Climate Change

[Relevant documents: Eighth Report of the Environmental Audit Committee of Session 2024-26, The Seventh Carbon Budget, HC 1327, and the Government response, Session 2026-27, HC 25; Oral evidence taken before the Environmental Audit Committee on 15 June, on Carbon Budget Seven follow up, HC 361; Correspondence from the Minister for Climate to the Environmental Audit Committee, on The Seventh Carbon Budget, reported to the House on 23 June 2025, Session 2024-26.]

I beg to move, That the draft Carbon Budget Order 2026, which was laid before this House on 2 June, be approved.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: That the draft Climate Change Act 2008 (International Aviation and International Shipping) Regulations 2026, which were laid before this House on 14 April, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.

That the draft Climate Change Act 2008 (Credit Limit) Order 2026, which was laid before this House on 14 April, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.

This week has been like no other. At this very moment, people across our country are experiencing another reminder of the world we now live in. If anyone in this Chamber still thinks that climate change is a problem for tomorrow, they should step outside today. Parents will struggle to get their children to sleep through sweltering nights. Farmers will look anxiously at weather forecasts and cloudless skies. Hospitals, schools and care homes will prepare for temperatures that would have seemed extraordinary in Britain just a few decades ago.

Parts of our country are facing temperatures of up to 38° this week, while experts warn that 40° days may arrive far sooner than anyone expected. Today’s debate is not taking place against the backdrop of climate change; it is taking place in the middle of it, and I cannot make it clearer to the House that this is not normal. A Met Office extreme heat warning is in place for parts of the UK today and tomorrow. In fact, it has just confirmed that today is the hottest June day ever.

In recent months the crisis in the middle east has felt like a ghost from the recent past. Once again, the world has found itself staring at a major fossil fuel producing region and wondering what happens next. Once again, energy markets have been holding their breath. Once again, families, businesses and Governments have been reminded just how fragile the system can be. This is, of course, the second fossil fuel shock in barely half a decade. It is only four years since Putin’s tanks rolled into Ukraine and sent shockwaves through the global economy, four years since family budgets were shredded by soaring energy bills, and four years since Britain was reminded that when our energy system depends on volatile fossil fuel markets, a crisis on the other side of the world can land on our doorstep in a matter of days.

When faced with challenges of this scale, there is always a temptation to focus on the immediate crisis, to become consumed by the pressures of the day, and to postpone difficult decisions for another Parliament, another Government or another generation.

Will the Minister give way?

I will make some progress.

Postponing difficult decisions has never been how our country has met its greatest challenges. We have always been strongest when we have looked beyond the immediate horizon, recognised the risks ahead and taken practical steps to prepare for them. That is what the carbon budget framework represents: a science led budget to reduce emissions by around 87% between 2038 and 2042 compared with 1990 levels, including in international aviation and shipping. The framework is in line with the advice from the independent Climate Change Committee and is endorsed by the Environmental Audit Committee, which I thank for its rigorous scrutiny, including in the evidence session that it held with me last week.

Alongside the carbon budget framework, the regulations before the House today will formally include the UK’s share of international aviation and shipping emissions in carbon budgets from carbon budget 6 onwards, while the Climate Change Act 2008 (Credit Limit) Order 2026 will ensure that carbon budget 5 is met through domestic action, allowing the UK economy to capture the full benefits of the transition.

Will the Minister give way?

I will keep going.

In determining the level of the seventh carbon budget, we assessed different pathways for Britain’s future. What the analysis showed was remarkably clear: whether viewed through the lens of economic growth, national security, public health or long term prosperity, the benefits of continuing on Britain’s path to net zero significantly outweigh the benefits of abandoning it. Let me explain why.

The first reason is business uncertainty. This framework provides something every successful economy depends on and every serious business asks for: certainty. Investment flows not to the country with the lowest costs or the biggest market, but to the country with a plan. It flows to the country where business investors and entrepreneurs can look 10, 15 or 20 years into the future and have confidence about the direction of travel.

Yesterday, in a career highlight, I was proud to open the London stock exchange to mark London Climate Action Week. It also celebrates a remarkable finding in new analysis by the London stock exchange, which is that the global green economy is now worth more than $10 trillion. Its analysis has found that green revenues grew by 5.3% in 2025, despite energy shocks, market volatility and geopolitical tensions. Here in the UK, I am proud to announce that this Government have officially secured £100 billion of private investment in clean energy since taking office.

The message from investors could not be clearer: the race is on. Capital is flowing towards the countries that are building, planning and backing the industries of the future, and that is one of the great strengths of the Climate Change Act and the carbon budget framework. For almost two decades, that has provided a stable and predictable signal about where Britain is heading, giving businesses the confidence to invest, innovate and grow.

Will the Minister give way?

I will keep going for a bit if that is okay.

This is a market solution to a generational challenge, providing certainty about the destination while allowing competition, innovation and enterprise to determine the journey, and the results can be seen across the country. On the day we laid this order before Parliament, new analysis showed that Britain’s net zero economy now supports more than 1 million jobs and generated £105 billion for the UK economy alone. We see that opportunity in carbon capture projects in Teesside, in new nuclear at Sizewell C in Suffolk, and in companies across the country building the technologies, supply chains and industries that will power the next chapter of British economic growth.

Indeed, as more than 75,000 people have descended on London for London Climate Action Week this week—taking part in over 1,300 events and helping to broker deals, partnerships and investments that will shape the global economy for years to come—they are doing so in a city that has established itself as the sustainable finance capital of the world. That is why support for this framework extends far beyond Government. The British Chambers of Commerce says these plans provide “greater certainty for…firms”. The CBI describes the green economy as “a powerhouse of job creation and economic expansion”.

E.ON says that “the prize is bigger than emissions alone.”

Business leaders, manufacturers and investors are all making the same argument. In a world competing for capital, talent and innovation, long term certainty is not a burden on growth; it is one of the foundations of it.

Secondly, if the economic case for action is increasingly clear, so is the security case. Climate change has become a central concern not just for scientists and policy makers, but for our country’s military leaders, intelligence chiefs and security experts. On the agenda for the Munich security conference, climate change sits alongside geopolitical conflict and nuclear proliferation as one of the defining risks of our age. That assessment is increasingly shared across Britain’s own security establishment. Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston has said it “threatens global resilience and our shared security and prosperity.”

Baroness Manningham Buller, the former director general of MI5, has said it is clear that climate change is the “greatest threat” we face. Lieutenant General Nugee has said: “Climate change is not an abstract environmental issue. It is now a core national security risk.”

These are not campaigners or commentators; they have served their country and are people who have spent their careers identifying risks before they become crises and preparing our country for threats before they arrive.

Climate change is often discussed as an environmental challenge, yet it is increasingly showing up elsewhere in conversations about food security, energy security, national resilience and the basic responsibility of Government to protect their citizens from foreseeable risks. The framework before the House is not just about reducing emissions; it is part of the long term work of making Britain safer, stronger and less vulnerable in a more uncertain world.

Thirdly and finally, we should see this transition for what it really is: one of the greatest upgrade projects in our country’s history. Too often, debates about climate change become trapped in the language of targets, regulations and emissions, but when future generations look back on this period, they are unlikely to remember the technical details of carbon budgets or policy frameworks. What they will remember is that this was the moment Britain began upgrading the system that underpins modern life.

Every generation has had its national upgrade. Previous generations built the railways that connected our country, electrified our towns and cities, brought clean water into people’s homes, connected millions of households to the gas grid and transformed the way people travelled, worked and lived. Our generation’s task is no different. We are upgrading an energy system that leaves us exposed to volatile fossil fuel markets and replacing it with one powered increasingly by clean electricity generated here at home. We are upgrading homes and technology that allow families to generate, store and manage their own energy. We are upgrading transport, upgrading industry and upgrading infrastructure that in many cases was designed for a different century and a different economy.

That is not a marginal adjustment to the economy we have today; it is a fundamental upgrade to how Britain powers itself, and the prize is enormous. Our analysis shows that clean power and electrification could save families and businesses £445 billion in fossil fuel spending over the next 25 years. Cleaner air could mean up to 8,000 fewer hospital admissions every year by 2050 and around £80 billion in health benefits, while action to restore nature could deliver a further £50 billion worth of benefits.

Will the Minister give way?

No, I will make some progress.

Those benefits include greater protection from flooding, cleaner rivers and greater biodiversity.

But this is not simply about what we avoid; it is about what we build. Across the world, more than $2 trillion is now invested in clean energy every year—roughly twice the amount invested in fossil fuels. It is where global capital is flowing, where industries are being built and where future economic advantage will increasingly be won. I make no apology for Britain competing for that opportunity. I do not want our country watching from the sidelines while others capture the jobs, industries and investment of the future. I want Britain helping to shape that future and benefiting from it.

Let me finish by saying this. Long before I entered this House and long before I became a Minister, I was one of the many people involved in the wider effort that helped to build support for the Climate Change Act, which is one of the most significant and widely supported pieces of cross party legislation this country has ever passed.

Will the Minister give way?

Let me just finish.

Back then, it often felt like a cause that sat at the margins of politics, rather than at its centre. Progress felt slow; success felt uncertain. If someone had told me that one day I would stand at this Dispatch Box I might have struggled to believe it, but what that journey reminds me of is that real change is rarely the work of one person, one Government or one political party. It happens because people keep building year after year, Government after Government, Parliament after Parliament. Eighteen years ago, this House came together to pass the world’s first climate change Act. Seven years ago, it came together again to make Britain the first major economy to legislate on net zero emissions. Different Prime Ministers, different Governments and different political traditions have all helped to write that story.

Will the Minister give way?

I will just finish.

History has many authors. As a result of that shared effort, Britain was the first major economy to cut emissions by more than half, while growing its economy by more than 85% between 1990 and 2025. We have helped to inspire around 60 countries to adopt similar legislation and we have shown it is possible to combine climate action with economic growth, energy security and national prosperity.

At its best, this House has always been capable of looking beyond the pressures of the moment and acting in the interests of future generations. I believe this is one of those moments, so whatever our differences on the detail I hope we can recognise what this debate is really about: the kind of country we leave behind and whether we upgrade it while we have the chance. That is a legacy worth building together. I commend these orders and regulations to the House.

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

Today, we are voting on something hugely consequential: a new net zero target that will allow Ministers and civil servants to control almost every part of the economy and the cost of goods in every aspect of people’s lives. It will affect the cost of energy, food, housing, heating, transport, holidays and shipping, and which industries will find it competitive to do business in Britain and which industries will not. Yet in this Chamber can anybody put a figure on how much more expensive this will make food or energy bills or family holidays?

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

I will happily give way for the hon. Gentleman to cite the figure.

Does the right hon. Lady not accept that the investment her Government made in offshore wind power has insulated British consumers against the fossil fuel price hikes we have seen as a consequence of the Iran war? That is evidence that investment in renewable energy is good for consumers and businesses.

I note that the hon. Gentleman did not answer my question, because he does not have an answer. Let me answer his question: on an electricity bill, 25% of the cost is a wholesale cost, and 75% is a non commodity cost. Bills have gone up so much partly because of the taxes, levies and policies that his Government have chosen.

Will the right hon. Member give way on that point?

No, I will pursue my argument. The vast majority of the costs on an electricity bill are not to do with wholesale prices. The question that I asked the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies) was whether he could tell us—[Interruption.] He should listen to this; he is not even listening to my point. I asked whether he could tell us what the legislation he is voting on today will do to the price of food, energy, and holidays for his constituents.

Let me try this question: how many Members present can say, hand on heart, that they have read the impact assessment for this legislation?

I have read it.

The hon. Gentleman says that he has. Could he cite the number of jobs the legislation will create or lose in the overall economy?

The right hon. Lady’s argument would have a lot more credibility if she had not said, in 2023: “Nothing will distract us from achieving net zero or driving forward renewables…I want people to feel nothing but unadulterated optimism…We are absolutely committed to our targets.”

The facts about climate change have not changed, yet the right hon. Member has changed her mind. Could that be because of those Members sitting on the Reform Bench?

The hon. Gentleman also did not answer my question on jobs. I inherited my party’s position on net zero. I made it clear from the outset that my priority was affordability for Brits in this country, and that net zero should not impoverish consumers. In fact, I made some changes that meant that Labour called me a climate denier and a flat earther. The hon. Gentleman now comes to this Chamber, not to scrutinise the legislation that will have a massive effect on his constituents, but to criticise me for scrutinising it, asking questions and changing my party’s position.

I am proud to have changed my party’s position, because I care about the consumer, about jobs, and about the price of food and energy. None of the Members on the Government Benches seems to care about those things, because if they did—[Interruption.] I will make some progress, because nobody is answering these questions. If they cared about those things, they would have read the Government’s impact assessment.

I have read it.

Well, the hon. Gentleman could not answer the question on jobs. If he had read it, he would know that the Government’s own impact assessment admits that the modelling does not consider any upside, or downside risks, to the economy arising from the energy transition. It specifically says that it does not consider the impact on jobs. That means that Government Members are voting on legislation without any idea of what it is going to mean for the British worker.

The impact assessment is clear and explicit: the modelling does not analyse energy security. The Government do not know what the legislation will mean for the energy security of our nation. The head of Unite was spot on when she said at the weekend that the Secretary of State “only seems to be interested in one side of the equation, rushing Britain to net zero with almost no thought for jobs, skills and national security.”

The transition has literally not been properly assessed. What is worse is that Government MPs want to make their political points, but none of them seems to care. Considering how much people are struggling and how much growth is flatlining, are Labour Members really happy to wave through those legal targets without the foggiest idea of what it will do to the economy, the cost of living or energy security?

Will the right hon. Member give way?

If the hon. Gentleman would like to tell us about the impact on jobs, he is more than welcome to do so.

I am happy to do so. Is the right hon. Member aware of the evidence from the Climate Change Committee that says that the cost of doing nothing is more expensive than the cost of everything that is needed for net zero? When she attempts to stand in the way of the transition, what she is actually doing is attempting to pile up the costs on British business and consumers, and on the sustainability of our country. She should understand the impact of her policies, rather than attempting to row back on one of the few things the previous Government should have been proud of.

I will come to the evidence of the Climate Change Committee in a second, but first I note that once again, a Member from the Labour Benches cannot cite an overall figure on jobs—I would have thought that the Labour party would be able to cite a figure on jobs.

Look, I have given way to a number of hon. Members, and nobody has had an answer. Let me put this to them—

rose—

If it is going to be about jobs, then please—go ahead.

It absolutely will be about jobs—I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way. The CBI—not the Government, but the CBI—has found that the net zero economy is worth £100 billion of investment in this country every year and supports 1.1 million jobs.

Oh dear. So the hon. Gentleman has not read that report either, because it includes among those jobs waste, recycling and nuclear power—does he think we did not have those jobs before the net zero target? It also includes soil restoration and land management. It specifically says—[Interruption.] I am sorry; Labour Members do not seem to like this, but I have actually read these reports. They do not seem to realise that that report includes a huge range of things that have nothing to do with the net zero target.

I will press on. When the Climate Change Committee provides advice to the Government about what carbon budget target they should set, it uses its own costings and assumptions. Its analysis determines how billions upon billions—that is thousands and thousands of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money—is spent. I am afraid that is deeply problematic.

Why do I say that? Because the cost of offshore wind used to prepare carbon budget 7 was out by a factor of three. The Climate Change Committee said that offshore wind would cost £38 per megawatt hour, but contracts were being signed by their Secretary of State for £82 per megawatt hour, suggesting that something was clearly going very wrong on a key input for the exact target that we are voting on today.

When I wrote to the Climate Change Committee—

I will make this point. When I wrote to the Climate Change Committee asking it to look at this matter, it sent me a dismissive reply. So I wrote about it in a newspaper. What did the committee do? It reported me—a democratically elected politician—under the Independent Press Standards Organisation editors’ code and tried to get me to remove my opinion. I did not. Just a few months later, the Government updated their own costings, not to £80 per megawatt hour or even to £90 per megawatt hour, but to over £100 per megawatt hour. That is the Minister’s own figure. That means that not only was I right, but offshore wind was now predicted to cost three times what the Climate Change Committee had said.

I do not know which is worse: that we are making huge decisions on the basis of such poor analysis, that nobody on the Government Benches thinks that this warrants any scrutiny, or that an unelected advisory body is using taxpayers’ funds to try to silence elected representatives rather than focusing on getting its costings right. Everybody in this House should think that is shameful. If the committee was wrong by a factor of three on offshore wind—something that we have better evidence for than pretty much anything else in the market—how can we trust any of the rest of its analysis?

Let us look at some of the committee’s claims. It claims that a low carbon electricity supply is “cheaper per unit” than high carbon electricity. Well, if your numbers are out by a factor of three, perhaps you might think that. It also says that “most businesses will not be…affected by Net Zero”, particularly in the services sector. How does it justify that? Let me assure the House, if net zero blocks the advance of AI in this country, that will have a catastrophic impact on our services sector. Here is another claim: “a reduction in meat…and dairy”

will mean a healthier diet. Who are they to tell us what to eat and to give us nutritional advice? The committee makes claim after claim and sweeping statement after sweeping statement with nobody holding it accountable. Yet this advice—this target—will affect almost every part of normal life.

Hon. Members may argue that we need strict climate targets to provide certainty for jobs—that is what the Minister just said—but that is nonsense. The country doing the best at creating clean tech jobs is China, which is now the world’s largest polluter. Hon. Members may also say that this is about our moral duty to fix climate change, but I will remind them that every time a British factory shuts here, where we have some of the cleanest electricity in the world, and we import those same goods back from coal powered China, we are not helping climate change; instead, we are increasing global emissions. Before Labour Members get on their high horse, I will remind them that the Conservatives are the only party to call for the measurement of the offshoring of emissions. Labour does not want to know because it does not care.

Here is the problem: Labour Members do not want to properly measure whether we are just trading emissions here for emissions abroad because they do not really care whether this target is actually good for the worker, or good for jobs, or good for the cost of living, or good for the environment. That is why none of them cared to read the impact assessment.

I have taken interventions from so many Labour Members, and none of them could give a figure—[Interruption.] I will happily give way.

Point 299 of the impact assessment says: “The transition away from fossil fuels will lead to a net increase in job creation”.

I believe the right hon. Lady said a moment ago that it does not mention at all the impact on jobs. I invite her to correct the record.

The analysis that the hon. Gentleman points to refers to TIMES modelling. That is used for the baseline. A few pages away, its says that the TIMES modelling specifically does not look at the impact of jobs on the overall energy transition. It is in there in black and white.

The hon. Gentleman might desperately google it now in the Chamber, but the truth is that no Labour Members read and scrutinised the impact assessment properly because none of them cares. Let’s be honest: they are all here to read their boilerplate speeches, which will all be exactly the same, to virtue signal how much of a good person they are. That is the truth. Most of them come from climate NGOs and green lobby groups—the Minister does too, I am afraid—and they care more about ideology than evidence. How many of them have ever had to turn a profit for a living? How many have had to work out how to pay someone else’s wages? How many have had to consider all the costs that go into manufacturing and selling something in Britain?

The thing is, we could do this so differently. We are 1% of global emissions; 99% are happening elsewhere. Those countries are not persuaded by Britain driving itself into poverty while the Secretary of State preaches at them from his pulpit. In fact, they are asking themselves why they should follow the path that Britain is taking when we are such an obvious example of what not to do. We are a country that is making its energy scarce and expensive, and deindustrialising and impoverishing its own citizens.

What is the solution? First, we must reject decarbonisation by deindustrialisation. Therefore, we must measure the offshoring of emissions and get rid of the unilateral carbon tax and the stringent targets killing off British industry by repealing the Climate Change Act.

Given that we have reduced our carbon emissions by some 54% since 1990, perhaps the shadow Secretary of State agrees with me that we have led the way and done our bit. It is now time for others to do theirs.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. The question is, can we protect the environment, the economy and living standards? Is what the Government are proposing today going to help us do those things? I would argue that it is not. [Interruption.] Well, let’s talk about it: Labour Members will vote today to increase the cost of aviation and shipping when our competitors in Asia, the middle east and the US are not doing so. That is mad.

The first part of our plan is to save British industry. The second is to make electricity cheap. Just 10% of our emissions are in the electricity system; the vast majority are in transport, industry and buildings. Our electricity is clean. Does Labour even realise that? It is some of the cleanest electricity in the world. The problem is that it is too expensive and deterring electrification. I am not someone on the right who thinks that all clean tech is stupid, but I do think that cheap electricity and consumer choice should be king.

Thirdly, we should wholeheartedly embrace innovation and exports of British clean tech, whether that is the next generation of nuclear, software or consumer products. Finally, we should pay much more heed to nature—something that we were proud to do but this Government are much less keen on. Funnily enough, they are much more attracted to net zero than nature. Perhaps that is because the former gives them unlimited powers to dictate to people what they can and cannot do, and to tax people who do things that they do not like. That is, after all, a socialist’s dream.

I would bet everything that our approach is better for the British economy and the environment, but it would mean wresting this agenda away from the incredibly well funded green lobby groups with vested interests, who provide these figures that Members on the Labour Benches all merrily cite without having actually read the reports. And, frankly, they do not have the balls to do it—they do not even have the balls to take on their out of control Secretary of State.

I will end on this. The public keep being promised cheaper energy and more jobs, yet those things are not materialising. If people want to know why Governments keep failing, they should look at this impact assessment, which I am afraid is mumbo jumbo that does not tell the reader what the target will do to the cost of food or energy, or the cost of business. They should consider the fact that parliamentarians are prepared to wave it through today. The Minister did not even take any questions. This is meant to be a debate in which we scrutinise these important decisions, but she did not want to answer any questions.

Who in the public voted for this? Who in the public voted for more expensive food, energy bills and boilers? Who voted to increase our goods imports from China? Let us be very clear: this legislation takes control away from Ministers and gives it to civil servants, unaccountable bodies and activists who will tell Ministers that they cannot prioritise the cost of living or the economy, even if they were elected to do so.

The Energy Secretary might not be in post for much longer, but the legacy of his target will be to make us poorer and weaker. Ministers will be more bound by red tape and less able to deliver on their promises, but it does not have to be that way. This is the moment to take back control for our constituents and say that Ministers should not be bound by legislation waved through with no scrutiny—by Ministers who will not take any questions. Ministers should be bound by the democratic promises they have made to the electorate. That is how we fix this. That is how we put our constituents back in the driving seat, and that is why Members should vote to reject this legislation today.

As colleagues will understand, this is a three hour debate and a remarkable number of Members wish to contribute, so Back Benchers will shortly be on a speaking limit of five minutes. First, I call the Chair of the Select Committee, Toby Perkins.

I very much welcome the draft Carbon Budget Order 2026, which sets the level of the seventh carbon budget on the way to our long term and previously cross party aim to balance the UK’s carbon emissions by 2050.

I have to say that the speech we have just heard from the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) was quite remarkable because, at the most fundamental level, it failed to understand what we are doing today. The sixth carbon budget passed by the previous Government in 2020 only got its delivery plan in 2025. Today, we are debating our aim for 2038 to 2042. At this moment, it is not prescriptive about how we get there. That is why, at the most fundamental level, the shadow Secretary of State did not understand what she was debating, and why she failed to get answers to some of the questions that she thought should be answered. I am afraid that, at the most fundamental level, she was on the wrong path.

My hon. Friend is making an important point. I have been contacted by many constituents who have engaged with the “People’s Emergency Briefing” campaign. One of its key asks is greater public awareness of the effects of climate change. Does he agree that the Government should do more to make sure that people are aware of the effects of climate change? Perhaps we could start with the shadow Secretary of State.

That is a very good place to start, because the shadow Secretary of State suggested that the Climate Change Committee has attempted to silence her. It has not attempted to silence her. What it attempted to do, on a point of fact, was inform her of the basis on which her letter to the committee was wrong. This was not a matter of opinion; the Climate Change Committee was simply explaining to her where the cost of electricity comes from. My hon. Friend makes a good point.

The shadow Secretary of State talked about transparency, which is interesting because the fact that we are having a debate on the seventh carbon budget is completely different from what happened on the fourth, fifth and sixth carbon budgets. The sixth carbon budget, under the previous Government, was approved in 17 minutes in a Delegated Legislation Committee, far away from public scrutiny. These are crucial matters. I agree with the shadow Secretary of State that they will have wide ranging impacts on all of us, and they should be debated on the Floor of the House. I welcome that this Government, unlike the previous one, have brought this forward and reserved time to debate it.

In debating this order, it is so disappointing that the political consensus that previously existed has evaporated. It lasted from the Labour Government’s seminal introduction of the Climate Change Act 2008, which was strengthened and updated in 2019 by the Conservative Government. With the introduction of the Climate Change Act and the pathway to net zero, Britain was world leading in our ambition. The approach was so admired that, far from what the shadow Secretary of State said, it was copied by many other legislatures. How tragic that the Opposition should choose to jettison one of the greatest achievements in their 14 years in government in the face of a threat from the climate deniers in Reform.

The approach pursued by successive Governments is working. Since 1990, the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions have been cut by 54%. At the same time, the UK economy has grown.

Will the hon. Gentleman just answer a very simple question, as this is in the Labour manifesto and the Secretary of State bangs on about it week after week? When will energy bills and electricity bills come down?

There are many different things that impact energy prices. We have seen £150 taken off the price of bills. I think there is more that can be done to reduce electricity prices, and I will come to that.

The reality is that the hon. Gentleman is an advocate of a greater reliance on gas and oil. If anything is explained to us, it is that we have no control over energy prices while we are reliant on gas and oil. Everything that has happened since 2022—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman puts his head in his hands. I say to him that the amount that the Government spent in 2022 to cover the cost of the increase in energy prices caused by the start of the Ukraine war was greater than the cost of everything that we will do on net zero between now and 2050. That is the reality: £44 billion pounds was spent propping up people’s gas, electricity and fuel bills at the time of that crisis. That is why we need to get away from that dependence.

As I was saying, since 1990, the UK economy has grown, partly powered by the green economy, which last year was found to be growing at three times the rate of the rest of the economy, providing jobs and growth across the country. The most recent CCC assessment found that the UK remains among the leading group of countries that demonstrate sustained emissions reductions. The transition is the pro business choice. This year’s CBI and Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit report on the net zero economy found that green businesses and their supply chains generated £105 billion in gross value added for the UK economy, as well as supporting over 20,000 small businesses and a million jobs.

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, with which I very much agree. I want us to tackle climate change as fast as possible, and to accelerate the bringing online of that cheap, clean energy that will help both households and businesses. Does he, however, understand the pressures on the automotive industry? Will he join me in asking the Minister to look carefully at a rescheduling of current targets so that we do not have a knee jerk reaction, but instead have a long term plan that industry can sign up to, which would provide the certainty that is needed in that particular sphere while we battle on with the other things we are doing to bring down emissions?

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I will come to the zero emission vehicle mandate shortly. I agree with the shadow Secretary of State that we need to be careful that we do not just offshore emissions, so I will come to some of the stuff that we need to do about energy intensive industries. None the less, I think it is important that we give business the certainty that it requires.

During the EAC’s inquiry into carbon budget 7, we heard time and again from business and investors that a long term plan and policy certainty are needed. The forthcoming delivery plan and CB7 are exactly the sort of long term planning that businesses need to have confidence about the UK’s direction of travel, in order to invest and innovate. As a world leader on clean energy, our approach puts Britain on the front foot in a globally competitive and quickly changing world.

The setting of the seventh carbon budget today is not just a technical milestone but a statement of our long term ambition to secure the UK’s economic future and our competitiveness on the global stage, alongside a greener and healthier future for our children. The EAC analysis confirms that the pathway to CB7 is both credible and achievable. It is clear that, although they accept the overall figure, the Government will not adopt all the approaches suggested by the CCC, and the delivery plan that the Government adopt is what will dictate the success or otherwise of CB7. That is why the shadow Secretary of State was unable to get answers to all the questions she was posing. This provides an overall framework but it is not the Government’s delivery plan. It is within the delivery plan that we might expect to get some of the answers to the shadow Secretary of State’s questions, which she would have known if she understood what the carbon budget order process was all about.

The Climate Change Committee has said: “The slow pace of electrification is putting the UK’s climate targets at risk and is a missed opportunity to enhance UK energy security in the face of rising threats, leaving the UK exposed to geopolitical shocks…Following the recent increase in fossil fuel prices, bills have increased almost four times more for a typical household with a gas boiler and a petrol car, compared to a household with a heat pump and an EV.”

People need to know how net zero will result in a stronger, more resilient economy, lower bills and greener and healthier places to live.

The EAC’s report is tagged to the debate today, and I would like to place on record my thanks to Committee specialist Dawn Amey for her work on that really important report. Our report identifies several areas in which further action is needed to achieve the seventh carbon budget. I would like to highlight just three. First, the Committee identified that bringing down energy bills and making electrification attractive and affordable was fundamental to making the green transition work for businesses and people. This Government are accelerating the roll out of renewables in Britain and investing in grid and network infrastructure, both of which will have the effect of bringing down bills, but more action is needed. We recommended removing further policy costs from energy bills and putting them on to general taxation. This will improve the cost differential for making cleaner choices for households and industry.

Ahem!

Absolutely, Madam Deputy Speaker; I will move straight on.

Secondly, we heard again and again from businesses that long term policy certainty and delivery across Government was crucial. Thirdly, we heard that fairness was key. The green transition is necessary and brings huge potential benefits, but it must be done in a way that brings people and businesses along. Decarbonisation must not mean deindustrialisation. Forcing production to relocate abroad weakens the UK’s industrial base and undermines support for decarbonisation while failing to reduce global emissions.

In summary, the path laid out by this order is credible and achievable. The goal is a vital one—indeed, this is the fight of our age—but it must be done in a way that allows our economy and our people to thrive, and ensures that it is fairly distributed so that it is accessible to all. The prize is not just a more sustainable future but quite possibly the future of our race on this planet.

All Back Benchers will now be on a five minute speaking limit, but first I come to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

I thank the Minister and the Government for allowing a good length of time for us to debate and give due consideration to this issue of national security, just as it demands. On the day that we are debating the draft Carbon Budget Order 2026, which aims to balance our carbon emissions from 2038 to 2041, it has just been confirmed that we have surpassed the UK’s record June temperatures, which were set in 1976. The record has been surpassed in Charlwood in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking and Horley (Chris Coghlan). The Met Office has also issued a red warning for extreme heat this week, with temperatures likely to hit 40°C, but once again the UK is woefully unprepared because we keep putting our head in the sand.

Climate change is no longer a future threat; it is here with us today and the consequences are already being felt. The shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), asked about costs. This week alone, hundreds of schools have closed. GCSE and A level students are taking what may be the most important exams in their lives in sweltering conditions, in schools unfit for the current temperatures. Public transport is gridlocked and trains are being cancelled today. Telecommunications are down and the economy faces hundreds of millions of pounds of lost productivity and infrastructure failures.

Turning to the public health costs, last summer’s heatwaves contributed to an estimated 16,500 avoidable excess deaths across Europe, with 1,504 heat associated deaths last year in the UK alone. We know that that is affecting our elderly and the most vulnerable.

The hon. Member is making an important speech. She highlighted the record breaking June temperatures, and I heard Members behind me talk about how it is lovely and warm, but she highlights the very real human cost and the number of deaths per year that we are already seeing. Did she hear the Climate Change Committee highlighting that on the current trajectory, if we do not take action by mid century, we will see 10,000 unavoidable deaths per year due to heat? Does that not show how serious the situation is?

Absolutely, I agree with the hon. Member.

Let us no longer hide from this, but look it clearly in the eye: there are clear costs. They are no longer in the future; they are here now. There are costs to our economy, but also to our communities.

Let us talk about food costs. Food supplies are coming under increasing pressure. Three of the UK’s worst harvests on record have occurred within the last five years, hitting our farmers and driving up costs for families at every shop. Floods and wildfires are making homes uninsurable and putting lives and livelihoods at risk. But this is much more than a story about a few hot days. If we think that this week’s heat is uncomfortable, the difficult truth is that what today feels exceptional will increasingly become normal, and without purposeful climate action, it will keep on getting worse.

The hon. Member is making an important speech. Climate change is one of those issues that my constituents contact me about all the time, particularly my young constituents. This is something that really bothers them as much as it does us. Does she agree that climate change is something we are experiencing now—we know that when we step outside? Does she also agree that a dead planet with plenty of jobs is no good for any of us, so we need to focus on this and deal with it?

Like the hon. Member, I regularly meet young people across my constituency. I find it hard to look my children and children in my constituency and beyond in the eye, because that is one of the things they talk about the most. I challenge any MP in this Chamber to say that they do not receive those emails or have those meetings in schools where this issue is brought up. I feel that responsibility deeply, and I believe that that feeling is shared across the majority of those in this Chamber.

Without action, we risk handing our children and the next generation a Britain where extreme heat regularly keeps children out of classrooms. Did we not learn from covid, during which the more disadvantaged were left behind because they were told to go home? They did not have large homes, cool gardens or broadband, and that is happening yet again this week. We will have a Britain in which thousands die prematurely each summer and in which water scarcity, with a deficit of 5 billion litres a day of public water, is a reality. In my constituency of South Cambridgeshire, which is one of the most water stressed in the country, this issue is affecting growth right now, so we know how critical it is.

We should add that water shortages are a real cause of conflict. Many communities will be displaced. Anybody who is worried about migration now should be deeply worried about migration in the future, because people will simply be displaced—

Shut the borders!

They will come, and you will shut the borders, but we will have wars over water shortages. We absolutely will. It sounds alarmist, but we can do something about it. We should not put our heads in the sand. Does my hon. Friend agree?

I thank my hon. Friend, as always, for her passionate defence and her knowledge on this issue. I worked for 20 years in east Africa, southern America and the Caribbean on UK climate policy, including under the previous Conservative Government. I saw countries already facing water shortages and what that meant: devastating crops and economies, and putting countries into recurrent economic recession. We must be committed to net zero emissions by 2050 because the science when the former Government agreed this—

The hon. Member is making an emotional speech, and I understand she cares deeply about this issue. This target is imposing costs on our businesses in Britain, which is driving them away from one of the cleanest energy systems in the world. Our refineries now pay more on their carbon tax bill than they do on their wage bill. What does that mean? It means we are importing back those same goods from countries such as India that have higher emissions—twice the emissions, in fact. Why should we set a target more onerous than that in other countries, driving production away, only to import goods with higher emissions? What does she think that will do for climate change?

Perhaps I would contest the fact that we cannot equate the emotion with a rational mind as well. These are science based targets that the hon. Member’s Government agreed to set. What is recommended in the carbon budget order is set by the independent Climate Change Committee, with robust figures, and the science has shown us that this is our best chance to limit warming to under 2°. Global collective action avoided—at least for now—a 4° warmer world, and as I understand it, the Treasury has accepted modelling to show that we have accepted a 2° warmer world. It means that every Department will have to look at what a 2° warmer world means and how we adapt to that. I agree, however, that the impact on our industry, with some of the highest energy prices, means that it is less competitive. Let us therefore work together and focus directly on how we can get energy bills down.

The Liberal Democrats welcome the seventh carbon budget, and we are glad that the Government have accepted the advice of the robust and science based Climate Change Committee, which puts us on a consistent and achievable pathway to meeting net zero while building a fairer and thriving new economy.

Does the hon. Lady agree that we will never persuade other countries to take action to reduce their carbon emissions unless we show global leadership? Will she join me in congratulating the Prime Minister, who went to COP29 in Baku, announced an ambitious nationally determined contribution of reducing emissions by 81% by 2035? That was real climate leadership. Having been at that COP, I know that there was such disappointment among other countries about the fact that the previous Government had stepped away from showing that kind of leadership.

I very much appreciated the work that the hon. Member did in her former role, and we were together at that COP meeting. Yes, I congratulate the Prime Minister, but I also congratulate former Prime Ministers. I was working internationally, and I worked on the macroeconomic budgets of developing countries, particularly the emerging economies, and we saw what they could do to follow the UK’s lead and leapfrog technologies in their economies. I absolutely agree with the hon. Member, which is why it is disappointing to hear from those on the Conservative Front Bench that they want to delay science led targets and oppose environmental action, which would lead the world in a more insecure and uncertain place, and leave businesses without the certainty they need. I urge them to help us rebuild the consensus that we need. It can only smell of a desperate attempt at political opportunism to join Reform and gamble with the lives and livelihoods of future generations.

If the evidence is so science led, will the hon. Member explain why the Climate Change Committee was out by a factor of three—300%—on the cost of offshore wind, which is one of the key inputs for the target that she will be voting for today?

I will look forward to seeing its answer when you send a letter back—

Order. When she sends a letter back.

When a response to the letter comes back. Let us talk about the economics.

It is an excellent idea to talk about the economics. The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) could not answer this simple question, but perhaps the hon. Lady can instead: when will the bills come down?

The answer to that is in two ways. First, we must take gas out of the system as much as possible. Secondly, we must fix a broken electricity market. The way we charge customers and businesses right now is broken, and we need to change that. I do not believe in what happened under a previous Government, when George Osborne as Chancellor reduced taxation on oil and gas companies three times. By the end of that we had negative receipts to the Treasury, because we were also looking at decommissioning exemptions. Until some of the windfall tax profits came in, negative receipts were coming into the Treasury at that point.

If we talk about the economy, let us talk about the transition. As we have already heard, research from the CBI and the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit shows that the green economy is already contributing more than £100 billion and over 1 million new jobs. Clean power and decarbonisation are about growing our economy, creating those jobs, lowering energy bills and strengthening our energy security.

Although we welcome the carbon budget, setting targets is the easy part; delivering them is what counts. That is why we look forward to the Government’s delivery plan and seeing the steps that will be taken, because we worry that there is a risk they will fall short. The carbon budget will take much more than decarbonising our power supply and cannot be delivered in a centrist way from Whitehall alone. We Liberal Democrats want to see more action and ambition from this Government, not a focus on energy alone.

Emissions reductions will be experienced in people’s lives, and not just environmentally but economically, through changes in how homes are heated, how people travel and how energy is used. Local authorities, communities, farmers and businesses will be required to be partners in delivering change. We will have to double our efforts to restore nature, which is one of our most powerful tools for tackling climate change, by more generously supporting our farmers to accelerate tree planting and peatland restoration. But please, we should not treat nature protections as a blocker to economic growth. I ask the Government to get rid of the lazy, reckless rhetoric that divides climate and nature, rather than seeing them as indivisible necessities. We will also have to increase powers and funding for local authorities and communities to implement credible local climate and nature delivery plans.

My hon. Friend knows well about the issues of coastal erosion on the north Norfolk coast and the existential threat to communities such as Trimingham and Happisburgh. There is hard work being done by our local authorities and our Lib Dem councils through schemes such as Coastwise, and there is much more to do in the future, but does she agree with me that everything being done to protect those communities will be undermined by the worsening climate emergency, which has sped up erosion and will cause it to worsen further?

I feel deeply about what my hon. Friend says. He is a well known champion for rural and coastal communities that are facing such an insecure future, not knowing whether their homes will still be standing and whether they will be insurable. That is definitely something we need to look at.

Most importantly for this carbon budget, as we have heard from Members across the Chamber, electrification across key sectors is the key to rapidly reducing emissions and helping households to cut bills. Today, the Climate Change Committee has warned that progress in electrification has slowed, with heat pump installations up just 7% this year compared with 56% the year before. What is more, the share of electricity in industrial energy use fell last year, so we must see greater acceleration of electrification.

On seeing a new development recently, I was dismayed that the developer said they were not putting in heat pumps because the cost of electricity meant that people would rather have gas boilers. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we removed the renewables obligation levy from electricity, so that we were fairly pricing electricity—currently, electricity is unfairly disadvantaged—we would incentivise far more heat pump installations?

My hon. Friend often brings that issue up in the Chamber and in the Select Committee. We have to fix the broken system whereby households and businesses do not feel the benefits of cheaper renewable energy from solar and wind.

Finally, the Liberal Democrats believe that building public confidence in the transition to net zero requires people to see the benefits in their own communities. That means empowering those best placed to deliver change on the ground. Local authorities, community organisations and local leaders understand the needs of their areas, can bring people with them and are uniquely placed to turn national ambition into practical action. We need regulatory change so that community energy projects can sell energy locally, but those bodies can also take action on better public transport, warmer homes, nature restoration or street by street electrification.

Too often local climate action remains fragmented, underpowered and dependent on short term funding. Critically, local authorities still have no statutory responsibility for delivering net zero for climate and nature duty. Such responsibility has been voted down every single time it has been introduced in devolution legislation. Will the Minister look at placing local authorities at the centre of delivery of the seventh carbon budget by legislating for a clear climate and nature statutory duty for local authorities, and by ensuring that they have the funding and powers needed to unlock these opportunities? Many Liberal Democrat Members have been local councillors and we know that local authorities can do that, together with local people. Climate change will not wait and neither should we—the time is now.

With an immediate five minute time limit, I call Olivia Blake.

I declare an interest as chair of the climate and nature crisis caucus. I also refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

It is a pleasure to speak in support of the Carbon Budget Order 2026. As I stand here, the UK is experiencing a frightening heatwave and a rare red weather warning, which means a risk to all, not just the vulnerable. That is how hot it is outside. Another heat record has been absolutely smashed. It was 36.1°C last time I checked, but who knows if it has gone up in the minutes that we have been sitting here? Surely Opposition Members cannot now bury their heads in the red hot sand and deny that climate change is real. It is coming fast, and we are living through it right now.

This is incredibly frustrating. Scrutiny is not the same as climate change denial. Asking questions on behalf of our constituents, industries, households and businesses that will front the costs of this measure is not climate change denial. Will the hon. Member and the rest of the Labour Members here recognise that?

I wonder whether the hon. Member will vote against this measure. That would tell her constituents very clearly her view on this matter.

Back in 2008, under a Labour Government, the UK became the first country to introduce a comprehensive climate framework through the Climate Change Act, which set out the legally binding five year carbon budgets that we have been reviewing and looking at. As has been said, with carbon budget 6 we did not get the opportunity for scrutiny that we should have got. That legislation was groundbreaking and ensured that Governments can be held to account for delivering long term climate action. I thank the Minister for her efforts to bring that about.

Nearly two decades later, we can see the impact of that foresight. The UK has successfully halved its territorial greenhouse gas emissions compared with 1990 levels, as we have heard, with much of that progress driven by decarbonisation of the energy system. That is a significant national achievement that we should all be proud of, and it is evidence that ambitious climate policy can deliver real results. It is therefore fitting that it once again falls to a Labour Government to confront one of the defining challenges of our times.

The seventh carbon budget commits the UK to reducing emissions by 87% by 2040 compared with 1990 levels. If achieved, that will mark substantial progress towards our legally binding commitment to reach net zero by 2050. However, at present the UK is built for a climate that no longer exists. The economic impacts are staggering, costing the UK economy around £60 billion a year—about 2% of GDP and rising—through things such as flood damage, loss of crops and other forms of weather damage.

We should also be mindful of the growing environmental footprint of our digital infrastructure. As data centres expand across the UK to meet rising demand, their substantial energy consumption underlines why decarbonising our power system is not simply an environmental imperative, but an economic one. That would provide more opportunities in that space.

I welcome this budget. As we know, climate action is about more than meeting targets; it is about building a country where children are not exposed to toxic air, and where we have warmer, well insulated homes, lower energy bills and greater energy security. It is about ensuring that future generations inherit a safer and more sustainable world.

However, support for the Government’s ambition should not mean complacency about the scale of the challenge ahead. We face many interconnected crises, such as the climate crisis, the cost of living crisis and the nature emergency. Families continue to face high energy costs, while communities increasingly experience the impacts of flooding and extreme weather. The answer is not to slow down the transition and make things worse, but to accelerate it in a way that delivers tangible benefits for our communities.

The hon. Lady is making a very passionate speech. She seems to be an expert on this subject, so could she advise the House by how much it would reduce the Earth’s temperature if this country became net zero right this minute?

Obviously we cannot do this on our own, which is why the global leadership we show in this space is very important. We have international agreements that aim for 1.5°, but as we have heard, we are heading more towards 2°, 3° or 4°. Moving away from our own commitments will leave us further behind; globally, emissions must peak urgently and then decline rapidly. The UK’s influence has always exceeded its size—we have always punched above our weight, and I am proud of that—and our credibility depends on continuing to lead by example. That is why we must see this carbon budget not as a ceiling but as a floor.

The budget broadly reflects the direction of current Government policy, but it must be accompanied by the bold action necessary to deliver it. The Environmental Audit Committee, of which I am a member, has been clear that the UK’s climate credibility depends on not simply setting ambitious goals, but demonstrating how those goals can be achieved. The Committee has called on the Government to set out clearly how this budget will be met and how the policies that underpin it will be delivered, reducing emissions in the way it sets out to do. However, today marks an important first step, and I am proud to see something ambitious in front of us. If we are serious about meeting this budget, we must match ambition with action—accelerating clean energy, not abandoning it; upgrading our housing stock from what has historically been some of the poorest in Europe; supporting the industries of the future, which will provide jobs; and ensuring that communities across this country share in the benefits of this transition, leaving no community behind.

The prize is enormous—we should not listen to the naysayers. Lower exposure to volatile energy prices, greater energy independence, more skilled jobs, better security, cleaner communities and a stronger economy are within our grasp. Climate action is not a burden to be managed; it is a necessary opportunity to be seized. As such, I support the order that is before the House, but I also urge Ministers to see it as the beginning of the task before us, not the end. Ignore the naysayers—the science demands urgency, our constituents expect leadership, and the opportunity is before us. Demand that we are bold, and let us meet this moment with the ambition it deserves.

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate, and I thank the Minister for the time she has given to such an important topic. In its report on this budget, the Climate Change Committee clearly stated that behavioural change is essential to achieving the carbon reductions we need. However, the seventh carbon budget prioritises emerging technologies and greenhouse gas removals, a strategy that courts failure if those technologies do not deliver. Equally as important, it runs the risk that large parts of the population will be left downstream. The public need to see direct benefits from decarbonisation, and they need to feel that it is something they can be part of—as the seas rise, there has to be space for everyone on the boat.

I would like to draw the House’s attention to one particular area that has already been mentioned by colleagues, which is the decarbonisation of our homes. In 2022, emissions from residential buildings accounted for one fifth of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, yet the Climate Change Committee has admitted that retrofitting existing dwellings is not going to be one of the easiest bits to shift. I speak on this topic as a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, as an officer on the future homes, skills and innovation all party parliamentary group, and as an architect by trade. Decarbonising our existing homes is essential to achieving our carbon budget, and the public need incentives, clear information, consumer protection and accountable technical advice. The warm homes plan is a step in the right direction, but it already risks making some of the same mistakes that past Government funded retrofit schemes encountered.

I have a doctor in my constituency who, with the best will in the world, tried to put external insulation on her home, only to find that it was damp. Before she even sent me the photographs, I knew exactly what the cause was, but what was really worrying was that she did not, and neither did her installer. Without sufficient knowledge, neither contractors nor occupiers can make the right decisions for their homes. If you were having a knee replacement, Madam Deputy Speaker, you would not expect to need to source your own surgeon, book your own operating room and then decide which implant material is the most appropriate, because that is a complex and expert led process. However, so is retrofitting a home. That is why I am asking for technical support for those applying for Government funding, from an initial analysis through to installation support and final sign off. We need people to trust in the decarbonisation process, or we risk alienating the communities necessary for its success. It takes only one horror story for the surrounding community to become nervous, and it takes only one media circus for that to spread.

The warm homes plan is a fantastic opportunity to realise significant change in one of the stickiest and most difficult areas, but if the seventh carbon budget is to succeed, retrofitting our existing housing stock must be an essential part of that. It cannot be left on the “too difficult” pile. It represents a threefold benefit: it decarbonises people’s homes; it reduces energy bills; and it improves quality of life. I would be delighted to meet the Minister to set out a plan for how we can make retrofitting viable and take it off that “too difficult” pile. For this carbon budget to succeed, we need a clear road map. We need those contingency plans, and we need to make sure that while this Government are leading internationally as an example to others, they are bringing the whole community with them.

It is fitting that we are debating carbon budget 7 on the hottest June day in our history. I am sure that there are a few contributory factors to the latest heatwave, but we all know that one of those factors is that there is simply too much carbon in the atmosphere as a result of mankind’s activities since industrialisation. I am pleased to say that there has been a great deal of activity in this space in the previous two years, in particular on renewables. Our territorial emissions, according to Carbon Brief, are now the lowest since 1872. We are now halfway to getting to net zero, but the low hanging fruit has been picked and the harder to decarbonise sectors are still emitting.

Every tonne of carbon that we do not emit is better than having to remove it later, but it is increasingly clear that emissions reductions alone will not be enough. Some sectors will remain difficult to fully decarbonise. If we are serious about reaching net zero, greenhouse gas removals will have to play a crucial role. I am pleased to say that since coming to power the Government have commissioned the independent review of greenhouse gas removals, chaired by Alan Whitehead. The Whitehead review stated that greenhouse gas removals have “a supplementary but essential role in achieving net zero”.

The Climate Change Committee has made it clear that we cannot get to net zero without greenhouse gas removals. It would be helpful if the Minister can say when the Government will respond to the Whitehead review and what their position is on two key recommendations from the report. First, the report suggests changing the sustainable aviation fuels mandate to become a net zero aviation mandate, using greenhouse gas removals to ensure that by 2045 “all flights taking off from the UK are made climate neutral.”

With the Government not focusing on demand management and clearly looking at airport expansion, and not assuming the same level of behavioural change that the Climate Change Committee is expecting, even more weight should be thrown behind removals and specifically direct air capture.

To enable more greenhouse gas removals, the report recommends that the Government accelerate planned policies to enable non pipeline transport. It states that the Government should also accelerate decisions on the future carbon capture, usage and storage clusters. We have one of those right on the edge of my constituency. The Hope valley is home to the Peak Cluster, the world’s largest cement decarbonisation project. If we are to build the 1.5 million homes that we need and all the roads, bridges and workplaces to support them, we will need cement, but it remains one of the most difficult industries to decarbonise, because much of the carbon dioxide is produced through the chemical process of making cement itself.

For that reason, carbon capture is not an optional extra; it is essential. By capturing carbon emissions from cement and lime production and transporting them for permanent storage, the project has the potential to decarbonise about 40% of UK cement and lime production, while protecting the thousands of jobs currently in the sector and adding new skilled green jobs. It will prevent 3 million tonnes of carbon from entering the atmosphere per year. Let me put that in context: it is about a quarter of the emissions from the counties of Derbyshire and Staffordshire. This is exactly the kind of project that shows how climate action and economic growth can go hand in hand.

I welcome the Government’s support so far, and the National Wealth Fund’s investment announced last year—that support has been important—but if we are to unlock the full potential of projects such as Peak Cluster, industry needs certainty, investors need confidence, and businesses need to know that there is a clear route to market for carbon capture projects beyond the existing track 1 and 2 programmes.

The carbon budget process makes the Government of the day think in the longer term, because addressing climate change cannot be done quickly, but we need to stick to the path for our food security, our national security, our public health and our economy. I encourage the Government to match their ambition with the urgency that this moment demands.

Before entering this place, I worked in the energy efficiency industry. I know the potential that we have when we back our home grown manufacturers across the United Kingdom, and I know how vital energy is to their success; but the Government’s policies on net zero are holding them back. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch) said during Prime Minister’s questions, the current Energy Secretary is “putting up bills and killing jobs.”

I am proud that under her leadership, the Conservative Party is starting to be honest about net zero.

As the Conservative leader of Broxbourne Council, I never joined in the hysteria of council after council declaring a climate emergency, then sitting back and feeling good about themselves. In Broxbourne we focused on action, not words—planting thousands of trees, installing electric car charging points, and getting developers to put solar panels on new houses. Putting net zero into law by 2050 was exactly the same: there was no serious plan to achieve it then, but now Labour have come up with a plan, and we are starting to see what the true costs to our economy and to ordinary people’s lives will be.

Carbon budget 7 sets a target for reducing our emissions by 87%. According to the Climate Change Committee, to achieve that we must cut meat consumption by a quarter by 2040, and sheep and cattle numbers will have to fall by 38% by 2050. Some of these suggestions are completely unworkable. The Climate Change Committee has also said that people should be pushed away from driving to “alternative modes of travel”. That is simply not feasible in large parts of the United Kingdom, especially rural areas like parts of my constituency.

It is very frustrating to turn up at a local meeting about sustainable transport—about trying to increase the number of buses and trains—and then find that the person who is lecturing everyone about how we should all walk everywhere has driven there in their car. We need to come up with practical solutions that enable us to take the public with us. What do I say to my constituents who tell me, “I have to take two kids to school, and they are at different schools, then I have to go to work and do the shopping, then pick them up and go home”? Such targets are unworkable. It is not feasible to say, “Well, that’s fine—everyone can just walk everywhere.” The targets have to be sensible, and we have to take the British public with us, or we will not go anywhere towards achieving some of the stuff that the Government want us to achieve.

We are talking about an average overall cost of £11,157 per household. That is not a price that we should be willing to pay. We have made fantastic progress already, and we should always be committed to leaving a better environment for the next generation, but we also need to leave them a stronger economy and a stronger country, and that means, above all else, cheaper energy. Britain currently has some of the highest energy costs in the developed world. There is no way in which we can achieve the economic growth that people are crying out for throughout the United Kingdom if that remains the case, which is why we need to get Britain drilling and unlock the 2.9 billion barrels of North sea oil. According to this Government, it is okay to get oil from Russia if it is done through a third country, but we cannot use our own resources in the North sea. Obviously, oil coming from the North sea will produce less carbon dioxide than oil that has had to travel halfway across the world.

The Government need to set out a plan for delivery, and they really need to come up with common sense approaches to deal with the impacts of climate change. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) said, the fact that we are scrutinising Government policy does not make us climate deniers.

Does the hon. Member not think that we would give more credence to the scrutiny that the Conservatives are providing if some of their claims could be found in the carbon budget on which we are voting? Could he tell the House where it says that everyone will need to walk and will not be able to use a vehicle?

When I was leader of my council, I went to a number of meetings in my constituency and spoke to a number of constituents. Experts on transport come to meetings and say that everyone should walk everywhere, which is completely impractical. Some of the solutions that the Government have put forward are completely unworkable. They should come up with some common sense solutions, because this is a serious problem that we need to deal with. Saying that most people should walk everywhere is not a serious solution to the problem that we face.

If the Government want us to reduce our carbon emissions even more, they should come up with serious, practical, common sense solutions that allow us to take the British people with us and protect jobs in this country. As my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State has said, there is no point putting taxes on business here and cutting carbon here if factories then open in China, where they use coal to produce their electricity rather than what we do in the United Kingdom. That is completely unserious. The Government need to come up with practical solutions to this problem, and I urge the Minister to do so.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you will be delighted to hear that I am just about to throw away 22 pages of my 23-page speech in order to allow other Members to get in.

I want to quote the Climate Minister—or, rather, I want to misquote her: “Twelve years ago, in 2026, the Royal Meteorological Society held a conference to recall 50 years since the heatwave of 1976. That week was marked by record temperatures, and the Met Office delivered a forecast for 2056 that stunned the journalists and reporters who were present. Its forecast predicted 45° summer heat in England in 2056. Now, in 2038, as we stand at the beginning of the period of carbon budget 7, we know that 45° has already been reached, that the 1.5° threshold was passed nine years ago, in 2029, and that our carbon budget growth and development plan was simply not up to the job. The scientists were right. We, the politicians, were wrong.”

That is the speech that I want to ensure the Minister never has to make. It is why their lordships’ reasoned amendment in the other place last night was so ill conceived, and why today’s debate is so important. It is also the reason that the remarks of the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), were so ill judged, and I want to answer some of the questions that she posed. She will recall that, in 2023, her own figures put the number of jobs that would result from the net zero target at between 135,000 and 725,000. She said that there might be a decline of between 8,000 and 75,000, but according to the Climate Change Committee’s progress report on the net zero economy, the number of green jobs that has been reached is 650,000. That is the figure that the committee has come out with today.

The shadow Secretary of State also said how silly it was to talk about soil structure and waste, so perhaps she does not quite understand that soils and waste are actually emitters of carbon, and that if we want to achieve net zero and get a clean, green energy infrastructure, we have to think holistically.

Well, we are debating the carbon budget order, but I think we should rename it the job destroying, industry killing order, because that is essentially what net zero is doing. For the hon. Members who do not appreciate the economics of this, let us go on a little history lesson, shall we? Let us go back to the 20-year period between 1980 and 2000. Yes, our energy consumption increased by some 20%, and real GDP per capita—per person—increased every year by 3.2% per annum. Let me now take everyone forward to the last 20 years: our energy consumption has declined by about 15%, and guess what has happened to our GDP per person? Yes, it has collapsed to just 0.5% per annum. There is a direct link between the quantity of energy we consume—

Will the hon. Member give way?

I would be delighted to give way to the hon. Lady.

Does the hon. Member not recognise: first, that correlation is not causation; and secondly, that there was a financial crisis caused by outrageous speculation and a lack of control of the financial markets, and that is at the core of the problems we face today?

And Brexit!

And Brexit!

What a tragedy it is that the truth clearly hurts for the Green party; and, by the way, the Greens do not believe in carbon capture, which has been mentioned previously.

The simple fact is that there is a direct relationship between higher energy use per capita and higher GDP per capita—the richer a nation is. That is the fundamental point that everybody in this place seems to forget. As we have reduced our carbon emissions since 1990 by 54%, people seem to forget that carbon emissions around the world are increasing. Other nations are not admiring our net zero leadership; they are laughing at our utter stupidity, as they steal our jobs and our money. They are laughing at us.

Well, I think they might be laughing at him, but I do not think they are laughing at all of us. The hon. Member is talking about our climate leadership as though we should be ashamed of it, but the reality is that China installed more solar panels in 2024 than the entire world did in 2023. China is not ignoring the opportunity to transition; it is leading the way.

And what labour are the Chinese using? Slave labour is what they are using—that is the reality. They are laughing as they sell us Chinese cheap solar panels to cover our brilliant food productive farmland in Lincolnshire and elsewhere. It is insane.

My hon. Friend is making a passionate and very intelligent speech. Is he aware that we are also importing from China wind turbines—windmills, if you like—that are stuffed with asbestos?

There we are. Apparently Labour Members want more asbestos, when we know that is dangerous—yes, it is in the wind turbines. The reality is—

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will give away shortly; I am doing well.

The reality is that industries across our country are being slaughtered and jobs are being destroyed—from pottery businesses to aluminium businesses, chemical businesses, steel businesses and oil refineries. Why? Because of our high energy costs. We have seen the brilliant, highly skilled, highly qualified jobs in Aberdeen being slaughtered because this Government will not allow more exploration of the North sea. This is the reaction, and this is the consequence of net stupid zero.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I wonder whether he agrees with the Reform leader of North East Lincolnshire council, who has said that he fully supports the renewables sector. Given that he was working for the hon. Gentleman until recently, why is there such disparity between what Reform says here and what Reform says in its local patches?

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. The renewables sector keeps saying that it is going to reduce the bills, yet the bills are going up. Indeed, only recently an energy boss said that even if the price of gas went to zero—clearly, it is not going to, folks—our electricity bills at the next general election, assuming that is in 2029, will be even higher. Why? Because of all the increased policy costs, increased levies, increased constraint costs and beyond.

Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise the reality that the main factor that has driven up energy costs in the last few years has been Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine? Policy costs are a small proportion of energy prices and gas determines the electricity price, which is the—

Oh dear, oh dear. How desperately sad it is that the hon. Lady does not appreciate that the wholesale price of electricity, which some claim is driven by gas, is about a third, so it is not the majority—a third is less than 50%.

The simple reality is that there is a direct causal link between the growth of renewable generating capacity in the last 20 years and the growth of our electricity prices to the highest in the western world. That is the reason that everybody is feeling so much poorer. It is as simple as that. All the advocates of the renewables industry cannot answer the question: when are the bills going to come down? The answer is: they are not going to. The Government can try to cheat by putting it into general taxation, but the simple fact is that, actually, costs are going to go up. We have heard, for example, that the cost of more contracts for difference is going to increase by £4 billion, £5 billion or £6 billion by 2030, and that the extra cost to the grid is going to increase by some £10 billion a year by 2030. Per household—which is how people will want to understand it—that equates to about £500 per year extra on the cost of living because of the costs of net zero. Everybody needs to understand that point, as they debate and vote on this issue.

As we look to the future, having explained the history and the economics to those who do not seem to understand, we hear that the Secretary of State for Energy—he is rather absent at the moment; where is he?—wants to get rid of all our wonderful tumble dryers. No, no, we can’t have tumble dryers in the brave new world of the Secretary of State for Energy! Then we hear that, through this carbon budget, the Government want us to reduce our dairy and meat consumption by some 20%. We have had enough of this. We should vote against this ridiculous motion and scrap net stupid zero.

Order. I am going to reduce the time limit to four minutes from the next speaker. Clearly passions run very high in this debate, but may I remind Members that debates should be conducted with good temper and moderation? When Members are either taking an intervention or responding to an intervention, that carries on through the Chair. Twirling around and facing the person behind you, or wherever they may be in the Chamber, means you will not be picked up by the microphones and it is extremely discourteous. I call Justin Madders.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will attempt to be moderate and not twirl.

The net zero transition is now a fundamental part of our economy, generating about £105 billion in value and, as we have heard, employing over 1 million people. Importantly, it is not focused in one part of the country, but spread all across the UK. Growth in the sector is expanding, with 400,000 jobs expected to be created by 2030. Given that productivity in the net zero sector is one and a half times the average for the UK, the potential is there for all to see.

As we head towards the future, we need to have in mind the protection of existing jobs. The order sets the carbon budget for 12 years’ time, but there is an area where I think the Government are letting the perfect become the enemy of the good: the zero emission vehicle mandate. This country has a long history of building cars that should rightly be regarded as some of the best in the world. We have a strong manufacturing base for electric vehicles—including at the Vauxhall Motors plant in Ellesmere Port, which has embraced the transition to net zero by becoming an all electric plant—but the market demand for electric vehicles has not developed as quickly as anticipated. As of May, the market share for electric vehicles was only 26%, which is a long way short of the 33% required this year in the ZEV mandate.

The Climate Change Committee predicted that the market share for new electric vehicles would reach 55% by next year. Market share is going to need to double within a year for that prediction to come true, which is simply not going to happen. Its prediction that the proportion of electric cars and vans will reach around 95% of new sales by 2030 is not born out by experience to date, and needs revising down in light of the evidence.

My hon. Friend is making a good point. Does he accept that the way that the previous Government changed the dates for the ZEV mandate may have had something to do with people’s confidence in being able to support an electric vehicle?

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point, because there are a whole range of factors, which I will come to, in why people are not purchasing the vehicles. The industry is still keen to have a clear signal on where we are heading, but the speed and steepness of the incline is too much for it to bear.

We cannot ignore the fact that the figure of 26% relies heavily on subsidies from Government, which are pushing sales to about twice their natural level. I am afraid that there is deep concern among manufacturers about that. To fill the gap between demand and what domestic manufacturers are producing, the industry is already having to buy credits, in the order of hundreds of millions of pounds a year, which is clearly not sustainable. Meanwhile, importing manufacturers, including from China, can exceed ZEV thresholds here and sell their unused credits on to domestic manufacturers. That means that foreign manufacturers of EVs from China are not only taking ever increasing shares of the market but profiting from exceeding ZEV thresholds.

To be clear, this is not an argument about having no ZEV mandate. It is important that we tackle the climate crisis and put an end to internal combustion engines, but what bigger fillip could there be to the climate sceptics than UK factories closing down because of a rigid approach to net zero—an approach that sees millions of pounds go to overseas competitors whose manufacturing is often far more carbon intensive than ours?

The ZEV mandate must be adapted to take account of the real world market conditions, and the escalator must be changed to reflect them. It is clear that for many consumers, even with generous discounts, the cost of a new EV is out of reach. We need to be aware of limitations caused by cost, range anxiety and charging infrastructure. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) that we can do more in that area.

As a number of Members have said in this debate, we need to take people with us; we are clearly not bringing them to where we need them to be in order to hit the target. I welcome the Chancellor saying that the review of the mandate will be brought forward to this year, but that needs to start now, and we need to get the right answers within a few months.

On the subject of well meaning policies that could actually be counterproductive, I raise a red flag about the proposed introduction of the deposit return scheme, scheduled for later next year. Most households already recycle their materials through kerbside collections. The participation rates for kerbside recycling are high: it works and it provides a revenue stream to councils. If we are changing that, the public will undoubtedly ask what problem we are trying to fix.

The practical reality of the scheme for many people will be a minor inconvenience that they are happy to participate in, but for parents, carers, disabled people, elderly residents and those without easy access to large supermarkets, it could be a significant nuisance. People with complex lives will simply not do it at all. Once again, there is a well meaning policy here that risks alienating people and damaging our road to net zero, which, on this side of the House at least, we all want to get to.

The effectiveness of any carbon budget relies on two things: accuracy and attainability. If the numbers are wrong, the budget is meaningless, and if the plans are unrealistic, the budget is undeliverable. If the public lose confidence in either of those things, they lose confidence in the wider environmental project itself. That is why I want to focus less on any individual target and more on the credibility of the framework.

When goals are repeatedly missed or look unachievable, there is always a temptation for Governments to adjust the assumptions, alter the methodology, or redefine success. That satisfies nobody: it frustrates environmentalists who want genuine emissions reduction and emboldens sceptics who claim that the targets were never realistic, and it leaves the public wondering whether we are solving problems or simply moving numbers around on spreadsheets. What we need is a reset to ensure that we are having honest conversations about emissions, environmental challenges and climate policy, based on sound data.

That is why I question the overconfidence in the budget in carbon capture and storage. The budget makes it clear that CCS plays a significant role in the pathway towards meeting future emissions targets, and I recognise that it does have an important role to play in industries that are genuinely hard to decarbonise, such as chemicals, cement and the heavy industrial processes. The Liberal Democrats have always been willing to support emerging technologies in such cases.

However, we should be honest about what is being assumed. Much of the proposed CCS roll out is tied to large gas powered infrastructure projects, which means that we are effectively locking ourselves into gas infrastructure for decades to come. The problem is that the North sea cannot possibly supply our gas needs, no matter how much we drill and no matter what we do. The more we rely on gas backed CCS assumptions in the budget, the more we are locking ourselves into imported fracked LNG, mostly from the US. That contributes to global warming, whether it happens in Texas or Teesside. Yet UK carbon budgets are, of course, primarily territorial in nature—and that is precisely the sort of accounting contortion that can undermine public confidence. People are not interested in whether the emissions have disappeared from a spreadsheet; they want to know if they have disappeared from the atmosphere.

The same problem exists in aviation. The Climate Change Committee warned that aviation is likely to become one of the largest sources of UK emissions by 2040 because other sectors are expected to decarbonise more quickly. The committee stated that demand management remains the most effective way of limiting aviation’s impacts, but at the same time, we continue to debate expansion at Gatwick, Heathrow and Luton. Many people struggle to reconcile those two positions, and it is not hard to see why. Communities in my part of Sussex—in villages such as Warnham, Slinfold and Rusper—face the prospect of increased aircraft noise and new flightpaths. While the people bear the brunt, the industry is rewarded. We need stronger accountability within the aviation sector, including the creation of an independent aviation ombudsman.

If we want support for climate action to endure, honesty matters: honesty about imported emissions, honesty about LNG, honesty about airport expansion and honesty about the role and limitations of carbon capture and storage. The greatest threat to environmental progress is not ambition, but the loss of public faith that the targets and pathways are credible.

I welcome the draft order and regulations laid before the House. The timing for this debate obviously could not be more apt; not only is it currently London Climate Action Week, with Exeter Climate Forum taking place next week, but here in the UK and across Europe we are currently experiencing extreme temperatures. Frankly, this is not normal. The science of this is settled; what we ought to be doing, and what we must continue to do, is limiting climate change, mitigating its impact and continuing to grow the economy.

This Labour Government are delivering world leading climate action, driving jobs, growth and investment in every corner of the UK. Setting the target in this seventh climate budget is the goal, but the means by which we meet that target is what we will be judged on by future generations. If we are to meet the targets set out today, as well as our nearer term 2030 commitments, we must now turn our attention to the acceleration of delivery at pace and at scale. Central to that effort is a new and enabling approach to climate technology.

Just this morning, I spoke at the Startup Coalition and British Business Bank’s energy innovation event with climate tech founders, investors and policymakers representing more than £10 billion worth of scale ups. We are fortunate to be home to firms at the forefront of energy innovation, not just in Europe but the world over. I am proud to say that the south west is already leading the way. My home city of Exeter is home to the Met Office and the University of Exeter, both of which are pioneering in weather forecasting, ocean science, climate modelling, conservation and climate tech. Of the top 21 climate scientists in the world, five are based in the UK, and all of them are based in Exeter. The wider south west economy already contributes £1.5 billion to our net zero economy, and the firms that make up this economy are at the cutting edge, from small modular nuclear reactors and tidal energy systems to low carbon construction methods and sustainable food technologies.

While my hon. Friend is talking about energy in the south west, I wanted to point out what is going on in Cornwall, with floating offshore wind in the Celtic sea. This green economy could bring huge numbers of jobs, as well as skills, down to places like Cornwall and the south west, which have really struggled on that front in the past.

I absolutely agree; the Celtic sea has massive potential for the reindustrialisation of our peninsula as well. In Hull, my home town, wind power has provided a huge number of new jobs in lieu of others that were there in the past.

I want to talk about our innovators, who are too often held back by a system that is not keeping pace with the urgency of the challenges we face. Time and again, climate tech companies tell us that regulation is the single biggest barrier to scaling and deploying tech—not access to capital or talent, though those matter, but regulation. One founder I spoke to this morning said that he is deploying his tech in Estonia, Morocco and elsewhere, and that it was easier to do so in those countries than in the UK, despite his not speaking a word of Estonian or Arabic.

Our regulatory framework is, at times, more focused on managing legacy risks than delivering future solutions. If we are serious about delivering on this carbon budget, we must fundamentally change how the system works. Regulation should not simply be a system to police compliance; it should reward carbon reduction and enable innovation. That means embedding climate innovation outcomes into the mandates of our key regulators—Ofgem, the Environment Agency, the Office for Nuclear Regulation and others—and ensuring that they have the flexibility and tools to adapt in real time.

The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 was a welcome step, introducing statutory timelines and embedding net zero into the decision making, but on the ground progress is still too slow. Developers still face years of delay and inconsistent decisions across local authorities. If we are to meet the scale and pace required by carbon budget 7, we must go further. We should look at a national net zero test for planning decisions that provides consistency and clarity. We should also have a climate fast track for essential infrastructure such as electric vehicle charging, solar power and battery storage. That could help to unlock projects that are critical to reducing emissions and lowering costs for consumers.

We must also address bottlenecks in emerging sectors such as nuclear. Small modular reactors can play a vital role in our clean energy mix, but the current licensing timelines, stretching to over a decade, are incompatible with the urgency of the challenges we face. By embracing digital licensing, fast tracked siting, and regulatory sandboxes, we can significantly accelerate deployment while maintaining the highest of safety standards.

Encouragingly, we have already seen that that is possible. The creation of the Regulatory Innovation Office was a bold, forward thinking step. Its sandbox approach is now helping regulators and innovators work in new ways, testing, adapting and accelerating solutions in real time. Feedback suggests that not only is this model effective, but it has been transformational. If it continues to prove successful—and I believe that it will—we should expand this approach across more sectors, embedding carbon reduction at its core.

The Government have set the destination, and this carbon budget provides a credible and vital milestone along that journey, but to reach it we must ensure that our regulation keeps pace with our best and brightest. Our climate tech companies can get us there, but only if we help them to help us.

I will use my time to draw attention to parts of the impact assessment, because we are, after all, debating the carbon budget.

First, this budget allows for 37% of our energy consumption by 2040 still to come from oil and gas. The Climate Change Committee itself is allowing for oil and gas to be included in our energy mix into the years to come. On that basis, why are the Government still committed to banning new licences in the North sea? Why are they still committed to the energy profits levy? Why are they still stopping the permitting of Rosebank and Jackdaw? All that will do is increase our imports of more carbon intensive oil and gas, which is not good for the climate, economy or jobs in the UK. That point can also be found in the impact assessment.

Secondly, reaching the carbon budget will require an “electrification of industry”. That means a reduction in our industrial capacity. The electrification of steel means a move away from blast furnaces, which will mean we lose our virgin steel capacity. Virgin steel is used for other industries as well, such as defence and civil nuclear, so we are going to hinder our civil nuclear capacity by reducing our virgin steel capacity.

Thirdly, the impact assessment—I hope Members have read it, but I am not so sure—says that “a faster transition to renewables will not eliminate global supply chain risks.”

It is not true, no matter how often it is said, that reducing our reliance on oil and gas and upscaling renewables makes us less vulnerable to global pressures. It does not. This impact assessment says it does not. We must recognise that everything has a cost and a risk, including renewables.

I will bring my remarks to an end shortly, because I do not want to speak for too long. We must be realistic and pragmatic. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking) pointed out, this carbon budget assumes that we will reduce our meat and dairy consumption by 25%. It assumes that we will put a cost on households of thousands of pounds, which far exceeds any £300 saving on energy bills, were this Government to achieve it.

China is not putting these costs on businesses or households, and it is not closing down its domestic industries. China is opening 50 to 70 GW of new coal every year. It has almost 1,200 coal fired power stations, which it is using to export its renewables technology to us—it does not make sense. China is responsible for over a third of global emissions, and we are responsible for 1%. We are not making a difference to global climate change by impoverishing our businesses, industries and households. We said that we wanted to lead, but there is no point in leading if nobody is following. The key players are not following.

Can the hon. Lady confirm by when China said it will meet its net zero commitment?

I am sure the hon. Lady has a gotcha for me on that one. I believe it has either not set a target or it is 20 years, but I could not tell her which.

I would be grateful to my hon. Friend if she reminded the House by what share of the vote our hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Douglas Lumsden) was returned on a platform of increasing drilling.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Douglas Lumsden) was returned on 50% of the vote because of the people who actually feel this. The jobs of the residents of Aberdeen South and north east Scotland are being lost, daily and monthly, because of the rundown of the oil and gas sector and because of the eco zealotry of this Government, who want to hit their net zero target faster than anyone else. That is the reality, and it is costing jobs and livelihoods.

I have knocked on hundreds, probably thousands, of doors in Aberdeen South in the last month. I have met so many people in their 30s and early 40s, with young children, who lost their job because of this Government’s anti North sea oil and gas policies. I do not call them anti oil and gas policies, because the Government will happily take it from abroad. They will happily import liquefied natural gas and Russian derived oil and gas products; they just do not want oil and gas products from the UK.

Until we get over the obsession with running down our own industries, and with meeting a target that no one else is aiming for, the UK will suffer. Our industries, skilled workers and future economy will suffer. No other country will follow us if we do that. No other country is looking at the UK as an example. They are looking at the UK as an opportunity to export more of their refined goods and their manufacturing, because they know we are running down our industries here, but they will not copy our lead on reducing emissions because they can see the impact it is having on our economy and our energy bills.

We are missing so many opportunities. Who is going to invest in AI and data centres here when we have four times the electricity costs of the US? They just will not, as there is no incentive. Driving down our agriculture to hit a net zero target is madness. We need food, which I hope is not controversial, but all we will do is import more. All that driving down the amount of our agriculture will do is free up more land for the Government to put solar panels on, which might help them with their target, but it is not going to help with our food production, and nor will it help our rural communities.

I will happily vote against these measures today. I have happily read the impact assessment, and I do not believe that this is best for my constituents, best for the country or best for the economy.

I declare an interest as vice chair of the climate and nature crisis caucus.

It is time to put it plainly: if we fail to prevent man made climate change from getting worse, we face an existential threat to the British way of life. As our weather becomes more extreme, we face the threat of repeated crop failures and the heat related deaths of thousands of livestock. With our country built for a climate that no longer exists, the impact of storms and heatwaves on our roads, hospitals, schools and pylons will finish off the efforts of the previous Tory Administration to wreck most of our national infrastructure.

Iconic wildlife species, such as the curlew and the salmon, may disappear from these islands, and the British seasons will lose their traditional rhythm. Even our veteran English oaks will begin to vanish from our landscapes. It is bitterly ironic that the Conservative party, which takes our oak tree as its symbol, has abandoned in recent years its commitment to the protection of the environment in a way that puts that icon of our national identity at risk. It has given up conserving anything.

I fully support the Government’s determination to keep our country on track for net zero and to play our part in tackling the climate emergency. Failing to act would put 1,000 years of history and the prosperity of every generation to come at risk. Nevertheless, delivering the seventh carbon budget will be possible only if we face head on the problems in our society that so often stand in our way.

As the Government’s impact assessment shows, there are huge potential benefits to becoming a more environmentally sustainable society: new export industries, better insulated homes that are more affordable to keep at a comfortable temperature and, with less pollution in our air, healthier lives. We will never realise those opportunities, however, if we do not work towards meeting our carbon budgets in a way that also addresses the deep inequalities across the UK.

With millions in our country already struggling for a decent standard of living, tackling climate change will be impossible if it becomes a threat to their jobs and livelihoods, and to their ability to pay rent, heat their home and put food on the table. The fight against climate change must also be a fight for full employment, decent wages, affordable homes and an end to fuel poverty.

The Government’s impact assessment for this carbon budget is clear: there is a risk to delivery if efforts to deploy new technologies outpace the capacity of industry and households to respond. If it takes up front spending to invest in net zero technologies such as solar panels and heat pumps to play our part and to benefit from long term savings, the Government must ensure that everyone is able to do so, regardless of income.

Similarly, for Ministers to secure public backing for the measures needed to deliver carbon budget 7, we must have a geographically fair approach that puts genuine decision making power in the hands of local communities up and down the country. Once again, the impact assessment is clear that there is the potential for adverse ecological and landscape impacts from the delivery of net zero infrastructure. Rural communities such as those that I represent cannot just be told to lump it, and that is where I think the impact assessment is inadequate.

It is not enough to say that there will be net benefits overall, so it is okay that places such as Stocking Pelham in north east Hertfordshire are being inundated with speculative proposals for renewable energy schemes. Unless we address the clear disconnect between the development of new infrastructure, how it is done, who it benefits and who experiences the harms, public backlash will continue to delay and frustrate the essential progress that we urgently need. Will the Minister not only make more of the obvious win win opportunities, such as rooftop solar on commercial buildings and over car parks, but invest more resources in local area energy planning so that rural communities are empowered to decide what technologies they host in their local landscape, where, and at what scale?

It is 40°C outside in some parts of the UK. We are obviously not ready for what is coming, so there could not be a better day to discuss climate change and carbon targets. The seventh carbon budget should be welcomed—it is good that the Government have accepted the Climate Change Committee’s advice—but it falls far short of what is needed.

We are making good progress on renewable energy and I, for one, believe that is to be celebrated. However, I will not focus on energy because many other Members in the Chamber have done so already. Instead, I will focus on key sectors where we have seen pitiful progress, but which are absolutely central to meeting our emissions targets and making the transformational change needed to meet more ambitious, longer term targets. This is not just about net zero; it is about making people’s lives better through lower bills, warmer homes and stronger, more sustainable communities, and it is about improving the quality of our lives as we struggle with the soaring temperatures and devastating floods—and doing so through more than just investing in renewables.

First, I will talk about farming. I welcome the reopening of the sustainable farming incentive, which we heard about earlier today. But yet again, it is a first come, first served subsidy that will work against the smaller, poorer farmers—the ones who need it most. The bigger operations will dive in first and get that money. We need long term sustainable incentives for long term sustainable agricultural planning.

We also need a land use framework, so that we can prioritise the most productive land for producing food and other less productive land for renewable energy. We should not be using our most productive agricultural land for solar power, but we need both and we have to have a land use framework to make that work. And yes, we also need to look at the carbon emissions from soils and peat. If we do not have healthy soils, we cannot produce food. Going back to what the shadow Minister said, perhaps she needs to think about the role of soil—

Will the hon. Lady give way?

No, because I do not have much time.

We also need massive progress on tree planting, and I commend my local district council for planning to plant one tree for every resident in the South Hams. It is making cracking progress.

Secondly, I would like to talk briefly about transport. If we do not have a major shift towards public transport, we are not going to get people out of their cars. That shift means buses in the south west. The right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) has promised that he is going to revolutionise buses all over the country in the way that he did in Manchester, and I really look forward to seeing how he is going to do that in Devon, where many communities do not even have buses, let alone affordable buses.

We need to look at EV charging, especially for people who have to park on the road. That is a real challenge. We are certainly not seeing it where I live. I would also like to talk about active travel. Devon county council has told me that it will take five years to get a cycle path, even once it has been agreed by all the landowners. That is absolutely ludicrous. If we want to get people on bikes and walking to cut emissions and improve health, we have to cut the red tape and make this easier to achieve.

Lastly, the Climate Change Committee’s target for heat pumps for 2035 is 1.5 million a year, yet we are installing only a third of that. The cost of Heathrow expansion could pay for 4 million heat pumps to be installed across the country. Expanding airports while we are trying to cut emissions makes absolutely no logical sense to me at all. The economic benefit is not proven, the social impact will be catastrophic and the emissions impact on the climate will be unbelievable. I think we should take that budget and put it instead into helping households with heat pumps—

Order. I call Fleur Anderson.

I declare an interest as chair of the all party parliamentary group on the environment, and I would like to thank all my constituents who write to me so regularly about environment issues. I also want to give a big shout out to South Thames college and its net zero training hub, which has been built in response to so much demand for green jobs in our local area and is really helping to boost the net zero economy in south west London.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to the seventh carbon budget in this London Climate Action Week, on this the hottest June day on record ever. This week’s heatwave is a stark reminder of what is at stake. Climate change is no longer a distant threat sometime in the future; it is here now, affecting lives, livelihoods and public services across our country, and especially in London. The question is whether we respond with the urgency that this moment demands and the long term thinking that this carbon budget demonstrates. We are seeing the consequences of extreme heat in transport, in halting rail services, in pressurising our energy system and in forcing school closures, with more than 1,000 today alone.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I am sorry, but I am afraid I will not.

This extreme heat creates unsafe working conditions, especially for those in physical roles, like my son who is on a construction site today. Food production is at risk, productivity falls, services stretch and working people pay the price too often. The human toll has not been talked about in this debate so far, but it is sobering. Last summer, the hottest on record, was linked to more than 1,500 heat related deaths in England alone. Without decisive action, these consequences will only intensify.

Carbon budget 7 provides what we need most and what businesses need most, which is clarity. With a stable long term direction, investment will follow, supporting jobs, strengthening supply chains and driving innovation. We are already seeing this in the UK’s growing net zero economy. It also delivers wider co benefits, including warmer homes, lower bills, cleaner air and better public health. This is about improving lives—for example, by improving the air quality in Putney. It is welcome news that in London, deaths linked to toxic air have reduced by 40% in five years as a result of the policies brought in by the Mayor, including clean buses and the ultra low emission zone.

Public support remains strong, but confidence in delivery is weaker. Too often, people cannot see that clear path to net zero, and that is why carbon budget 7 really matters. It does not just set the destination; it gives confidence in the journey. We need more affordable heat pumps, more car clubs, more trees and more council insulation projects. While I support the Government’s approach, I want to raise a serious concern about the expansion of Heathrow airport, which is projected to add 9 million tonnes of emissions each year. How does that square with what we are doing to reduce emissions across every sector? I draw attention to the Heathrow expansion national policy statement, or HENPS—not very snappy, but it is very important. The consultation was launched last week, and I hope that anyone listening, especially my constituents in Putney, will get involved in it. How does this align with our commitments under carbon budget 7?

Can I, through my hon. Friend, ask the Minister to look at the Heathrow statement, which seems not to align with the policies we are advocating today? Also, some of the factual evidence that has been produced as part of the impact studies that the Government have also published does not seem to be reflected in the statement accurately.

I thank my right hon. Friend for that. We are looking at the science here. Carbon budgets are related to the science, and the statement about Heathrow expansion has to be related to the science and the evidence as well.

The carbon budget 7 is very welcome. It is necessary and urgent. I welcome the Government’s leadership, not only for us in our country, but in showing the way and leading other countries, and I have seen that in many places. If we get this right, we can deliver not just on climate, but on jobs, food security, national security, growth, health and resilience for decades to come.

We will go down to a three minute time limit after the next speaker.

I declare an interest as vice chair of the all party parliamentary group for the environment and as a member of the Environmental Audit Committee. Green MPs will back these critical climate change orders and regulations. I want to recognise, as others have done, the strength of the cross party consensus that has given us the historic and world first Climate Change Act and then the net zero target. As the temperature outside soars to record highs, we must renew our commitment to working on the basis of evidence. It is therefore deeply regrettable to see attempts from the Conservatives and Reform to dismantle Parliament’s climate consensus. We must not go back to the days of denialism; neither must we tolerate any rowing back on climate ambition in response to a perceived electoral threat from the deniers and the delayers.

The Paris agreement committed the world to holding global temperature rise to well below 2°C. The science has only become more alarming since then. Global emissions did not peak when many of the international climate policy experts predicted; instead, they continued to rise. As a result, the remaining global carbon budget available to meet the Paris goals now faces an ever smaller window. I support the seventh carbon budget, but we should be honest about the challenge before us, and I would welcome the Minister’s reflections on that specifically.

I welcome the seventh carbon budget, but it is imperative that we move with the urgency that the climate reality demands. We are experiencing increasingly frequent and severe periods of extreme heat, with temperatures reaching levels that pose risks to public health and essential services. The Climate Change Committee is clear that we are not prepared in any shape or form for what is to come. Greens are today specifically repeating our call for heat proofing measures: cooling for hospitals, schools, prisons and care homes, including air conditioning where needed; a maximum temperature limit for workplaces and classrooms; and a street by street programme to insulate homes to ensure that we keep them warm in winter and cool in summer. We need a long term policy framework to support that.

Members of the Environmental Audit Committee have heard that mitigation and adaptation cannot be treated as separate challenges. Neither can climate action be separated from action on inequality and the cost of living. Nowhere is that clearer than in our continued dependence on oil and gas. Expanding oil and gas operations will not materially improve UK energy security or protect us against price shocks, and it will not lower household bills. The huge growth in renewables is hugely welcome, but the science demands that we avoid new oil and gas fields. I hope that the Government will take this opportunity to unequivocally rule out expansion at Rosebank, given that it would emit emissions equivalent to 28 low income countries.

The hon. Member rightly talks about our not going back to the days of climate denial, but does he agree that there are legitimate questions to be asked about offshoring, and that we need to include the carbon emissions of everything we import, as that will be a general reflection of the carbon that we as a country are consuming?

I strongly agree with the hon. Member on that point, and we must ensure that our emissions account for all our activities, whether that is offshoring, shipping or aviation. As she pointed out earlier, any Government plans for airport expansion could bust their own climate targets and need to be carefully reviewed.

Finally, nature is crucial to this debate. Healthy peatlands, native woodlands, salt marshes and restored ecosystems are among the most effective climate tools available to us, yet we are one of the most nature depleted countries on Earth. I encourage the Government to recognise that in their carbon budget delivery plans. Not only can we build a strong resilient economy at the same time as restoring nature, but we will do so only if we successfully put nature front and centre. The science is becoming starker, the impacts are arriving faster, and the time for cautious incrementalism has passed. This House must back the seventh carbon budget, and we must all work together to increase our ambition to the level needed to protect the public.

I thank the Minister for the leadership she has shown on this issue, not just since taking up her role, but long before she came to this House—that is a powerful lesson at the heart of some of today’s debate. We have heard a lot from some Opposition Members about how inherently global this problem is, and that the UK decarbonising alone will not tackle climate change. They are obviously right—it is an inherently and intractably global problem that we cannot tackle alone—but they seem somehow to build from that to an argument that we will get other countries to go faster by going slower ourselves. The lesson that the Minister showed in a previous job by arguing for the Climate Change Act is that by showing global leadership, we can bring other countries along with us on this difficult journey. We brought in the Climate Change Act, and now 75% of the country’s GDP is covered by binding emissions targets. We know we need to go further, which is why the debate about how we meet those targets is so important—but it must be a debate about how we meet them.

There has been a lot of loaded language about climate denialism, and I accept that Conservative Members are not denying the existence of climate change. However, by denying the real and existential consequences of not meeting the science backed targets, they are engaging in a subtler, but no less pernicious form of denialism. That is betraying our constituents and their futures by failing to recognise the existential challenge of climate change, and by failing to engage with the real and important debate that we should all be having about how we meet those targets and the policy trade offs needed.

I appreciate the hon. Member’s tone and the quality of his remarks, but does he not agree that denying that the Government are making electricity more expensive and deterring electrification—something the former Labour Prime Minister has acknowledged—and denying that we are offshoring emissions by putting extra carbon taxes on our businesses that other countries do not face, therefore increasing global emissions, is also part of the problem?

The right hon. Member is right to highlight that we need to do more to drive down the costs of energy and bring others with us on the journey of decarbonisation, but that is not the debate we are having today. We are having a debate about scientifically binding and informing climate targets that will have existential implications if we do not meet them. By not engaging with some of the deeper policy conversations about how we get there, the right hon. Member is letting us all down. There will absolutely be areas where we can go further, because we have already shown that we can. Whether that is by renewing some of the renewable energy auctions to get better value out of the outcomes for consumers, by evolving the way we are delinking gas from electricity markets to deliver better outcomes for consumers and the environment, or by reforming some of the planning costs that have been holding back the new nuclear and clean energy that we desperately need to get cracking with, we have already made progress.

There will absolutely be areas where we need to go further, and many hon. Members have made good contributions to highlight some of them. That could be thinking about how we can do more to take policy costs off electricity to speed up the electrification journey, or how we can deregulate better some of the innovate start up technologies that will make some outcomes possible in ways that we might not even be able to imagine today, or thinking carefully about how we manage the industrial costs and implications of the journey to net zero, to ensure that we are doing everything we can to protect the fantastic industrial heartlands that our country has relied on for far too long, and which we should be preserving long into the future. Those are big important questions, but that is not the discussion and argument that has so often been thrown back from the Opposition Benches today. That argument has denied the implications of failing to meet the target, and it is deeply disappointing, because it lets down our constituents and all our collective futures.

The real choice before us is whether we prepare our economy for the future or watch other countries seize the opportunities that we allow to pass us by. The UK has every reason to be proud of its record on international climate leadership and diplomacy. The Climate Change Act 2008 has become a model for climate governance around the world. Some 76 countries have followed the UK’s lead in developing climate governance frameworks and we have stood at the forefront of international co operation on the issue, positioning Britain as a key player in securing the 2015 Paris agreement and COP26 in Glasgow.

We have shown that reducing emissions and building prosperity can be complementary: this is not just an environmental question but an economic one. Recent years have shown that the cost of our dependence on fossil fuels is serious. The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit suggests that the energy crisis following Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine cost the UK more than £180 billion, including a rise in food price inflation of 19%, whereas the economic opportunities are significant. Britain’s green economy now supports around 1.1 million jobs and generates more than £100 billion. It is one of the fastest growing parts of our economy, creating productive, well paid jobs across manufacturing, engineering and technology. Whether Britain embraces the energy transition or not will not change whether the transition happens. The question instead is whether the jobs, the investment and the expertise are located here or somewhere else.

History rarely rewards those who cling to yesterday’s technologies when the world is investing in tomorrow’s. Members need not trust me on this point; they should trust the then First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. On 23 June 1914, Winston Churchill was being travailed in this House by MPs who were pursuing an old energy source in the face of a new one. On the eve of the first world war, Churchill pursued oil for powering the ships of the Royal Navy in the face of MPs who pressed the case for coal. This was long before Britain had access to our own oil, but Churchill could see that this new technology was going to change the way that the 20th century would be powered.

A century later, we are faced with another transition, from fossil fuels to clean energy generation. That is particularly relevant where I live in south west England. Yesterday afternoon, I hosted the Great South West new nuclear futures event here in Parliament. This debate is ultimately about whether Britain chooses to lead or to follow. It is about whether we develop the industries of the future or allow others to forge ahead. The cost of inaction will ultimately be far greater than the cost of transition.

As the report makes clear, carbon budget 7 is one of the most important stages on the path to net zero. In previous carbon budgets, cuts in emissions came from more straightforward changes, such as moving electricity generation away from coal. As we continue along this path, this carbon budget will involve changes to the way we heat our homes, the way we travel and the technology we use. Delivering that will require behavioural and structural changes, and future emissions reductions will depend increasingly on the choices made by our constituents.

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) when he warns that if the Government are to be successful in delivering carbon budget 7, they must have the support of the public. The policies to achieve net zero must therefore be fair and must avoid placing disproportionate burdens on those households with the fewest options. The Committee was clear that the continued pathway to net zero requires greater policy certainty and co ordination, and more joined up Government action. I would take this further and expand on a point that I made when the Climate Minister gave evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee last week. As this Labour Government continue with their mission of shifting power away from Westminster and into the regions, we should ensure that mayors and local authorities have the support they need to help to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. He is absolutely right to point out the benefits of devolution and encouraging local authorities to do more. There are many local authorities, not just at mayoral level but among the smaller local authorities, that have a strong track record. I recommend my own local council, Reading borough council, but there are many others who have introduced swathes of solar and other measures.

I was coming on to talk about my own local council, where we are facing problems. Local authority involvement is all the more important given the fracturing of the long standing cross party consensus. We now hear voices, particularly from Reform UK, who would simply abandon net zero altogether. Walking away from the challenge would not protect our constituents, but leave them more exposed to higher energy bills, energy insecurity and the growing impacts of climate change itself. Where there is opposition at a national, regional or local level, it is important that the Government are proactive in setting out the explicit case for the net zero agenda as well as the tangible benefits of particular policies.

Let me draw on an example from my own local authority. Last year, the Government made £25 million of funding available through the electric vehicle pavement channels grant. That funding was for local authorities to install cross pavement channels to support residents without access to off street parking so that they could charge their vehicles at home and benefit from cheaper domestic tariffs.

I had concerns about how the grant was being used in Kent, so I wrote to Kent county council. In response, the Reform led administration said that the council had decided not to submit an application for the grant. As a result, of the £667,000 of funding that could have been available to the people of Kent, the council received only £50,000. That represents a shortfall of well over half a million pounds of funding that could have been used to help my constituents. That is deeply disappointing at a time when the Labour Government are putting forward practical support to help households with the transition to net zero.

What my hon. Friend has just revealed is absolutely shocking. Does that not show that even at a local authority level, Reform will put its ideology in the way of helping businesses and individuals to bring their bills down?

I absolutely agree. Hundreds and hundreds of constituents would like to drive an electric car but have no access to home charging, and they would have benefited from that funding. Yes, we are talking about taxpayers’ money, but by not becoming an energy secure country, we are only helping countries like Russia.

Given the urgency of meeting our national emissions targets, it is essential that no opportunity for progress is left unused. Will the Department work closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, as well as other relevant Departments, to take a more proactive and co ordinated approach? That should include identifying barriers that prevent local authorities from applying for funding, improving communication about available schemes, and providing practical support where needed.

In particular, will the Government consider measures such as offering targeted guidance or even establishing a more strategic framework to ensure that funding reaches all parts of the country effectively? By strengthening collaboration across Departments and supporting local authorities more directly, we can help to ensure that councils are fully equipped to access the funding available to them and, in doing so, maximise our collective ability to deliver on the UK’s climate commitments.

Last year was the worst on record for outdoor fires in Dorset. A part of my constituency burned for weeks on end, with many fires starting before others had been brought under control. I am really concerned that if we do not prepare better, we will be unable to manage the changes ahead.

The Government’s resilience framework, which was published last year, mentions climate change less than six times. Perhaps that explains why the Climate Change Committee has repeatedly warned that UK preparedness is inadequate. Will the Minister look again at the resilience framework?

Home grown energy is a key way to adaptation and mitigation. Earlier this month, I called for offshore wind projects to be accelerated in Dorset, but we are told that those projects are a decade away—a decade in which average temperatures are expected to have increased by another quarter of a degree and in which well paid, green jobs and associated economic growth in Dorset will be lost to our community. I must ask the Minister to look again at how we share green energy jobs around the country.

My biggest concern is this: tomorrow is the final day of the planning appeal for another incinerator in Dorset. At a time when the Government have committed to a circular economy and expanded recycling, it is totally contradictory to continue to approve these plants. Government policy published in December 2024 stated that only plants with a clearly defined waste management need should go ahead, yet documents released this week on the Canford incinerator suggest that only 20% of the burned waste will come from the two council areas in Dorset. Furthermore, the carbon capture and storage facility pledged at the time of the development will not be built; there is just a commitment to regular updates on potential future feasibility.

We are due to meet our net zero target in just 25 years, yet this incinerator will be burning waste for 40 years. That is 40 years in which we will be reducing waste and will need to bring waste from further afield to feed the monster. How can we claim to be serious about achieving net zero while enabling business models that depend on the long term combustion of waste?

When I visited Bearwood primary school last week, children urged me to do more to protect marine life. When I attended the national emergency briefing in Wareham last month, I was touched by the concern of residents about what they were seeing, sometimes for the first time. When I write back to those children next week, I want to tell them that this House listened, and when I speak at the national emergency briefing in Wimborne next week, I want to tell the people there that we recognise the scale of the challenge and the opportunity that is before us. I ask the Government to please pause decisions on new incinerator development so that we can achieve this carbon target, and to ensure the national emergency briefing reaches a wider audience with a prime time screening by the public broadcasters.

I very much welcome the opportunity for this House to debate the seventh carbon budget, but as important as this debate is, it cannot be the only place in which this discussion is held. I welcome the Government’s recognition of this in their clean energy mission, which states that that mission “will only succeed if we take people with us.”

That means not just having this debate, welcome as it is, but making sure that we reach out to communities. If we do not, the space will too quickly be filled with misinformation and false narratives that undermine public trust in the need for carbon reduction and a better environment. We must continue to make that case so that support is broad, durable, and rooted in the everyday experiences of communities across the country.

To do this, we must combine arguments with policies that improve the lived realities of communities across the UK. This means ensuring that the costs of decarbonising our economy do not fall disproportionately on less advantaged communities. We must work with, and in, communities and industry to ensure that the benefits for UK jobs and incomes are delivered. This mission is based on scientific evidence, and it needs a technical and practical set of solutions, but we will not succeed if we limit the debate to the scientific and the technical—we need to recognise that it is rooted in the values of social justice. The interconnected causes of environmental, social and economic justice are the challenge of our time.

It is clear that bringing people with us may be becoming more difficult. Much of the progress made has been on the things that were easier to do; what is left to do is perhaps more difficult. Not only is the task ahead more difficult in itself; the consensus on progress has sadly fractured. But this is not a time to retreat. It may be a time to reflect on how we build, and I look forward to the Government’s publication of the delivery plan for this carbon budget, but it cannot be a time to retreat. The challenge is no less urgent; in fact, it is more pressing. Scrutiny is important, but it is not enough, and making the case for clean energy cannot be done through words alone—it must be done through actions that deliver for working people and for all our communities. Talking about a just transition does not in itself deliver a just transition. If we act, continuing to turn our words into deeds, the clean energy revolution will not simply be a policy programme; it will become a lasting national achievement.

In 2026, the question is no longer whether we act on the climate crisis, but how fast we do so. Most people accept the science, which shows that the Earth’s average surface temperatures have increased significantly over the past century. It is hard to deny this in a week where the UK is yet again experiencing record breaking heat, although one climate sceptic told me online recently that “it’s just weather”. Yes, there have been hot periods in recent history, but these are becoming more frequent and more prolonged, with global temperatures set to rise by 1.5°C to 2°C by 2050. While that may sound like a small number, these increases will lead to farmers’ crops failing more regularly, threatening food security. People’s health will be impacted. Sea temperatures will further increase; this will melt ice sheets and release massive amounts of carbon and methane into the permafrost, further increasing temperatures.

The net zero brand, however, has become toxic, failing to clearly communicate what must be done and why. Measures to deal with climate and the environment are not “nice to haves”—they are essential to protect the country’s ecosystem, agriculture and infrastructure. It is no longer about whether we can afford to take action; it is about whether we can afford not to do so. If we do, our economy will actually benefit. We must confront the misinformation directly and put forward credible, practical solutions. The populist right promotes the misleading claim that the UK can secure its energy by drilling more oil and gas in the North sea, but in reality, projects such as the Rosebank oilfield would deliver only a relatively small supply of oil and be subject to global price shocks, all while causing significant environmental damage and giving more profits to oil giants. True energy security and lower costs will come from sustained investment in renewable energy, not from doubling down on fossil fuels.

Some 37 years ago, Margaret Thatcher stood before the UN General Assembly and warned of the dangers of rising carbon emissions and their impact on the Earth’s climate. At the time, the Conservatives respected that evidence and engaged seriously with the science, but today the party is a pound shop version of its former self, more preoccupied with chasing Reform votes than offering serious solutions to the challenges facing our country.

We urgently need to tell a better story on climate change and to show the public how policies will benefit them where it matters—in their pocket. During the last heatwave a few weeks ago, more than 80% of the energy in the grid came from renewable sources. That is a fantastic news story, and the public are set to reap the benefits from the planned decoupling of gas and electricity prices. Across the UK, we are already seeing warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers, but this is not a task for DESNZ alone. A golden thread of safeguarding our environment for future generations must run across all Departments.

I support these measures. Contrary to what some have said in the Chamber today, the UK Energy Research Centre has found that two thirds of the increase in electricity bills since 2021 has been driven by wholesale gas prices. The leader of the Liberal Democrats, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) was right, when he was Energy Secretary, to play his part in leading the UK to becoming the world leader in offshore wind. He was right—as, to be fair, was the Prime Minister—to oppose the reckless and illegal war in the middle east, which has driven up prices. It is crucial that we break the reliance on gas to bring down our energy bills. Our Liberal Democrat plan to halve energy bills in 10 years depends on doing just that. Our essential energy guarantee would discount half of bills right now, but we need to do more.

Tidal range could have been generating more than Hinkley C, had the previous Conservative Government supported that proposal when it came up. My hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) was absolutely right to say in her excellent speech that community energy could be playing a much bigger part. One thing that Reform and the Conservatives have not talked about today is that their alternatives do not just mean more and more burning of oil and gas, despite the global warming we are experiencing today; they also want to frack our beautiful countryside to burn even more gas. Near my constituency in Somerset, shale gas licences were obtained, including for Quantoxhead and around Brent Knoll, just 16 miles from a nuclear power station and not far at all from my town of Taunton. The Reform party said that it would be negligent not to frack. Under their current leader, the Conservatives have recently opened the door to fracking, saying that it will form part of the mix, just as Liz Truss did during her short period in office.

Fracking in Lancashire, let us remember, triggered 200 seismic events of magnitudes up to 2.9, which were felt across the whole Fylde coast. My neighbours in Taunton and Wellington want nothing to do with fracking, and certainly not just outside our town. Any proposals to restart fracking pose real dangers to Somerset, and constituents of Taunton and Wellington would bear all the risk: the earth tremors, the industrialisation of our rolling hills and the threat to the River Tone, while the financial gains would flow only to the oil and gas executives and to their backers.

The seventh carbon budget provides the continuity of trajectory that lower bills and a stable climate depend upon, but we must go further. We must reject the dangerous alternatives from the Conservatives and Reform, and say no to fracking our wonderful countryside.

Since the last election, great strides have been made by this Government in confronting the ongoing climate crisis. There should be no doubt at all about us being in a climate crisis—we only need to step outside to feel it. We have heard from many Members already that this is one of the hottest days on record.

I welcome the Government’s clear acceptance of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recommended reduction of carbon emissions. That is an issue that my constituents care deeply about. After all, it is about their children’s future, and when I say this, I mean that all children deserve the right to breathe clean air. This Labour Government have made historic investments in clean energy and rewilding projects across the country. Those achievements have not only worked to decrease our dependence on fossil fuels and build our national energy independence, but brought with them further private investment, training opportunities and high skilled sustainable employment, reinvigorating our communities and building the foundations for a greener and more sustainable economy.

The Government’s focus on environmental policy is demonstrated by the carbon budget, which will improve people’s lives now and for years to come. It will rebuild our natural environment, and it will save lives. In previous years, 4,000 premature deaths were linked to poor air quality in London alone. That is not acceptable. It has affected my constituency directly with the tragic death of Ella Adoo Kissi Debrah in 2013, following which, for the first time in the UK, air pollution was listed as a cause of death. I applaud her mother, Rosamund, who campaigns relentlessly for clean air.

For far too long, Governments in Westminster have failed to take the dangers of air pollution seriously, and I am glad that that is no longer the case. Thanks to vital work on the part of the Mayor of London, enormous progress has been made to clean up our air. The implementation of ultra low emission zones—which are popular with some and unpopular with others—has removed high emission vehicles from our streets, which, again, is to be applauded.

This progress shows a Labour movement working together at local and national level to change lives. I congratulate the Government on their acceptance of the carbon budget and the emissions reduction target, and I look forward to continuing to support the work that is taking place in the UK and globally to tackle the climate crisis. However, I ask the Government to look further at the stripping of minerals from the seabed. As the Minister will know, deep sea mining puts at risk genuinely irreplaceable biomes, and may lead to the remobilisation of carbon emissions that have long been dormant on the seabed.

Owing to the three minute speaking limit, I will do my best to summarise my speech. I also apologise to the constituents whom I told that I would raise specific issues on their behalf, because I may not be able to cover all the points that I had hoped to make.

The last Labour Government made huge strides in respect of climate change, introducing the first legislation in the form of the Climate Change Act 2008 and the first carbon budget. That was taken up by other countries across the world. I also pay tribute to past Conservative Governments—David Cameron and Theresa May took that work forward—and I hope we can find a consensus across the House on the way ahead.

Climate change affects so many aspects of our lives in the United Kingdom. We have made good progress, cutting greenhouse gas emissions by about 50% since 1990, but the scale of the challenge is great, and it is having a massive impact on the economy. We are on a fossil fuel rollercoaster as we pay more to support people with health problems. We may see such problems today—and perhaps I should declare an interest, as someone who would get sunburnt under a 40-watt lightbulb. We are also seeing threats to our national security as access to natural resources is challenged, and that will be a driver of conflict.

While we have a moral obligation to adapt, we are also presented with a huge opportunity for our economy. The green industries of the future are already creating growth here, and creating some fantastic jobs. It is important to bear in mind that the suggestions made by the independent Climate Change Committee are just suggestions, and that it is up to the Government of the day to pursue them. For example, we have heard some talk of banning meat and dairy products. I happen to know that the Secretary of State for Energy is very fond of a bacon sandwich, as is the chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee, so I do not think we will find ourselves in circumstances in which meat is banned.

Let me refer to some of the opportunities that we have. The Government’s progress with the Rolls Royce small modular reactors is fantastic news. I understand that they will be able to power nearly a million homes, and this is good news for jobs in the sector as well. The warm homes plan will help to deal with the cost of living crisis, but it also means that people who heat their homes using gas, for example, will use less of that product.

I want to impress on the Minister the importance of nature based solutions, especially in relation to flooding, which imposes a huge economic burden on businesses and homes. I should also like her to bear in mind green hydrogen, which presents a huge opportunity for the economy. Some great work is being done in Sweden. However, a huge amount of electricity is required for the electrolysis that is needed to produce green hydrogen. If we can do more with the SMRs, I believe that we have a viable opportunity to deliver with green hydrogen.

It is a shame that time is so tight in such an important debate, but I shall have to leave it there for today.

The temperature right now in London is about 35°, compared with a perfect 25° in Darlington—so take me home! I want to put on the record my thanks to all the staff working to support us today, especially the armed police and the Doorkeepers in their three piece suits. The effects of this heatwave will put huge pressure on our public and essential services, and we should all spare a thought for any woman giving birth today, for the families living in overcrowded accommodation, and for anyone with medical vulnerabilities. This weather is deeply dangerous and, in proposing inaction in the face of this climate emergency, the Conservative party must be living on another planet.

I may not be a climate change expert—my brother is a geography teacher, so I am under serious pressure—but I do know my regional economy. I know that the net zero project has delivered incredible impacts and huge investment in my area, and the Minister has shown excellent leadership on this issue. Although today’s extreme weather makes her point for her, the Government have been working hand in glove with industry to ensure that we reap the economic rewards of the transition to net zero. At the G7 last week, the Government secured £1.3 billion for battery energy storage systems so that we can end the ludicrous practice of curtailment of our wind farms.

In recent weeks, we have seen a co ordinated effort by the once credible Conservative party to paint decarbonisation as anti jobs, anti growth and anti industrial communities. Although I absolutely back the calls from the trade unions to ensure a proper, equitable career transition for those working in the oil and gas industry, saying that this Government’s commitment to net zero is bad for our economy is for the birds.

In my region, we have a world leading carbon capture project, the East Coast Cluster, which includes the net zero Teesside power plant. The plant, which is powered by gas, will capture 2 million tonnes of CO₂ annually and create enough power for 1.3 million homes. This technology will be globally significant, boosting our ability to support other countries that are looking for solutions to their transition, which we can sell. The technology is backed by a £22 billion investment, alongside the green hydrogen on Teesside and many other innovations. Our region is powering ahead. We have huge innovations through the Northern Endurance Partnership, and Low Carbon Materials, which is a local start up, was shortlisted for the Earthshot prize.

Net zero jobs are 40% more productive than the national average, with wages 15% higher than the UK norm. In other words, these are not just more jobs; they are better jobs. That is the assessment of the CBI, not the Labour Government. Whether it is the electric trains being built at Hitachi or what will soon to be the largest wind farm in the world at Dogger Bank, our region is home not only to the best people in England, but to the most net zero businesses per head in the country.

I say to the Minister: all clean power to your elbow. Industry is investing and innovating. The public support action and want subsidies, with two thirds wanting action on climate change. Carbon intensive industries, and workers in these industries, are calling for equitable alternatives and for the same pay and progression as other sectors.

The effects of climate change cannot be ignored in my city of Portsmouth. We are an island city, and rising sea levels will pose a growing threat if we do not get a grip on the climate crisis. The climate crisis affects my constituency every day. It is fitting that we are debating this motion during a record heatwave, in which people are struggling to cope in homes that are poorly equipped for increasingly frequent extreme weather. This is not just about reducing emissions; it is about rewiring our economy for a more sustainable future. Climate action is driving jobs, growth and investment across the UK, and we are already seeing that in Portsmouth.

Earlier this year, I visited four constituents with Aura Retrofit. They had all received heat pumps through the Government’s warm homes plan, at no cost to themselves. They told me that these improvements have transformed their lives by keeping them warm through the winter, reducing their energy bills and, indeed, giving them money back. The Conservatives say that the public do not support the transition to net zero, but I do not know who they have been talking to, because 77 people surveyed by the Government’s public attitudes tracker said that they were concerned about climate change and its impact, and seven out of 10 voters say that they want to support Government action to reduce climate change. However, they know there is an issue that we must address.

At a recent community event, it was evident that many people were afraid to discuss climate change and net zero for fear of attack and a pile on following the misinformation spread online by some politicians. Despite heat pumps being available in my city, only 4% of households in Portsmouth North have taken them up, making us 483rd out of 650 constituencies for adoption. For some residents, the offer may simply sound too good to be true. Previous scams in the clean energy sector have damaged trust. In summing up, can the Minister consider how we rebuild confidence so that more residents can benefit from what one constituent has described as “kinder energy”?

As a proud naval city, Portsmouth understands how global events can affect the cost of fuel, energy and food. That is why we must continue to invest in renewables and nuclear energy to free Britain from the rollercoaster of fuel prices. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) noted, we must bring the country with us, and people must see it, hear it and feel it. We should reject the false choice between restoring nature and reaching net zero, because we need both. Nature recovery and climate action are not competing objectives; they are mutually reinforcing.

One area of concern I would like to highlight is the role of the shipping industry. Portsmouth international port’s shore power infrastructure, supported by Government funding, allows ships to connect to the electricity grid while berthed rather than running on diesel, making the air cleaner around the city and meaning that the income received from the municipal port is not costing local people their health. However, this port now faces serious challenges. The cost of electricity makes using the infrastructure more expensive than marine diesel, which is threatening to undermine the investment. I urge the Minister to work with Ministers across Government to find a solution. Our port wants to contribute to net zero, but the current system is holding it back.

If we do nothing, we do not keep things as they are, but lock in more flooding, more extreme weather and greater energy insecurity. In the words of our own national treasure, David Attenborough: “If working apart we are a force powerful to destabilise our planet, surely working together we are powerful enough to save it.”

As many Members have mentioned, the temperature outside the Chamber has been climbing towards 40°C and a red heat health alert is in force. Fifty years ago, the summer of 1976 left a mark that many people still remember. We are living through that kind of summer again, except that now we know it is not a freak, but a pattern. We are seeing the impact in that schools have closed, transport has been disrupted and hospitals have cancelled appointments. Indeed, we have already seen a critical incident declared at a hospital in Portsmouth.

None of this is a forecast; it has already happened, and it is happening faster than we were told, but I do not believe that we need to trade in despair, because it is not warranted and it is not useful. We still have time to act and we know what to do. That is the whole point of the seventh carbon budget that we are debating, and it is in that spirit that I support it.

This is something Britain is good at. We were the first major economy to write a binding climate framework into law. We have cut our emissions faster than almost any comparable nation. This is not a burden we should carry grudgingly, but a race in which we are leading from the front and, indeed, bringing on other countries to act as well.

A child starting school in my constituency this September will be in their 20s when this budget period ends, and what we decide in this Chamber writes the world that they grow up in. We must leave things better than we found them, and we cannot hand the next generation a wrecked inheritance and a bill, and call it prudence. So to those who say we cannot afford this, I say that the reverse is true.

The Conservative party rightly talks about scrutiny, but scrutiny works both ways. I heard very little about the costs of inaction—flooding, wildfires and heatwaves—or the cost of not capturing the huge economic opportunities. Indeed, the impact assessment, as we have discussed, shows that transitioning away from fossil fuels will lead to a net increase. It mentions not being able to quantify exactly the impact on jobs post 2030, but it very clearly says that that is because of the context: it depends on things such as automation, AI and, crucially, policy.

I agreed with the speech of the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), in 2023, because she rightly argued—I did not agree with everything she said, but she made this central point—that while she agreed with the target for net zero, policy would be crucial to shaping whether it worked for families and business. However, rather than doing the hard work of designing policy to ensure that, the Conservatives have abandoned the target completely.

We still have time, and we have the framework, the evidence and a national habit of leading when it counts. We should not duck this moment just because it has got difficult, and I urge the Government to keep Britain leading from the front.

The temperature has certainly gone up outside, and at times it has gone up a little in here. This has been a very passionate debate, which I really welcome. I will probably not have time to go through all of the points that were raised, but I am happy to meet anybody to discuss them. Constructive engagement is really helpful on this issue. I think most of our constituents want us to tackle climate change and bring bills down, and this is an opportunity for us to work together.

I will reply initially to the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho). As she knows, this issue is about setting the trajectory towards 2050. It is not about 2050; it is about the budget. I listened really carefully and she makes some valid points, but I was a little confused at times. She challenged us on not having enough scrutiny, but this is the first time that we have had proper scrutiny of this budget. Under the previous Government, you never once voted on the carbon budget on the Floor of the House. You discredited, or you tried to discredit, the Committee on Climate Change—

Order. The Minister is better than that.

The right hon. Lady used the Committee on Climate Change to discredit some of the figures and questioned food bills, but she knows that bills have already gone up by £361 as a result of food inflation. She talked about planning and referred to China’s innovation, but I would say that its planning system is a little bit more forthright than ours.

The thing I was most unsure about was this: if the right hon. Lady is so clear, why did she not do that when she was in office and she was in my place? Actually, she did take this through when she was in charge. It is only in Opposition that she has changed her position entirely. I am from Yorkshire and we say things fairly directly. My advice has always been that we want to save carbon and make cash. I think that is a fairly blunt way of saying that this is about growth in the economy.

I pay tribute to and thank my hon. Friends the Members for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake), for Derbyshire Dales (John Whitby), for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies), for Brent West (Barry Gardiner), for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders), for Putney (Fleur Anderson), for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern), for Ashford (Sojan Joseph), for Darlington (Lola McEvoy), for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) and for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy).

I would also like to thank the hon. Members for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings), for Chippenham (Sarah Gibson) and for Horsham (John Milne), my hon. Friends the Members for Exeter (Steve Race) and for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff), and the hon. Members for South Devon (Caroline Voaden), for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord), for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos), for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross), for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking) and for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice).

I understand that the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness drives a Tesla, but his party wants to scrap the electric car grant. I understand that he put solar panels on properties owned by his former company, but Reform councillors are cancelling solar projects on public buildings. I understand that his former company invested in EV chargers and solar power, but Reform says Britain should slow down the green energy transition. I understand that he says he backs business, but he threatens to rip up green investment deals and send investors running for the exits. Some 91% of properties in the Boston and Skegness constituency face some level of flood risk. He talks about adapting to climate change, but he will not tackle what is causing it.

I ask the hon. Members who have questioned the motions today: what is the alternative? I am very happy to have those conversations. Should we tell black cab drivers to give up their electric taxis and go back to paying more at the pump? Should we look constituents in flood risk communities in the eye and tell them, “Sorry, we’re not going to tackle the causes of this?” Should I tell the gentleman I met in Makerfield, whose solar panels have helped to reduce his energy debt by £800, that he was better off without them? Should I tell the investors at the London Stock Exchange that Britain is not interested in its share of a $10 trillion global green economy? Let us be clear: that is the choice.

In the middle of an unprecedented heatwave, perhaps we should all try to take the temperature down. This should not be a partisan issue. At its heart, carbon budget 7 is a pro business, pro investment framework. Let us choose resilience over risk, let us choose investment over stagnation, and let us choose the opportunities of the future over the comforts of the status quo. I hope that I have provided the reassurance that Members require. I urge colleagues across the House to support the orders and regulations before us today. I commend them to the House.

Question put.

41|19:33|332|94|The House divided:|Question accordingly agreed to.||0|0

Resolved,

That the draft Carbon Budget Order 2026, which was laid before this House on 2 June, be approved.

More than three hours having elapsed since the commencement of proceedings on the first motion, the Deputy Speaker put the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Order, this day).

Motion made, and Question put,

That the draft Climate Change Act 2008 (International Aviation and International Shipping) Regulations 2026, which were laid before this House on 14 April, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.—(Katie White.)

42|19:47|329|94|The House divided:|Question accordingly agreed to.||0|0

Motion made, and Question put,

That the draft Climate Change Act 2008 (Credit Limit) Order 2026, which was laid before this House on 14 April, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.—(Katie White.)

43|19:59|330|93|The House divided:|Question accordingly agreed to.||0|0