Select committee: Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee
Recommendation 4
Eleventh Report - Decarbonisation of the power sector
Published 28 Apr 2023
Paragraph 29
Addressed to Department for Business and Trade
Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee Decarbonisation of the power sector All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We reiterate the calls of both the Climate Change Committee and National Audit Office for the Government to publish a comprehensive, long-term delivery plan for a decarbonised power system by 2035. The creation of a new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero should provide the impetus and Ministerial capacity to do this. This plan should recognise the time needed to decarbonise the different aspects of the electricity system as well as the sequencing involved. We recommend that this delivery plan sets out clear roadmaps and milestones as well as contingency plans for key risks and uncertainties. It should also focus on whole system costs. We ask the Government to publish this delivery plan no later than by the end of 2023.
From: Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee, Eleventh Report - Decarbonisation of the power sector (HC 283), paragraph 29, 28 April 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 14 July 2023 (deadline 28 June 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the Committee's report and responds to each recommendation, planning annual reporting on power sector decarbonisation while setting out where it will not adopt specific proposals.
- On the call for a long-term delivery plan, the government "plans to report on its delivery, and overall plan to deliver the commitment, on an annual basis", and is strengthening its portfolio management approach.
- On a UK-wide onshore wind target, it states that setting one "would potentially undermine the flexibility needed" across the UK.
- On biomass, it has "no plans to remove support prior to 2027" for stations already supported, saying they "have a statutory right to their existing support".
- On Ofgem's duties, it is "content to amend" Ofgem's existing duty on greenhouse gases to refer specifically to the net zero targets in the Climate Change Act 2008.