Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing a carbon pricing system.

The UK Emissions Trading Scheme – a ‘cap and trade’ carbon pricing scheme – came into force on 1 January 2021, replacing the UK’s participation in the EU ETS. It is run by the four administrations of the UK, collectively making up the UK ETS Authority.

Establishing the UK ETS demonstrates the UK's commitment to carbon pricing as an effective tool that will help fulfil its climate change objectives. The UK ETS covers the UK’s power sector, energy-intensive industries, and emissions from domestic flights, flights from the UK to the European Economic Area (EEA) and flights between the UK and Gibraltar and UK and Switzerland. The Government is exploring expanding the scheme to other sectors.