Carbon Budget Delivery Plan

Richard Foord Excerpts

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Abtisam Mohamed (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered progress on the Carbon Budget Delivery Plan.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. This week marks the start of COP30 in Brazil, a moment when world leaders, scientists and campaigners come together, united in purpose, to confront the climate crisis head-on. Last week, the World Meteorological Organisation delivered another sobering warning that 2025 is likely to be the second or third warmest year on record. With every passing year, we see the growing cost of inaction—wildfires, floods, droughts and communities displaced across the world. The message is clear: we need bold action, and we need it now.

Since 2022, environmental charities and organisations have fought every step of the way to ensure that we have a competent and detailed carbon budget delivery plan. The last Government’s plan—if we can call it that—ignored expert warnings and was twice ruled unlawful by the High Court. The Climate Change Committee said last year that, under the previous Government, the UK net zero ambitions were “off track”. Thankfully, we are no longer in that chaotic place; this year at COP30, the UK delegation is carrying the message that climate action is not a burden but our route to a future, with stronger communities and a safer planet.

We know that without decisive action, bills will continue to rise, businesses will struggle, and the environment we all cherish, from the peaks to the coast, will be lost. We must be clear, credible and ambitious in our plans to decarbonise. It is how we will not only create high-paying clean energy jobs but cut households energy bills and invest to secure our future. The plan published by the Government at the end of October is a start, and it provides welcome clarity, but is it ambitious enough? In my constituency of Sheffield Central, people understand how urgent this is. They want action. They want the Government to commit to protecting our planet and making life more affordable.

It is disappointing that Sheffield will continue to be the only major UK city without electrified rail. Over the past year, when I have met Sheffield Friends of the Earth and our local Greenpeace group, they have shared my view that we must go much further, and we must work at a faster speed. I look to the Minister to provide answers to locals, who have now missed out on electrification, as well as newer, faster and cleaner trains in the region.

The cost of energy also remains one of the biggest worries for people in my constituency. Time and again, I hear from residents who are doing everything they can to make ends meet, yet their energy bills are still far too high, and they continue to rise. Too many families have been forced to make impossible choices between heating their homes and putting food on the table. That is why, alongside Power for People, I have pushed for a fundamental reset of how we generate and buy energy locally.

Clean, locally sourced and locally stored power relieves pressures on the grid, and granting local supply rights for community energy schemes is a common sense approach. It makes no sense for the cost of regulatory approval to remain so high that locally sourced energy must be sold back to the central grid, instead of being supplied locally. Can the Minister expand on how the Government will build domestic supply chains for clean energy? How will they create jobs and bring investment back into our communities?

It is also true that far too many of our homes, especially older homes, leak heat through poor insulation measures. That is why the warm homes plan is incredibly important. Investment is necessary for households to install solar panels, heat pumps, batteries and insulation. These measures will, in the long term, cut bills, reduce emissions and tackle fuel poverty for good. However, simply offering these retrofit programmes will not be enough; people must know about them and have confidence in them.

That is why it is so important to have places like the Sheffield Energy Hub, where fuel poverty charities regularly offer advice to people on energy efficiency, energy saving and the links between cold homes and unhealthy futures. Despite the expectation, the wider warm homes plan has not yet been published, and speculation that the upcoming Budget will remove green levies, which pay for home energy efficiency measures, is deeply worrying.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

The Climate Change Committee’s top recommendation was that the Government’s climate plan ought to remove policy costs from electricity bills. Does the hon. Lady think that the Government could seek to address that in the Budget?

[Abtisam Mohamed]

The Government should consider how consumers’ bills can be reduced. I want to see the warm homes plan feature, and I want it published so that we can have appropriate conversations about what is in it. If the cut to investment without guaranteed funding from elsewhere goes ahead, billions of pounds and over 100,000 jobs in the installation industry would be at risk. I urge the Minister to outline how the Government will end that uncertainty, bring the warm homes plan forward quickly and start the consultation so that experts and communities can help shape what is in it.

Improving energy efficiency is one of the quickest ways to lower bills, but it must go hand in hand with a bold push for renewable energy. We know that solar and onshore wind are now the cheapest and cleanest sources of power available. If we invest in them at scale, we can bring down energy costs for households and businesses alike, while strengthening our energy security and cutting carbon at the same time. That is why I have raised concerns about the extraction of the Rosebank oilfield. When I met Sheffield Rosebank campaigners, they knew, as I do, that extraction of the oilfield will not reduce gas prices, but it will have a significant effect on the climate. Today the developer’s impact assessment shows that extraction would release nearly 50 times more gas than originally cited.

At a time when the focus should be on clean, affordable and home-grown energy, approving one of the largest new oilfields in the North sea sends the wrong message. It risks locking us into decades of expensive, polluting fossil fuels, while doing little to reduce bills here at home. We should instead be putting that same investment and ambition into home-grown renewables, energy efficiency and a fair transition for workers and communities, building the kind of fair sustainable energy future that people in Sheffield and across the country want to see.

This is not just about homes; it is about jobs, growth and opportunity. Clean energy industries have the potential to provide high-skilled, well-paid jobs across the country, driving economic growth while tackling the climate crisis. The green economy has grown at three times the rate of the rest of the economy, yet in Sheffield, I have met businesses that have struggled with soaring energy costs, threatening their future and their workers’ livelihoods. A clear, fully consulted strategy is needed to ensure that support reaches the businesses that need it the most, as well as driving a greener and fairer economy. What are the plans to support small businesses struggling with their higher energy bills?

At the University of Sheffield, world-leading researchers are pioneering advances in sustainable aviation, developing cleaner fuels, lighter materials and cutting-edge technologies to help decarbonise. Through the university’s Energy Institute and Sustainable Aviation Fuels Innovation Centre, Sheffield is proving that climate action can go hand in hand with innovation, job creation and global leadership in the industries of the future. Although I welcome the current plan, I want to push the Government further, because it is vital that we lead by example on the global stage.

Many of my constituents worry about the overreliance on fossil fuels and the impact big polluters have on our environment. We know how disastrous it will be if large corporations continue to go unchecked in relation to their carbon emissions and pollution. That is why I have joined the Make Polluters Pay campaign, and why I am urging the Government to go further by introducing polluter pays measures such as a frequent flyer levy to curb the most polluting activities and fund green investment. COP30 has provided a unique opportunity for the UK to join France, Spain and others in the Premium Flyers Solidarity Coalition, which is committed to raising international climate finance by increasing levies on premium flyers including business class, first class and private jet users.