Carbon Budget Delivery Plan

I beg to move,

That this House has considered progress on the Carbon Budget Delivery Plan.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. This week marks the start of COP30 in Brazil, a moment when world leaders, scientists and campaigners come together, united in purpose, to confront the climate crisis head-on. Last week, the World Meteorological Organisation delivered another sobering warning that 2025 is likely to be the second or third warmest year on record. With every passing year, we see the growing cost of inaction—wildfires, floods, droughts and communities displaced across the world. The message is clear: we need bold action, and we need it now.

Since 2022, environmental charities and organisations have fought every step of the way to ensure that we have a competent and detailed carbon budget delivery plan. The last Government’s plan—if we can call it that—ignored expert warnings and was twice ruled unlawful by the High Court. The Climate Change Committee said last year that, under the previous Government, the UK net zero ambitions were “off track”. Thankfully, we are no longer in that chaotic place; this year at COP30, the UK delegation is carrying the message that climate action is not a burden but our route to a future, with stronger communities and a safer planet.

We know that without decisive action, bills will continue to rise, businesses will struggle, and the environment we all cherish, from the peaks to the coast, will be lost. We must be clear, credible and ambitious in our plans to decarbonise. It is how we will not only create high-paying clean energy jobs but cut households energy bills and invest to secure our future. The plan published by the Government at the end of October is a start, and it provides welcome clarity, but is it ambitious enough? In my constituency of Sheffield Central, people understand how urgent this is. They want action. They want the Government to commit to protecting our planet and making life more affordable.

It is disappointing that Sheffield will continue to be the only major UK city without electrified rail. Over the past year, when I have met Sheffield Friends of the Earth and our local Greenpeace group, they have shared my view that we must go much further, and we must work at a faster speed. I look to the Minister to provide answers to locals, who have now missed out on electrification, as well as newer, faster and cleaner trains in the region.

The cost of energy also remains one of the biggest worries for people in my constituency. Time and again, I hear from residents who are doing everything they can to make ends meet, yet their energy bills are still far too high, and they continue to rise. Too many families have been forced to make impossible choices between heating their homes and putting food on the table. That is why, alongside Power for People, I have pushed for a fundamental reset of how we generate and buy energy locally.

Clean, locally sourced and locally stored power relieves pressures on the grid, and granting local supply rights for community energy schemes is a common sense approach. It makes no sense for the cost of regulatory approval to remain so high that locally sourced energy must be sold back to the central grid, instead of being supplied locally. Can the Minister expand on how the Government will build domestic supply chains for clean energy? How will they create jobs and bring investment back into our communities?

It is also true that far too many of our homes, especially older homes, leak heat through poor insulation measures. That is why the warm homes plan is incredibly important. Investment is necessary for households to install solar panels, heat pumps, batteries and insulation. These measures will, in the long term, cut bills, reduce emissions and tackle fuel poverty for good. However, simply offering these retrofit programmes will not be enough; people must know about them and have confidence in them.

That is why it is so important to have places like the Sheffield Energy Hub, where fuel poverty charities regularly offer advice to people on energy efficiency, energy saving and the links between cold homes and unhealthy futures. Despite the expectation, the wider warm homes plan has not yet been published, and speculation that the upcoming Budget will remove green levies, which pay for home energy efficiency measures, is deeply worrying.

The Climate Change Committee’s top recommendation was that the Government’s climate plan ought to remove policy costs from electricity bills. Does the hon. Lady think that the Government could seek to address that in the Budget?

The Government should consider how consumers’ bills can be reduced. I want to see the warm homes plan feature, and I want it published so that we can have appropriate conversations about what is in it. If the cut to investment without guaranteed funding from elsewhere goes ahead, billions of pounds and over 100,000 jobs in the installation industry would be at risk. I urge the Minister to outline how the Government will end that uncertainty, bring the warm homes plan forward quickly and start the consultation so that experts and communities can help shape what is in it.

Improving energy efficiency is one of the quickest ways to lower bills, but it must go hand in hand with a bold push for renewable energy. We know that solar and onshore wind are now the cheapest and cleanest sources of power available. If we invest in them at scale, we can bring down energy costs for households and businesses alike, while strengthening our energy security and cutting carbon at the same time. That is why I have raised concerns about the extraction of the Rosebank oilfield. When I met Sheffield Rosebank campaigners, they knew, as I do, that extraction of the oilfield will not reduce gas prices, but it will have a significant effect on the climate. Today the developer’s impact assessment shows that extraction would release nearly 50 times more gas than originally cited.

At a time when the focus should be on clean, affordable and home-grown energy, approving one of the largest new oilfields in the North sea sends the wrong message. It risks locking us into decades of expensive, polluting fossil fuels, while doing little to reduce bills here at home. We should instead be putting that same investment and ambition into home-grown renewables, energy efficiency and a fair transition for workers and communities, building the kind of fair sustainable energy future that people in Sheffield and across the country want to see.

It is estimated that we would have to plant a forest twice the size of Greater London to cancel out all the extra emissions created by the expansions of Heathrow, Luton and Gatwick, next to my constituency of Horsham. Does the hon. Member think that that suggests the Government are entirely serious about meeting our carbon budget?

There is a recognition that we need to do more on our climate priorities and on addressing increased aviation. We definitely need to explore that, and I will press the Minister on it in the future.

The revenue raised could be used to support domestic priorities, including insulating homes and building clean energy, and provide international climate finance to help the most vulnerable communities around the world adapt to the devastating effects of climate change. By ensuring that those with the largest carbon footprints contribute the largest share, we can show that tackling the climate crisis can be done fairly without punishing those who are worse off.

As the world meets in Belém to chart a path for the planet’s future, the UK can once again lead by example. We must act with purpose, ambition and hope. We must protect our planet, cut bills and create jobs while restoring Britain’s leadership on the world stage. Tackling the climate crisis is not just about saving the planet; it is about building a better, fairer and more secure future for everyone.

Will the Minister address my questions to him today? Will he provide a timeline for when the warm homes plan will be published? Does he have an update on the midland main line upgrade, and on when Sheffield can expect that critical investment to resume? Will he expand on how his Department will build resilience into clean energy supply chains, create jobs and investment in Sheffield, and ensure that energy sourced locally can be bought locally? Will he confirm what support is being offered to small businesses struggling with higher energy bills? Will he outline the Government’s commitment to boost the green economy and fund research at Sheffield’s world-leading institutions? Finally, will he commit to ending Britain’s reliance on fossil fuel giants, and ensure that they pay their fair share in tackling the climate crisis?

Order. I see that quite a lot of people want to speak. I will not set a time limit, but if you can be disciplined in how long your contributions last, that would be very helpful.

It is a real pleasure to speak in this debate, and I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for securing it. To be honest, I am a bit disappointed that the Secretary of State did not come to the House to make a statement about the carbon budget delivery plan, especially given that the previous one was in breach of the Climate Change Act 2008, and given the urgency of the UK’s meeting not just its statutory domestic climate targets but its international obligations under the Paris climate agreement.

It is obvious that UK climate action has important domestic and international ramifications. We are holding this debate while COP30 takes place. The UN has warned that the goal of a 1.5°C limit is fragile. According to the UN Secretary-General, the current plans put forward by nation states to cut emissions will put the world on a pathway to 2.3°C of global warming if they are fully implemented, and yet the UK’s new carbon budget delivery plan will fall short of our own commitments under the COP process, via our nationally determined contributions. The delivery plan is looking to achieve 96% of the cuts for the 2030 NDC and 99% for the 2035 NDC. That does not even reflect the fact that the UK’s NDC commitments themselves fail to take account of the scale of ambition needed to tackle the burning reality of the climate crisis, in line with what the climate science demands, and to reflect the UK’s historic responsibilities—and therefore moral obligation—to take a fairer share of the global need to cut emissions.

The Government’s carbon budget delivery plan is absolutely better than previous versions—let’s face it, it was a low baseline—but it is still wanting, both in global terms and in terms of facing the climate reality. That needs to change; even more ambition is required.

The hon. Member for Sheffield Central talked about the warm homes plan and the wider need for investment, particularly in the housing sector. We must ensure all our homes are fully fit for the future. As she said, it must be recognised across Government that climate action is absolutely central. It is not just about tackling our carbon emissions; it is also a really important way to tackle inequality and generate a resilient, jobs-rich economy that will secure long-term prosperity for us all.

Order. There is a Division in the House. We will suspend for 15 minutes, and when we return Ellie will draw her speech to its conclusion reasonably speedily.

I will conclude with three brief points. First, reframing the carbon budget delivery plan as a growth plan takes things in the wrong direction. It is the myth of infinite growth on a finite planet that got us into this mess in the first place, and that is driving the climate and nature crisis. This moment demands climate action that is rooted in tackling inequality, not feeding the pockets of developers and big oil bosses.

That brings me to my next point. The science on fossil fuels is unequivocal. In addition to the positive measures in the carbon budget delivery plan, we have to keep fossil fuels in the ground. Rosebank and Jackdaw cannot—must not—go ahead.

My final point is to put on record my thanks to Friends of the Earth for challenging the last plan in court and for its ongoing commitment to holding Governments to account. All this is possible only because of the Climate Change Act 2008. We all have a responsibility to uphold that incredibly important piece of legislation, which is key to ensuring that together we build a sustainable future for our country.

The British public remain very supportive of ambitious climate action. They want to know that measures are being taken to transition the economy, build a sustainable future and tackle the huge risks of climate breakdown. We all have a responsibility to ensure that that future is liveable for ourselves and future generations. I look forward to continuing to work across parties to build that positive future.

About six people want to contribute, so they each have about four minutes. I will not make it formal, but I know I can rely on you not to let me down.