Carbon Budget 6

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether their policies and plans will deliver Carbon Budget 6.

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Whitehead) (Lab)]

Carbon budget 6, which was set out in 2021 and is current from 2033 to 2037, was subject to several legal challenges. It is now in the hands of the present Government. The Secretary of State carried out a full and rigorous assessment of the package, policies and proposals prior to publishing the recent Carbon budget and growth delivery plan and concluded that they will enable carbon budget 6 to be met. He will continue to monitor policy delivery and keep the package under review.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I thank the noble Lord for the Answer. You can imagine this is something that concerns me, because the previous Government lost two court cases about this as they were not going to achieve what they were aiming for. We have just had carbon budget 7. I am quite curious about whether this Government have really done the right risk assessments. The previous national security assessment said that nature damage will cost 12% of GDP by 2030 relative to what could have been achieved. If Labour are interested in GDP, it really ought to sort itself out on the issue of the environment.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

We do not have the announcement of carbon budget 7 until the summer. The noble Baroness might care to think about what the process of looking again at carbon budget 6 was after those legal judgments. Indeed, the Government have taken a much more robust approach to developing the plan, which has allowed us to make a much clearer and more rational assessment of the savings that will enable carbon budgets to be met and to quantify them fully.

We have also quantified a number of real-world trends that are rather important today, and which are shaping our society and economy. That means our assessment reflects how we would expect the world to change as we accelerate towards net zero. None of these things were done when the previous Administration set out carbon budget 6—indeed, they were part of the legal challenge to those budgets. That is the reason why we consider that carbon budget 6 can be met, in addition to which a number of new policies and directions have come forward since this new Government took office.

COP Climate Negotiations: Cities

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I think that is one-all now.

The noble Lord will be well aware that we have founded, among other things, Great British Energy, which has a substantial brief within it to promote low-carbon and community-based energy groups— 100 local projects up and down the country, which will very much relate low-carbon and climate change futures with local populations and, of course, make sure that the contributions that come forth from those projects are UK-based.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, C40 was set up in 2005 by the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone; at that point it was C20, with only 20 cities. Now there are 96 cities, with a quarter of the global economy and a twelfth of the world’s population. They are driving the fight against climate change and deserve a seat at the negotiations. I ask the Government to rethink their decision not to invite them.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

The noble Baroness puts forward an accurate picture of how the C40 group was originally founded. I was not going to mention in this Chamber that it was founded by Ken Livingstone because I was worried that some of the responses might not be as positive as the noble Baroness’s. She is right that the original group of 18 has expanded to a huge international co-ordination group of 90-plus cities. That is why, among other things, the UK Government are one of the relatively few sovereign contributors to the C40’s work and its projects, running to multi-million pounds. The UK is very keen to make sure that those groups go forward, but it is a question of how the multilevel representation comes forward within the COP process overall.

Drax

Debate between Lord Whitehead and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Whitehead) (Lab)]

I have read the report to which the noble Baroness refers with interest, and there are questions both for Drax and for the authors of the report. Compliance with biomass sustainability requirements under Drax’s existing subsidy arrangement is a matter for Ofgem, but we work closely with it to ensure that these arrangements remain fit for purpose. Ofgem’s detailed investigation into Drax in 2024 did not find evidence that unsustainable biomass had been used by Drax, but shortcomings in data governance were identified and Ofgem has required Drax to commission a global supply chain audit, which is currently ongoing.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I thank the Minister for his reply, which goes a bit further than I expected. Drax specifically claims to stop sourcing from old-growth deferral areas and old-growth management areas in British Columbia, but the majority of old-growth forests fall outside those designations. Will the Minister and the Government suggest to Ofgem that it should not accept Drax’s definition of old growth and perhaps exclude the majority of British Columbia old-growth forests from subsidies?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

There are two points to make in response to the noble Baroness. The report to which she refers talks only circumstantially about old-growth forests and not old-growth forests that are in any way directly sourced by Drax. As regards the new contract for difference for the next four years that the Government have entered into with Drax, the criterion is now 100% sustainability, which obviously excludes old-growth forests.