Questions over £22bn in UK billpayer cash handed to wood-burning firms

Last week the government put forward plans to extend subsidies to the Drax plant until the end of the decade. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

The government has handed energy companies £22bn in billpayer-backed subsidies to burn wood for electricity despite being unable to prove the industry meets sustainability standards, the government’s spending watchdog has said.

The head of the National Audit Office (NAO) has called on the government to rethink how it monitors compliance with its biomass sustainability regime, which has handed about £1bn a year to generators, because the assurances do not provide confidence that the environmental requirements have been met.