Select committee: Environmental Audit Committee
Recommendation 39
8th Report - The Seventh Carbon Budget
Published 4 Mar 2026
Environmental Audit Committee The Seventh Carbon Budget All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
However, experience shows that Parliamentary scrutiny of carbon budgets has too often been cursory. The Sixth Carbon Budget, despite setting a legally binding emissions limit with implications for public spending, 65 infrastructure and everyday life, did not remotely receive commensurate Parliamentary focus. That approach is no longer defensible. As delivery of carbon budgets becomes more complex, more intrusive and more politically contested, Parliament must be given adequate opportunity to scrutinise the assumptions, trade-offs and risks that underpin them. Robust scrutiny of the Seventh Carbon Budget is essential to democratic accountability and to sustaining confidence in its delivery. Parliament must not be reduced to a rubber stamp for legally binding climate decisions of this scale and consequence. (Conclusion, Paragraph 153)
From: Environmental Audit Committee, 8th Report - The Seventh Carbon Budget (HC 1327), 4 March 2026
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 11 June 2026 (deadline 4 May 2026).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government will propose that the seventh carbon budget is set at the Climate Change Committee's recommended 535 MtCO₂e, accepts two parliamentary debate recommendations, and otherwise says it will consider the Committee's delivery recommendations when it prepares the delivery plan.
- On parliamentary scrutiny, the government "accepts" that the draft Order should be debated on the Floor of the House rather than in a Delegated Legislation Committee, and accepts a debate of not less than half a day, working with Business Managers.
- It will publish a CB7 delivery plan "as soon as reasonably practicable" after Parliament decides the budget level, rather than alongside the draft Order, and will "consider" Parliament's views when preparing it.
- On an annual oral ministerial statement on delivery progress, the government says it "will consider whether seeking an oral statement would also be beneficial".
- On international aviation emissions, the government states that on 14 April 2026 it laid a statutory instrument to include the UK's share of international aviation and shipping emissions in Carbon Budget 6, later budgets and the net zero target.