Coutinho refuses to update carbon budget plan as Energy Act is passed

Energy secretary Clare Coutinho has refused to update the government’s Carbon Budget Delivery Plan to reflect prime minister Rishi Sunak’s backtrack on a swathe of net zero polices, as the long awaited Energy Act has been passed into law.

In a letter published today (Thursday 26 October) to Philip Dunne MP, chair of the House of Commons environmental audit committee, Coutinho insists that the government remains committed to existing targets designed to keep the UK on track for meeting net zero emissions by 2050.

The correspondence is in response to a letter from the committee that includes a request for a revised Carbon Budget Delivery Plan (CBDP), setting out how the existing March 2023 document should be amended as a consequence of the policy changes announced by Sunak on 20 September.

The committee also asked the secretary of state to supply any relevant advice received from the Committee on Climate Change.

While the core 2050 net zero pledge remained in place, Sunak’s 10 Downing Street speech last month saw the phase-out date for internal combustion engine cars and vans relaxed from 2030 to 2035, while around a fifth of households were exempted from the mid-2030s ban on new gas boilers.

In addition, moves to enforce more exacting energy efficiency standards on residential landlords have been abandoned.

The CBDP, a statutory duty on government under the 2008 Climate Change Act, sets out the package of proposals and policies that enable the rolling five yearly carbon budgets to be met.

However in her response, Coutinho writes that it is “not appropriate, nor is it a requirement” to update and publish a revised version of the plan “every time there is a change in economic data, a policy or wider factor”.

She adds that the vast majority of the nearly 200 policies set out in the plan are unamended and remain in place following the prime minister’s announcement.

“The government’s package of proposals and policies will continue to evolve and adapt to changing circumstances. The Carbon Budget Delivery Plan is not intended to predict the exact shape of the British economy in 2037 or later, and nor should it.

“With a constantly changing external environment covering economic, technological, and wider trends our plans will of course need to be revised over time.”

Responding to detailed queries about individual policy shifts announced by Sunak, Coutinho writes that the Department for Transport is considering whether there should be any successor arrangements from 2030-34 for limiting emissions from internal combustion engine cars and vans following Sunak’s decision to push back the ban on the sale of such vehicles to 2035.

And she writes that the government is carefully considering ideas from the Energy Efficiency Task Force, the disbandment of which emerged following Sunak’s announcement.

While welcoming Coutinho’s letter, the committee noted the government’s decision not to provide Parliament with an updated CBDP will prevent “ready examination of the claim that the UK remains on track to meet the majority of its carbon budget obligations following the changes in policy”.

Dunne said: “We welcome the government’s stated ongoing commitment to meeting carbon budget and net zero targets.

“It is nevertheless disappointing that many of the committee’s specific questions have been left unanswered.

“A detailed response showing the impact on future emissions would have assisted our scrutiny of the revised timeframes for the phasing out of petrol and diesel vehicles and of fossil fuel boilers, and the potential impact of these changes on the emissions reductions required to meet net zero.

“Energy efficiency remains a significant concern of the committee. I hope the government’s recent increase in the level of grants being offered to replace fossil fuel boilers generate the desired take-up. I trust that the increase in the size of grants available will be reflected in an increased overall budget for the scheme, as well as accelerating take-up by households. I look forward to raising these issues with the secretary of state in this important policy area in coming weeks and months.”

Energy Act

The government also announced today that the Energy Act 2023 has received Royal Assent.

The act, billed by the government as the biggest ever piece of energy legislation, includes measures to:

• Increase competition in Great Britain’s onshore electricity networks, through a new tender process
• Create a tailor made merger regime for energy networks under the Competition and Markets Authority
• Expand Ofgem’s remit to heat networks, allowing the regulator to set rules on excessive pricing and improve the quality of service for the half a million heat network consumers across the country
• Introduce new consumer protections and frameworks to incentivise the heating industry to invest in low-carbon heat pumps and powers to deliver the smart meter rollout by 2028
• Update Ofgem’s remit so that it considers net zero targets as part of its everyday decisions
• Facilitate the first village-scale hydrogen heating trial
• Introduce a licensing framework for CO2 transport and storage to help deliver the UK’s first carbon capture sites
• Legislate for regulation of nuclear fusion
• Establish the Future System Operator

Commenting on the act’s passage, Coutinho said: “It lays the foundations for greater UK energy independence, making us more secure against tyrants like Putin, and helps us to power Britain from Britain.

“The act also supports our new approach to make sure that families don’t feel a disproportionate financial burden as we transition to net zero and forms a central part of our efforts to keep people’s bills affordable in the long-term.”