Carbon Budget Order 2026

Lord Frost Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as an unpaid director of the company Net Zero Watch.

It was 10 years ago today that we had the referendum that decided whether we would be governed from Britain or the EU: “Who Governs Britain?”. However, when I look at the carbon budget and the piece of legislation before us today, I wonder whether the actual Government of Britain is the Climate Change Committee. I do not make that point rhetorically; I make it seriously. Once the carbon budget is in place, it affects every aspect of what the Government and much of the private sector do. It constrains activity and shapes what can and cannot be done. It is an essential feature of the way this country is governed, and we are just waving it through tonight on the basis of a piece of secondary legislation.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said that we were not paying enough attention to the detail. Well, perhaps the Government would like to provide some time to debate the detail. The carbon budget is 400 pages long and there is a supplement of 60 pages. We are spending an hour and a half discussing something that will affect the entire UK economy, if we are to believe it, for a period of five years—so let us get serious about this.

There are a number of problems with the carbon budget and this legislation which have been mentioned to some extent by others. First, even on their own terms, the Government are not choosing the cheapest path. Probably all the figures before us are completely worthless, but the impact assessment’s own table shows that option one is better in cost-benefit terms as it has a higher net present value. Ministers are choosing the more expensive path because they are focused on achieving the target rather than worrying about what happens to the British economy.

Secondly, a lot of the savings are meaningless paper numbers. Of the so-called £1.6 trillion headline benefits identified in the impact assessment, almost all of them —over 90%—are simple carbon savings. These values are not set by any objective reality; they are defined by what is necessary to reach the target. It is an entirely circular process; these are not real benefits in the sense that any normal person would recognise them in any way.

Thirdly, the generation of technology cost figures are implausible, as the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, has already stated. They consistently underestimate the cost of renewables: offshore wind and onshore wind. There is also a belief that the costs of products such as heat pumps, and many other things, will fall in the future: a belief for which there is no evidence, as far as I can see.

Fourthly, on carbon capture and storage, I am very glad I can find something to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Deben, on, because, as far as I can see, the assertions are based on nothing. The target requires us to capture 80 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent every year by 2050, using what we are told is “state of the art” technology. Unfortunately, the state of the art is that these technologies do not work and cannot be made to work, and are probably never going to work. We are being asked to legislate for a fantasy.

Fifthly, there is dishonesty about lifestyle impact, which other noble Lords have already mentioned. The Government say they will not do what the Climate Change Committee says is necessary on farming. Okay—what are they going to do? As I have said, these carbon budgets affect everything. If you do not make the saving in one place, it has to be made somewhere else. Simply saying, “We’re not going to do that”, is not really an answer.

There is simply no reflection in the discussion of the legislation of the policy reality: the fact that the rest of the world is paying much less attention to this than we are. The US has, in essence, moved away from the net zero policy entirely, and even the European Union is beginning its internal discussions to question whether this is absolutely the right way forward. If they are, then we really should be.

To conclude, a number of speakers today have already asked us, “What would you do then if you’re not happy with this? How would you deal with the problem of climate change?” I say in return, why should we take seriously those who have a policy that simply cannot achieve its declared goal? They seem to have a belief in the miraculous powers of action in this country to affect what happens all round the world. Carbon budget 7 means the destruction of the British manufacturing economy over the next 20 years and huge hits to the lifestyle of the inhabitants of this country.

If we use the methodology of the IPCC, we are asked to do this to reduce global temperatures by 0.01 degrees centigrade in the year 2100. That is the effect we are going to have. This is a crazy, irrational policy and one that simply should not be followed. That is why I support the regret amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. We can speak against the Government’s policy today and perhaps vote against it, if we can. Obviously, it will make no difference, but I take comfort in the fact that by 2038, when this budget comes into force, the full irrationality of this policy will long have become evident, and it will never come into force.