Environmental Audit Committee
Wednesday 9th September 2026
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14:30
14:30
Alison Griffiths
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Alison Griffiths
14:30
Barry Gardiner
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Barry Gardiner
does that mean that the consultation period which closed 15 days ago, or sorry, not even that eight days ago, the consultation has now closed. Does that mean you don't expect government to revise the the Heathrow expansion National policy statement? I'm trying not to use acronyms. You don't expect any revision of that . In the light of the consultation that has now just closed, because certainly the questions from this committee and and and the Transport Select Committee would imply that there's quite a bit of amendment that needs to be done to that document.
But if you're not, then going to be giving us your advice on the final document yet again, you're coming late to the party and not doing your job.
But if you're not, then going to be giving us your advice on the final document yet again, you're coming late to the party and not doing your job.
14:31
Alison Griffiths
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Alison Griffiths
I can't comment on exactly how we've gone about giving the advice, because it starts to touch upon what we will say when we publish. I'm happy to pick some of this up outside the room or immediately after publication, but in order to answer this question, I would get quite close to telling you how we've gone about shaping the advice, and it is still not completely finalised and in review. So we can't, as you know, discuss statutory advice before it's published.
14:31
Barry Gardiner
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Barry Gardiner
I'm not asking you to discuss the advice. I'm asking you to address the question of the fact that the government may well change in the light of the consultation, the final draft. And yet we don't know that you, as the most important independent adviser to Parliament, will be giving us your advice on that final draft when it comes. That takes account of all the things that neither you nor we have yet seen.
I think
I think
14:32
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
I think we can say our advice next week will set out our assessment of the draft NPS and our recommendations on what, if anything, needs to change. We. The consultation process is designed to uncover things that may or may not need to change. Then the final draft will be produced. We do not have a statutory role to assess national policy statements. We were commissioned specifically to provide this advice on the draft, which we will be doing in line with that request.
14:33
Alison Griffiths
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Alison Griffiths
And there will be enough in the advice that we're giving for you as parliamentarians to look at both draft and final consultation responses. I think from the way that we've approached it, I really do appreciate the challenge on the timeline I do. We are, as we have said to you in previous sessions, extremely small. So the same group of analysts that do the mitigation work have been working on the Well adapted UK report that you have seen all over the media this summer on climate risk.
They are the same group of analysts doing the progress reports, which have a statutory timetable for both devolved and the UK. It is incredibly compressed and so sometimes what looks like a very long lead time is because we do not have the analytical capacity to do additional work at speed. We have tried to make sure that you're getting it as close to the consultation timeline as possible. And yes, we have been talking to officials about that through through the period and what the expectations can be.
So they've been aware that this has been our publication timeline.
They are the same group of analysts doing the progress reports, which have a statutory timetable for both devolved and the UK. It is incredibly compressed and so sometimes what looks like a very long lead time is because we do not have the analytical capacity to do additional work at speed. We have tried to make sure that you're getting it as close to the consultation timeline as possible. And yes, we have been talking to officials about that through through the period and what the expectations can be.
So they've been aware that this has been our publication timeline.
14:34
Barry Gardiner
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Barry Gardiner
It it may not always be apparent, but I am one of the greatest champions of the independent role of the Committee on Climate Change. And that's why I. I try and hold your feet to the fire on this issue, but I'm concerned that twice now, when you've appeared before us, you've said that you are experiencing resource constraints. And therefore I wonder if when the the chair of the committee comes back, we may be ought to ask him to write to the Department to ensure that there are not these resource constraints.
In fact, it's probably to the Cabinet Office or the Treasury to ensure that there are not these constraints, because actually I would contest. It is hampering the proper role that was set out in the statute in 2008 of the C.c.c. to be able to give its advice to Parliament. So if we can perhaps put that into the chair's inbox and see if he would like to write a letter on that basis. Okay.
Thank you for that, Roz.
In fact, it's probably to the Cabinet Office or the Treasury to ensure that there are not these constraints, because actually I would contest. It is hampering the proper role that was set out in the statute in 2008 of the C.c.c. to be able to give its advice to Parliament. So if we can perhaps put that into the chair's inbox and see if he would like to write a letter on that basis. Okay.
Thank you for that, Roz.
14:35
Roz Savage
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Roz Savage
Thank you very much, chair. Question for Miss Pinchbeck. Your progress report was published in June, and clearly since then, there have been a few changes. We have a new prime minister and new secretaries of state at both Disney and Defra. So I'd like to know what would your key messages be to these secretaries of State and the Prime Minister as they take up their new positions, about the work that's needed over the coming year to ensure that the UK is on track to meet its climate targets?
14:35
Alison Griffiths
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Alison Griffiths
I think we can start with some good news and to champion the things that have gone on well, and in particular we'd say electric vehicles are still storming away. We're at a quarter of new car sales are now EVs. So 41% increase in electric vehicles on the roads in the financial year to April 2026. Renewable generation was at record levels in the recent auction. We've got 8.4GW through, and peatland restoration is up 24% as well year on year.
So there are some really good indicators and we continue to make progress with emissions falling again and emissions in the UK having halved since the 2008 Climate Change Act. Given that we've also had more disruption in the Middle East, we would also point to the findings we've got in the back of this year's progress report on household costs. This new government has talked about cost of living, the need to ease costs for households, and we found that with an electric vehicle, a heat pump, solar panels and a time of use tariff , households would save around £1,200 a year in that kind of household relative to staying on fossil fuel technologies, a gas boiler and an internal combustion engine vehicle with posts around prices.
We're also really seeing the risk of being dependent on volatile fossil fuels. And this time, we talked about the fact that the price spike following the Iran war meant that households with a gas boiler and a petrol car were almost four times exposed to that price spike than those with heat pumps and electric vehicles. And that's more in rural areas, as we've seen. So I think if you look at the indicators for some of the electric technologies improving, you look at the global environment and energy costs.
There's a really good incentive for this government, in particular with these challenges to be making progress on decarbonisation. What do they need to do about it? Well more electrification. So we we we saw and a previous administration a big focus on the power sector. And we said to you last year and would say, again, cheap electricity is really important, but also that cheap electricity should enable people to get electric technologies in their homes and to benefit from these savings.
So we'd like to see more electric vehicles, more on heat pumps. And then very lastly, the government has published its carbon budget growth and delivery plan. That's good. They now have a plan out to the end of the sixth carbon budget period. What we have, what we can see when we look through their plans, is that they are at risk of missing, not the legally binding carbon budgets, but the nationally determined contributions, the commitment they've made to the international community.
If they don't speed up electrification and in particular, their current set of policies, don't meet the 2030 Nationally determined contribution, and they just meet the sixth carbon budget. Within that, we'd say about 60% of the policies they've got are either credible or carry only a few risks. In particular, I would like to highlight that they are very dependent on removals, and they have gone for a technology and early technology led approach, which is slightly different to our advice, and that also carries some risks.
There you go.
So there are some really good indicators and we continue to make progress with emissions falling again and emissions in the UK having halved since the 2008 Climate Change Act. Given that we've also had more disruption in the Middle East, we would also point to the findings we've got in the back of this year's progress report on household costs. This new government has talked about cost of living, the need to ease costs for households, and we found that with an electric vehicle, a heat pump, solar panels and a time of use tariff , households would save around £1,200 a year in that kind of household relative to staying on fossil fuel technologies, a gas boiler and an internal combustion engine vehicle with posts around prices.
We're also really seeing the risk of being dependent on volatile fossil fuels. And this time, we talked about the fact that the price spike following the Iran war meant that households with a gas boiler and a petrol car were almost four times exposed to that price spike than those with heat pumps and electric vehicles. And that's more in rural areas, as we've seen. So I think if you look at the indicators for some of the electric technologies improving, you look at the global environment and energy costs.
There's a really good incentive for this government, in particular with these challenges to be making progress on decarbonisation. What do they need to do about it? Well more electrification. So we we we saw and a previous administration a big focus on the power sector. And we said to you last year and would say, again, cheap electricity is really important, but also that cheap electricity should enable people to get electric technologies in their homes and to benefit from these savings.
So we'd like to see more electric vehicles, more on heat pumps. And then very lastly, the government has published its carbon budget growth and delivery plan. That's good. They now have a plan out to the end of the sixth carbon budget period. What we have, what we can see when we look through their plans, is that they are at risk of missing, not the legally binding carbon budgets, but the nationally determined contributions, the commitment they've made to the international community.
If they don't speed up electrification and in particular, their current set of policies, don't meet the 2030 Nationally determined contribution, and they just meet the sixth carbon budget. Within that, we'd say about 60% of the policies they've got are either credible or carry only a few risks. In particular, I would like to highlight that they are very dependent on removals, and they have gone for a technology and early technology led approach, which is slightly different to our advice, and that also carries some risks.
There you go.
14:39
Roz Savage
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Roz Savage
Thank you. I wonder if I could just ask a brief follow up question to that. So we know that nature could be one of our greatest allies in mitigating climate change and its impacts. So I'm not sure that I heard a key message there for the Secretary of State at Defra about what you would be asking that department to do.
14:39
Alison Griffiths
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Alison Griffiths
We've given Defra a significant amount of advice over the course of the summer, with the advice we've just put out on climate change risk, but in respect of the mitigation advice, we need to see a few things happening. In particular, tree planting rates have fallen, so we've got very good news on peatland restoration, largely the lion's share of that being carried up in Scotland. Similarly, tree planting rates have fallen about 25% compared to the 2025 progress report.
And a lot of that is because of a change in Scottish policy. Over half of our tree planting is done in Scotland, so to get to where the government wants to go in its own strategies, it will need to really significantly increase tree planting. I think we'll come on to talking about agriculture, but there is
And a lot of that is because of a change in Scottish policy. Over half of our tree planting is done in Scotland, so to get to where the government wants to go in its own strategies, it will need to really significantly increase tree planting. I think we'll come on to talking about agriculture, but there is
16:03