the Department for Transport is studying very carefully the changes to the Green Book, and we will consider all the issues he raised, in terms of looking at where we are going to do our investment in transport infrastructure in the future. The noble Lord will also know that we have a transport decarbonisation strategy, which my department is working incredibly hard on at the moment, and which will serve as a path to net zero in the future.
On the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in 2019 there were 19 obligated suppliers covered by the terms of this order, and these are obviously the ones that supply significant amounts of fuel, which I will come on to. Of course, there are exempted suppliers, which the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, also mentioned. These fuel suppliers supply less than 450,000 litres of transport fuel, and they are exempted from the obligations of RTFO. In these circumstances, 450,000 litres is not a very large amount. Furthermore, there is a second group of suppliers that supply less than 10 million litres of transport fuel, and they do not have an obligation on the first 450,000 litres of their supply—again, a few percentage points of their supply. This is basically to ensure that there is no cliff edge when you get to 450,000 litres.