UK Inquiry Tracker

The Seventh Carbon Budget

Environmental Audit Committee Open Inquiry

Opened: 23 Sep 2025 Parliament page

This Environmental Audit Committee inquiry will examine the Climate Change Committee's advice on the Seventh Carbon Budget. It will consider the assumptions and costs underpinning the CCC’s recommendations, explore the balance between emerging and established technologies, the policy choices facing Government, and the potential impacts on households, businesses and the … Read more

27 Recommendations

13 Conclusions

1 Report

3 Oral sessions

4 Letters

3 Events

Activity timeline 9 events

23 Jun
2026

Correspondence

Letter from the Minister of Climate relating to The Seventh Carbon Budget, 22 June

11 Jun
2026

Report published

1st Special Report - The Seventh Carbon Budget: Government Response

4 Mar
2026

Report published

8th Report - The Seventh Carbon Budget

11 Feb
2026

Correspondence

Letter to the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero relating to data centres and the Carbon Budget, 11 January

11 Feb
2026

Correspondence

Letter from the Chair of the Climate Change Committee, Nigel Topping CMG, relating to Oral Evidence given to the Environmental Audit Commit…

7 Jan
2026

Oral evidence

Oral evidence session

3 Dec
2025

Oral evidence

Oral evidence session

12 Nov
2025

Oral evidence

Oral evidence session

12 Nov
2025

Correspondence

Letter from the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero relating to the Government’s Plan for meeting Carbon Budgets 4-6, 29 …

Oral evidence sessions 3 sessions

7 Jan 2026

View on parliament.uk

Emma Pinchbeck · Climate Change Committee Nigel Topping · Climate Change Committee Polly Cook · Leeds City Council Professor Lorraine Whitmarsh MBE · Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations Toby Park · Behavioural Insights Team

3 Dec 2025

View on parliament.uk

Caroline Bragg · Association for Decentralised Energy Claire Dykta · National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) Dr Edmund Hughes · Green Marine Associates Gareth Stace · UK Steel Jonathon Counsell · International Airlines Group Rt Hon Chris Huhne · Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association Tanya Sinclair · Electric Vehicles UK Victoria Whitehouse · UKRI Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge

12 Nov 2025

View on parliament.uk

Mike Childs · Friends of the Earth Professor Joeri Rogelj · Imperial College Business School and Grantham Institute – Climate Change and Environment Professor Michael Grubb · UCL Sam Hunter Jones · ClientEarth Shaun Spiers · Green Alliance

Reports 1 report · click to expand

Title	HC No.	Published	Items	Response
8th Report - The Seventh Carbon Budget	HC 1327	4 Mar 2026	40	Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

2 results

8 Recommendation Deferred

8th Report - The Seventh Carbon Bu…

Alongside the draft Carbon Budget Order for the Seventh Carbon Budget, the Government should publish...

Alongside the draft Carbon Budget Order for the Seventh Carbon Budget, the Government should publish a clear, indicative, cross-governmental delivery framework. The framework should demonstrate how departmental policies will be aligned, mutually reinforcing and consistent with the emissions limits set … Read more

Government Response

The government acknowledges the importance of coordination and states it will publish a statutory delivery plan for the Seventh Carbon Budget after Parliament decides the budget level. It will carefully consider the Committee’s specific recommendations for strengthening cross-government delivery when developing this plan, rather than committing to publish an indicative framework alongside the draft Carbon Budget Order.

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15 Recommendation Deferred

8th Report - The Seventh Carbon Bu…

Alongside the draft Seventh Carbon Budget Order, the Government should publish draft sector delivery plans...

Alongside the draft Seventh Carbon Budget Order, the Government should publish draft sector delivery plans setting out how each sector is expected to contribute to delivery of the budget. These plans should: • Set out the policy instruments that will … Read more Alongside the draft Seventh Carbon Budget Order, the Government should publish draft sector delivery plans setting out how each sector is expected to contribute to delivery of the budget. These plans should: • Set out the policy instruments that will be used and when they will take effect; • Identify the funding routes, including the balance between public support and private investment; • Specify the infrastructure required, with indicative sequencing and delivery milestones to ensure that grid expansion, planning reform and infrastructure readiness precede electrification and deployment surges; • Set out the behavioural, skills and capacity assumptions underpinning delivery; • Demonstrate how the sectoral plans align with each other and with wider Government strategies and policy frameworks, such as those affecting land use, infrastructure, industrial strategy and skills; • Explain how competing demands across sectors for constrained resources, including clean power, grid capacity, skilled workers, land and sustainable feedstocks, will be prioritised and managed, and how trade-offs between departmental objectives will be resolved to support delivery of the carbon budget as a whole. 60 • Set out how projected growth in electricity demand from data centres and other emerging energy-intensive sectors is factored into system planning and infrastructure delivery, including the implications for low-carbon generation, network capacity, and competing demands across the economy; • and, for sectors reliant on emerging or nascent technologies it should include pre-agreed contingency options and clearly defined and actively monitored trigger points to be activated if technologies are not delivered at the expected pace or scale. This should include explicit consideration of delivery capacity and skills constraints, to avoid poor implementation that could undermine public confidence. Together, these plans would strengthen Parliamentary scrutiny, provide greater transparency on Show less

Government Response

The government states it will align with statutory duties to lay a delivery plan for the Seventh Carbon Budget after the budget level has been set. It welcomes the Committee's suggestions for sector delivery plans and will carefully consider these elements, including policy instruments, funding, infrastructure, and contingency planning, when developing the statutory delivery plan.

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Government Response AI assessment · 40 of 27 classified

Accepted 20

Accepted in Part 6

Acknowledged 12

Deferred 2

Total 27 recs + 13 conclusions

Correspondence 4 letters

23 Jun 2026 To committee Letter from the Minister of Climate relating to The Seventh Carbon Budget, 22 June

Parliament page

11 Feb 2026 From committee Letter to the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero relating to data centres and the Carbon Budget, 11 January

Parliament page

11 Feb 2026 To committee Letter from the Chair of the Climate Change Committee, Nigel Topping CMG, relating to Oral Evidence given to the Environmental Audit Committee, 7 January

Parliament page

12 Nov 2025 To committee Letter from the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero relating to the Government’s Plan for meeting Carbon Budgets 4-6, 29 October 2025

Parliament page